QUICK EASY QUESTION

[jason_recliner]

You said that you were syphoning off the blue liquid from the settled, gold laden sludge. So why would there still be gold in it?

 

[TOMCAT_7475]

There's still gold in the sediment because it has only been ran through a screen not filtered. the finer gold is mixed in the brown sludge.

 

[TOMCAT_7475]

I think I may answered my own question. Because the water was clearing up so good after settling overnight, I thought I had most of the copper out.
Everyone asking how I know I had gold so I put a small spoon of the sludge in a gold pan and worked with it. This is what it looked like after a few cycles. LOTS of copper left, but the brown sludge is going out with the waste water. I think I need to get rid of more copper before I can proceed with getting the gold out. Maybe a wash in fresh muriatic acid and then a rinse?

 

[patnor1011]

Are you talking about sludge from AP with pins or sludge from treating AP with metal shavings?
First one will have gold but second one should have none if spent AP was siphoned carefully.

 

[TOMCAT_7475]

I am filtering everything that I siphon out of the original sludge. That liquid should contain no valuables. I do not know what the brown sludge consists of, but what I did last night seems to work pretty good. I put the sludge in a gold pan and ran it through a few times filtering the waste. Looks like the gold and copper is left in the gold pan. Starting another bath with muriatic acid and hopefully that will take care of it.

 

[TOMCAT_7475]

Got impatient and tried the way I thought would take care of my sludge problem. I put all in my tub and added the older muriatic acid I had already filtered. Ran it through three times and then added fresh muriatic acid. I now have four filters just like this one. And the three filters from the run with the old that need cleaned up. Also pictured is the courser flakes from the original pass through a screen. I don't think I have done too bad so far for my first try. This was all low grade pins. I have some nice pins I want to try in the electrolyte cell after I get more accustomed to working with this.

 

[steyr223]

Just a thought.
Dont expect much on I.t. Pins
Half gram of gold per pound of pins

A little less with losses

Steyr223 rob

 

[TOMCAT_7475]

Yea, I don't expect much, but it is a great way to learn for when I start working on the good stuff.

 

[jason_recliner]

First thing is to stop separating all your material. The wider you cast your gold, the more your losses will add up. Use just one filter to collect all your goodies. I like to use only the centre portion of the filter, wherever possible.
You have acted wisely by not adding any peroxide. You should have no gold in solution. Test, to be sure. Always test.

Now, you need to collect all your material. You can either carefully wash all your filters into one container, or you can incinerate them until there is nothing left of them but white ash. Either method has a chance of small losses, depending on how careful you aren't. But don't touch anything with your hands; the oils in your skin make the foils float. Allow it to properly settle, then carefully siphon/decant away the (mostly clean) water.

Then you will have one small container of gold/brown/grey stuff, rather than large jars of scattered stuff.

Add some more fresh HCl to soak in, and you will soon see that you have not yet dissolved all that brown / grey stuff with your gold. Clean gold foils will look like gold, though even they still contain impurities. When you think they're clean foils, another final rinse in clean (tin-free) HCl does not go astray, to get rid of any more problematic tin that might be lurking.