Refining for ABSOLUTE beginners

Advertise with us
shop deals on amazon
Shop deals on ebay
xelexo
Gold Refining Forum

Help Support Gold Refining Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
O

Oieb

Member
Joined
May 20, 2008
Messages
10
Location
South Africa
After a very lengthy absence, I'm back to re-explore the world of refining :)

I browsed and searched the forums but have found nothing for the absolute beginner - the N00b so to say

Can anyone explain to me the easiest method to refine fingers off various PC components for PMs. Can you supply me with a list of reagents and a full method and of course being a N00b :oops:, also advise as to the hazards of the particular processes that I may use to refine these fingers, as well as waste disposal.

I wish to start doing this as a hobby and would like to see how easy/difficult as well as how costly it may be to carry out these processes at my current location - home :)

In the mean time I will start collect fingers....

Thanks in advance
 
.... and everything is here on this forum. I am already studying this forum for more than 7 months, also I have hokes book under my pillow and still I feel I am not quite ready to start my own refining. Just hoarding materials and informations and when Ill be feeling confident enough then Ill start. Dont really want to start so many new threads in help needed section. Drive slowly - be safe. :D
 
SilverFox - unfortunately that book is a bit expensive converting to Rands (South Africa) and after shipping

lazersteve - I have watched the videos that I thought was pertinent to my quest , but I still cant seem to put it all together...
Like an A-Z method for this simple task

patnor1011 - I have Hokes book too ;)
 
Oieb said:
Can anyone explain to me the easiest method to refine fingers off various PC components for PMs.
Click to expand...

The easiest method, I can think of for your fingers, is to strip the Au contacts off the fingers. Since your in africa, might be cost effective to do. Take your Au strips, drop in Nitric Acid. A hot plate would speed things up. After the Cu is burned off, you'll have gold flakes ready to be melted. ( not sure if the Au will strip off as easy, with the Au still attached to the fiberboard)

Your results will not be 99% pure Au , most likely will end up in the range of 80-95 % pure.

This procedure is simple to do, BUT I strongly urge you to read up, on nitric acid and the health concerns associcated with this process.....
 
Ah! :)
now that's more like it!

I have some chemistry experience at university. Will get the MSDS on Nitric Acid and will be careful :)

Thanks for the help NAM LABS - Ill be back after the weekend with more questions...
 
Take note that the quality of gold so recovered will leave a great deal to be desired.

In order to produce gold of acceptable quality, it should be dissolved, filtered, precipitated and then well washed. The process is discussed in Hoke's book, which you should read before attempting any refining. It will save you from making stupid mistakes.

Harold
 
So i have done ALOT of reading both in lady Hokes book and on the forums and yes, for sure, I only have more questions.

But I will take it easy and slow still
The videos i watched were informative, but i could not save them and to download every time is rather time-consuming and expensive (given the size of the video to buffer) here in South Africa

But as it may, I am still collecting fingers and old CPU's and will soon head to try and get some HCL and Peroxide to dissolve the foils. (I figured by all the posts that this is a good way to start).

A question on that mixture tho - 2HCL : 1Peroxide
What concentrations of these chemicals do I use? (3% Peroxide I see)
 
HCl is generally around 31 percent.
As for videos from Steves page, as far as I remember they are for sale so you can buy them from that web page. They cost him so many of time and money so its quite reasonable to not to give them for free. I think that it is not so big investment to buy them as they are full of info we need... :wink:
 
HCL/Peroxide dissolves the copper from under the foils. It dissolves the gold when too much peroxide is used or when used on very thin plating.
The foils once lifted are not considered pure and are not ready to melt.
 
So I have watched LazerSteves videos a couple of times over again, maybe 3 or 4 each, and made lotsa notes (4 pages worth) detailing the procedure, from harvesting until dropping the Au using SMB.

The videos i watched were:
- Harvesting Fingers
- Processing Fingers in Acid Peroxide
- Dissolving Finger Foils
- Using Sodium Metabisulfite

Tho it is at this stage that I am stuck. What is the next process from here, now that i have the Au at the bottom of the container with the clear liquid layer on top?
Which is the next video in the series?

Also, can I process CPU's with my fingers or is it better to do fingers alone?
Do I process CPU's using AP as well?
 
test clear liquid with stannous chloride (tin disolved in HCl) to see you have all gold out of liquid, gold makes brown to black or violet spot .if no gold in liquid will see no color change, if no gold in liquid, decant,remove liquid without disturbing brown gold powder, wash the powder, boil water, (let settle well between wash's) decant water, wash again, then dilute hcl/water wash and two more water wash's, depending on purity may be better to redisolve and precipitate again, it uses less acids second time and,is easier, but powder is much more reactive to fine powders, so dont let it foam over. after precipitated gold is washed ,well dry and then you can melt it back to the yellow metal we all love to see. take care if using torch to melt as if you have not done it you can blow away the brown powder with torch,
it is much better to process different materials seperatly if possible, it makes life a little easier.

maybe do a little study on each of these processes before trying them, so you know what to expect and get more tips than I can type here and to make sure I have not left out important details.
 
Having read many of the items here on the forun, I have yet to find a reference to how small an amount of gold one can process in AR and safely recover. I have 1.7 grams of solid gold from diode leads that I used to solder. These have been floating around in my safe since around 1985 and I have decided to get back into gold recovery. Am I safe to do this small lot by its self?

Thanks
 
Im not an expert, but I don't see why you couldnt. Just adjust your chemical amounts to what would be needed for that amount...
 
Butcher:

You know, trying to get an answer from you guys is like trying to find a friendly goose in the barnyard. Your post to Oieb on Jan 23 finally gives me a decent run with which to work. Thanks. Phill

Randy, Finally, your t-6 stufff will be in the mail tomorrow. And I have your ore for you, but I can't ship 'til next week. Probably Wed or so. You see I haven't forgotten about you, it's just that I have a whole new set of experiments going and I had to set up an entirely different lab. ( In the living room ). Ah, the batchelor life.

Phill
 
oldtimmer said:
Am I safe to do this small lot by its self?
Click to expand...
In theory, you should be able to process a grain of gold with success. That's 1/480 troy ounce.

The problem you'll have with small volumes is the loss in filtration. You can minimize that problem by filtering a fairly dilute solution, then rinsing the filter until it is absent of color.

Once you precipitate the gold, there is NO reason to ever remove it from the beaker (that's what you should use---for obvious reasons) until it is through the wash and drying process. By then, assuming your gold is quite pure, it will clump up and form curds of gold, making removal of all traces dead easy. If, by chance, your gold comes from a very dirty solution and precipitates extremely fine and dark, there's a chance it will never agglomerate. I experienced that situation only from very dirty gold, never from pure.

Are you familiar with a good washing procedure? It's just as important as the other steps you undertake to refine----don't short change it unless you don't care about the quality of your work.

Harold
 
Hi every one
its been a while.
I am an ABSOLUTE BEGINNER
What the heck is aqua regia???
i am reading about the world of gold by timothy green who mentions that
carbon-in-pulp is the latest and greatest in refining techniques enabling the PROFITABLE extraction of 1g/tonne
as apposed to 5-6g/tonne of the old cyanide procces.
i am very intested in the two topics.
my Father and I are looking at adopting this as a profitable hobby and any help would be Welcome.
with regards to aqua regia what chemicals do you need and what is the proccess for removing the gold/silver/copper from the mix???
thanks people

Blade of steel
 

Latest posts

Back
Top