Questons on using the AP method

[azgard]

i noticed that alot of gold is going though my coffee filters. i took a sample out let it settle over night and the bottom of the glass beaker had some gold in it and i saw tons of tiny gold particles suspended in the liquid. i am doing these odd old board pieces that have some gold lettering and bigger gold areas. the gold doesnt fall off in flakes like on fingers it breaks up in little tiny pieces. i filtered the last pile of these and i didnt get very much gold at all i did 5lbs of them and got like 1.5grams. the boards were stripped clean. i beleve alot of its still in there but is so fine its going though the filters. Any one have a better alternative to coffee filters. i have posted a picture of the boards i did below.

 

[Harold_V]

I used Whatman #2's and would recommend them highly. They are not cheap, but they work, and work well. Fact is, you'd likely be better served with Whatman #1's instead of coffee filters. They're not really intended for removal of fine particles.

I see a coffee filter as not much different from a Shark Skin, which is poorly suited to filtering solution from which you hope to retain fine particulate matter. YMMV.

I used Shark Skin to separate dirt (incinerated polishing wastes from the jeweler's bench) from values recovered by dissolution. The resulting solution would eventually be filtered again, to remove traces of contaminants that were expected to make the trip through the rather open structure of such filters (much the same as a coffee filter, as I said).

Harold

 

[Barren Realms 007]

Let the fine paricals settle for a couple of days siphon off the solution and process your gold flakes.

 

[Palladium]

Coffee filters won't get it all. After i let my solution settle over night i siphon off the top layer by running it through a 2 liter coke bottle with the bottom cut out. The neck off the bottle is stuffed with Charmin tissue paper and stops any fine gold that may have not settled yet. Any gold that gets hung in the top of the paper can be washed off. You may get some tissue paper pulp into your gold but this will be removed after you dissolve the gold and filter before you drop it. The plug can then be placed with your other filters for processing later.

When i process with 15 gallon plastic drums i use a lot of air in my process and it blows the gold into almost microscopic pieces that are hard to settle and recover and that is my cheap alternative to recovery. I think it was Steve who came up with the Charmin plug. 8)