Panning Gold from incinerated and crushed RAM Chips

[haveagojoe]

Has anyone had any luck panning the bond wires out of chip ash? I've just been watching this video:

I haven't ever got into recovering gold from chips so far, I have a collection of chips which has been sitting in HCl for ooh probably 10 years now! My idea was to dissolve the legs off but obviously nothing happened in HCl and I just left them and forgot about them. In the video he mentions removing base metals with a magnet after incineration, which seems much more sensible. I'm thinking maybe it's time to do something with my forgotten collection, I also have more chips in my scrap pile which I could add to the batch. I've avoided messing with chips so far as I didn't fancy dealing with a lot of ash in AR, but after panning would be a whole different story as most of the ash would be gone.

I'm thinking I could then classify the ash by sieving and then pan it a bit, it wouldn't need to be perfect since it's going into AR anyway. I've never tried panning before and I'm curious.

 

[haveagojoe]

Also wouldn't HCl/Bleach be more appropriate for the first refine? AR seems like overkill and I'm much more comfortable with HCl/Bleach, and it seems like it would work well as the wires are so fine.

 

[Shark]

Use a catch basin to save material that gets lost in the panning. Maybe do a small batch of a pound or two and practice with it first. I have done it and been fairly successful and I have tried it and not been so lucky. Panning is one of those skills that takes practice. Check @patnor1011 post on chips as well. He uses a home made sluice and goes to much detail in using it.

 

[Yggdrasil]

Also wouldn't HCl/Bleach be more appropriate for the first refine? AR seems like overkill and I'm much more comfortable with HCl/Bleach, and it seems like it would work well as the wires are so fine.

For bond wires AR is the way to go.
The alternative methods lack a bit of oomph to take the wires in a reasonable time.

 

[haveagojoe]

Use a catch basin to save material that gets lost in the panning. Maybe do a small batch of a pound or two and practice with it first. I have done it and been fairly successful and I have tried it and not been so lucky. Panning is one of those skills that takes practice. Check patnors post on chips as well. He uses a home made sluice and goes to much detail in using it.

omegageek64 has another video where he shows panning in more detail:
He uses another pan to catch the material as you suggested. I'm gonna have to get a pan, I've wanted to try it for a long time and having some chip ash to play with would be a good excuse.

 

[FrugalRefiner]

I'm gonna have to get a pan, I've wanted to try it for a long time and having some chip ash to play with would be a good excuse.

The big box hardware stores sell large black plastic concrete mixing tubs that are a good size for this. They're built to handle the weight and the abuse.

Dave