First I want to say this forum is great. I have been learning on smaller batches of Ram Fingers with reasonable success. I decided to start on the stash of Gold Filled I have collected over the years. I have processed a few small 150 gram batches and recently a 500 gram batch. Everything did not go perfect, but when something unexpected happened, between Hoke and this forum, I have been able to answer every question by researching before proceeding and have managed to have a recovered a little under 1ozt of powder for further refining. Forum research and reading has provided the direction needed and forced me to really think through "why" something is happening and not just "what" the next step should be, but "why" it is the right one. It does turn out that almost everything that can happen has happened before, and someone here has worked through it and provided input to others right here.
That said, I have determined 500 grams of gold filled is more than I want to put in the beaker for the dilute nitric bath at one time, it was not an elegant recovery. I am instead going to break up the Nitric batch part into smaller groups and then save the foils and filters to combine for AR and a single recovery drop. I had recently read a post where one of the more experienced members stated that they would run 800 grams of gold filled as 4 200 gram batches and then combine before AR. This seems reasonable for my equipment size and setup.
Where I need some input is if it makes sense to leave the foils and purple sludge in the beaker from each small batch when starting the next one, or if I should start each new small batch with an empty beaker?
I assume that leaving foils in the beaker will continue to dissolve any minute base metals that are lingering, but I am also not sure if I will be making a harder to filter what is already a slow filter process of the sludge from what was easy to recover foils by leaving them in a the beaker while the next batches are processing. If it helps, I will be combining 10 small batches before AR, so the first foils may sit in the nitric for awhile if I leave them there.
Any thoughts or experiences are appreciated.
That said, I have determined 500 grams of gold filled is more than I want to put in the beaker for the dilute nitric bath at one time, it was not an elegant recovery. I am instead going to break up the Nitric batch part into smaller groups and then save the foils and filters to combine for AR and a single recovery drop. I had recently read a post where one of the more experienced members stated that they would run 800 grams of gold filled as 4 200 gram batches and then combine before AR. This seems reasonable for my equipment size and setup.
Where I need some input is if it makes sense to leave the foils and purple sludge in the beaker from each small batch when starting the next one, or if I should start each new small batch with an empty beaker?
I assume that leaving foils in the beaker will continue to dissolve any minute base metals that are lingering, but I am also not sure if I will be making a harder to filter what is already a slow filter process of the sludge from what was easy to recover foils by leaving them in a the beaker while the next batches are processing. If it helps, I will be combining 10 small batches before AR, so the first foils may sit in the nitric for awhile if I leave them there.
Any thoughts or experiences are appreciated.
