Poor Man's Aqua Regia

[haveagojoe]

Im one of those "youtube students" you old heads talk about, i was really hoping yall would listen to a green pea for a moment:

We understand that you are older, wiser, and more experienced than us but you guys must also suffer from CRS because yall clearly forgot your manners. Your posts are so rude sometimes. Yes it is true i dont have a degree, so what? As far as i can tell where you learn something has no bearing on whether or not you learned it (dont have to have a degree to have the knowledge.) Ive been bit by the same bug that bit you old heads (hence why i am here!) But ive run into this phenomenon in a few different places where the old or long timers act like they are gods gift to the hobby. Gentlemen, please, take us under your wings. Wont you embrace the passing on of this trade from your generation to mine?

Respectfully Yours,
rerefining grasshopper

Don't take it the wrong way. There are good reasons for them responding like that. This is not a hobby you can just dive into without studying. There are serious risks. For example, OP said he threw water into the beaker when he got scared- if he had studied a little bit first he would know that water should never be added to acid, only acid to water. If it had been sulfuric acid for example, it would have erupted like a volcano spraying acid in his face.

Manners come second to safety around here, those of us who have been around for a while have learned to bite our tongues and learn from those with real experience. You have to understand that some of them are industry professionals who spent decades learning this stuff in commercial refineries, they aren't all just hobbyists like you and me. Not quite God's gift perhaps but a very significant gift of free education for those with ears to hear it. It can't be found anywhere else. Of course they get annoyed by people who skip the studying and start playing around with dangerous chemicals. Don't take their harshness personally, it's purely for your own safety. A lot of the stuff on YouTube is wrong and dangerous, the only way to learn to do it right is by studying, not by random experiments. If someone has an accident and then says they were using this forum, it reflects very badly and who knows it might even get shut down, or the guys who run it might decide it's just too risky and close it, then we all lose out. Just last week we had a post from a guy who had quite a lot of experience but who ended up in hospital with potentially life-changing injury.

I understand that the Search function on the forum doesn't work very well and it's difficult to find the right information, but on the plus side, trawling through dozens of threads is a good way to pick up a lot of knowledge which you wouldn't otherwise even know to look for. When asking questions, it's appreciated when you ask in a way which shows that you've already put in some decent effort to find out for yourself through study.

This is a hobby which requires a lot of patience and reading, the actual practical part is small by comparison. Most of us smalltimers have felt the wrath from the seniors at some point or other, we just have to take it on the chin and accept that it's for our own good and it's nothing personal. They don't get a kick out of belittling people, they are just trying to prevent us from hurting ourselves. If they ask if you've got a degree it's not a put-down, it's to be able to gauge what level you're at so they can respond appropriately. Honestly there really is a lot to learn, it's chemistry not cookery. When it goes wrong it can go really wrong. I'm not a complete green pea but I still consider myself very much a beginner and I've been here for a while. There's a lot I don't know yet but I know enough to be able to tell you that when they say to study more, its best to just take the advice in the spirit its intended and try not to get your nose out of joint.

And as far as being "bit by the bug" goes, if that bug is learning then it should be all good to relax into some study time, but if the bug is "getting some gold", its honestly quicker and probably cheaper to just buy some. Certainly safer.

Edit to add- the good thing about this hobby is that once the gold is in your possession, in whatever form, it's not going anywhere so there's no rush. You can spend years just collecting scrap while you read up on the processes. Then you can spend more years just doing Copper Chloride leaches and collecting foils in a jar while you learn everything you can about how to eventually refine them. The gold can wait for you as long as you need, and the longer you spend collecting foils and reading, the bigger the payout at the end and the lower the risk of something going wrong. My first button was 4g and it took 6 years from when I first started collecting scrap, and honestly I wish I'd waited longer and read more as it didn't come out as nice as I would have liked.