Sourcing chemicals near Cave Creek or Phoenix Az

[Dach Savage]

I am having a very hard time finding an affordable source of the basic chemicals here in Arizona, especially for 70% nitric, ammonium nitrate, sulphuric acid etc. I have run internet searches, asked everyone I can find with little luck. There is one small chem lab supply house in south Phx and they are rather hi priced and small quantity oriented. Yes I know, I can order anything I want off E-bay or Amazon but I am on a fairly limited budget at least in this initial learning stage and the prices are all over the board + hazmat fees etc and frankly seem very high in relation to what some of the senior members have posted that they pay. I spent a couple of hours today at Home Despot, Lowes and Ace looking for Stikgard concrete etch, ammonium nitrate fertilizer, sulphuric acid and hcl bearing products and frankly I pretty much found zippo. Some of the places I have inquired about ammonium nitrate act like I am a terrorist or something. Actually would prefer to buy my initial chemical supplies pre-made as another member suggested so I can see how the reactions should work with the right chemicals while I am doing the learning experiments before I try to make my own. So can anyone point me in the right direction to find this stuff in Phoenix? Probably just not searching correctly but getting frustrated. TIA, Dach.

 

[butcher]

Dach Savage,

I will try to help with some advice , when beginning this it is more important to concentrate on your education (not the chemicals, or getting that gold), studying of the safety aspects and dealing with waste should be a top priority.

When you learn about the chemicals, what procedures oprcesses they are used in, how they are used, and dealt with safely, only then would I begin to find what I needed, many of the things you may think you need you may find out that you have very little use for later, after spending good money on them, and no way to store them safely for long term...

Note ammonium compounds and many of the metals we use in the chemical compounds or complexes can make explosive mixes, I would suggest you do not even think of using ammonium nitrate, (unless you are experienced in its use chemically and with metals, and understand the potential dangers).

If using a nitrate use sodium or potassium nitrate.

Many of the chemicals you may need can normally be found fairly easily locally, once you learn where and what to look for, some may need to be ordered or you may have to make a trip to get, by study you will learn where to find them and what to look for...

To learn you can do the small experiments found in Hokes book, while you are reading this book to get an understanding of the basic principles and concepts involved in recovery and refining of precious metals, these experiments will teach you many of these principles, and from what you learn from them you will use in just about every recovery or refining process you will do.

After you have done enough homework and understand the principles, and your ready to begin using these dangerous chemicals, you can also start out with just a couple of easy to obtain of the shelf chemicals from your local stores, to learn to recover and refine gold, these chemicals can normally be found in most homes or garages.
Memory fingers and foils are a good learning tool to begin with, the chemicals needed are easy to find, and the process you use for these can also be used in many other types of recovery or refining projects, you can also use this materials to do a lot of the experiments found in Hokes book.

The key, at least for now is to forget about getting gold, and chemicals, (that will come in due time) keep collecting valuable scrap, concentrate on study, that is where you will be successful in finding the chemicals, know how to use them safely, and deal with the toxic waste, and get that gold...

Welcome to the forum.

 

[rickbb]

Second Butcher on this. Having only started this hobby about a year ago myself, at first I thought I needed lab grade pure chemicals. I ordered online and paid through the nose for things like nitric acid.

After stumbling at my first few attempts and finally finding this site and the good advice here I have found that all those expensive chemicals are sitting on the shelf un-used. I haven't cracked open that bottle of nitric in months.

Pick a metal you want to work with first, study how to collect, sort, recover and refine what you've chosen, practice on small batches, then you will find you don't need a lot of the things you have listed at all.

I've chosen to concentrate on e-scrap, and only need 3 or 4 chemicals for that, all can be purchased at a local hardware/lawn garden shop quite cheaply. I even get one at WalMart of all places.

If I had found and then followed the advise here first I could have saved quite a bit of money, not to mention time.

 

[Dach Savage]

<Snipped for brevity>

Note ammonium compounds and many of the metals we use in the chemical compounds or complexes can make explosive mixes, I would suggest you do not even think of using ammonium nitrate, (unless you are experienced in its use chemically and with metals, and understand the potential dangers).

If using a nitrate use sodium or potassium nitrate.

>>Thanks for the tip, just your comment on the nitrate sources sparked an "Aha!!" moment on that subject. And I have no interest in making explosives. Certainly not when oxy and acety are so handy, LOL! <<

Many of the chemicals you may need can normally be found fairly easily locally, once you learn where and what to look for, some may need to be ordered or you may have to make a trip to get, by study you will learn where to find them and what to look for...

>> Roger that. As I said I spent a good 2 hours just the other day just looking at labels, asking questions and still not having any luck. Obviously more study is needed. <<

To learn you can do the small experiments found in Hokes book, while you are reading this book to get an understanding of the basic principles and concepts involved in recovery and refining of precious metals, these experiments will teach you many of these principles, and from what you learn from them you will use in just about every recovery or refining process you will do.

>>Yep, I have actually been studying on this subject for quite some time; I went to college when I turned 50 and in large part because of my interest in refining I took 2 semesters of IO Chem in college just to learn about the processes and procedures for safe handling of chemicals, chemical notation and the basic science of chemistry. Sadly not as much of the theory stuck with me as I would like. I find myself continually having to go back, research and brush up on the things I either didn't learn or have forgotten in a relatively short time. Sadly I found that my professor was more focused on the having to turn out "college graduates" paradigm due to the curriculum constraints that actually getting to teach science. It was very frustrating having to sit next to some vacuous 20 year old surreptitiously texting on her I phone during lectures and then asking for help when it came to lab time. I was amazed that more kids don't kill themselves thru ignorance stupidity and sheer laziness. Thanks goodness for the internet, KAHN academy and groups of like minded people such as are on this forum. I would especially like to thank whoever took the time to put Hokes up as a downloadable PDF. Probably would not have found it but for that upload. Since I joined the forum I am slowly working my way thru it and am amazed how much knowledge it contains. Lots more to go tho<<

After you have done enough homework and understand the principles, and your ready to begin using these dangerous chemicals, you can also start out with just a couple of easy to obtain of the shelf chemicals from your local stores, to learn to recover and refine gold, these chemicals can normally be found in most homes or garages.
Memory fingers and foils are a good learning tool to begin with, the chemicals needed are easy to find, and the process you use for these can also be used in many other types of recovery or refining projects, you can also use this materials to do a lot of the experiments found in Hokes book.

The key, at least for now is to forget about getting gold, and chemicals, (that will come in due time) keep collecting valuable scrap, concentrate on study, that is where you will be successful in finding the chemicals, know how to use them safely, and deal with the toxic waste, and get that gold...

>>Cool, I have been gathering and saving memory and fingers for the last couple years. Initially my main interest is working with scrap silver and deplating silver ware. Saving gold and other pms for down the road. I have been reading the thread on water cell deplating plated flatware and set one up the other day to do some testing on the theory and methodology. Figured that with only H20 as an electrolyte I cant get hurt too bad while I am paddling around; then on to a nitric silver cell down the road. Other than the H20 cell I am focusing on process study and gathering supplies and paraphernalia, setting up a work bench, fume hood / scrubber etc. I deal in used equipment so I have some laboratory grade vacuum pumps to chose from, a lab hot plate, furnace and centrifuge etc. I see your point about not getting ahead of myself tho, it just seems that everything I want to move on to involves nitric, smb, dmg and stannous and a bit of HCL. Thanks for all you and the other senior members do. <<

 

[Dach Savage]

Second Butcher on this. Having only started this hobby about a year ago myself, at first I thought I needed lab grade pure chemicals. I ordered online and paid through the nose for things like nitric acid.

After stumbling at my first few attempts and finally finding this site and the good advice here I have found that all those expensive chemicals are sitting on the shelf un-used. I haven't cracked open that bottle of nitric in months.

Pick a metal you want to work with first, study how to collect, sort, recover and refine what you've chosen, practice on small batches, then you will find you don't need a lot of the things you have listed at all.

I've chosen to concentrate on e-scrap, and only need 3 or 4 chemicals for that, all can be purchased at a local hardware/lawn garden shop quite cheaply. I even get one at WalMart of all places.

If I had found and then followed the advise here first I could have saved quite a bit of money, not to mention time.

Cool, I will have to search your posts and see what you have been up to. So do you mind sharing what locally purchased items you are using? I was at Wally world tonight and didn't really see much of interest. I wonder if there arent different supply chains in different areas of the country even for mass merchandisers. Thansk for your comments and advice.

 

[butcher]

Check your local concrete or brick supplier, true value or other hard ware stores for hydrochloric acid (HCl) also called muriatic acid (do not buy it if it says green or low fumes or vapors...)
Also check pool and spa stores that sell chemicals in your area, they can carry HCl or several chemicals we use, read the labels, they can also have some test reagents like for pH...

At your grocery store or pharmacy some 3% H2O2, and bleach (not lemon scented...), there are several other chemicals like baking soda, and several more you will find by reading labels.

Your local second hand store kitchen section is a good place to get much of your lab supplies, to name a few solid burner hot plates, crock pots, Mr. coffee Pyrex coffee pots, corning pyroceram casserole dish canning jars, plastic strainers, blenders, small electric coffee mug heaters (warming plate like the hot plate only smaller and not as hot), small Pyrex coffee pot with a handle they use in latte makers, fiberglass stir rods, plastic spoons, funnels, this list goes on and on, but you get the idea.

For memory fingers a few supplies you may use. To begin with, plastic buckets sized so one will fit in the other like a 1 gallon and a two or three gallon, the one gallon you can drill a series of holes in the bottom so that it acts like a strainer, a plastic lid from an gallon ice cream bucket). HCl acid (muriatic) and 3% H2O2 hydrogen peroxide, an small aquarium air pump and some plastic hose, (hot plate and corning pyroceram dish), sodium hypochlorite (NaClO or bleach), sodium metabisulfite, can be found as a bottle sterilizer where they sell beer or wine making supplies, or in the hardware stores as stump remover (Bonide brand sodium pyrosulfite), (just a note here: some brands of stump remover is potassium nitrate), sodium sulfite Na2SO3 is used in water treatment, Or if you cannot find the sulfite (note the ite in spelling or the ate). You can make your own ferrous sulfate to use to precipitate gold from solution, with the cleaned soft iron from an old small transformer (separate and burn off the shellac and wash in water cut the soft iron to thin strips, and dissolve the iron in some heated diluted battery acid (10% sulfuric acid H2SO4) from your local auto parts like NAPA store. Your hardware store (or Radio shack) will have some tin (Sn) solder (95% Sn 5% antimony) or tin fishing weight from the fishing supply, to make your stannous chloride (SnCl2) used to test for gold and other precious metals in solution). A Mapp gas torch, and a few supplies from Laser Steve’s web site like the melting dish, (While on his site read the documents and watch his videos, Study his earlier posts from the forum). Grab some 20 mule team borax soap, from your wife’s laundry section and some study and you have your beginnings in the lab, use this and what you learn from the forum, and from Hokes (and practice a few of the experiments she suggests) I work out doors in the fresh air, but it sounds like you are working on getting your fume hood together, this will help you begin with the basics, and as you keep studying and collecting scrap (study will help you find from where and its value), you will be well on your way to bigger buttons of gold and other precious metals.

But before you focus on gold (gold fever is hard to control), Focus on learning that is the key to getting the gold, without that key you are missing or loosing those values...

 

[Dach Savage]

Check your local concrete or brick supplier, true value or other hard ware stores for hydrochloric acid (HCl) also called muriatic acid (do not buy it if it says green or low fumes or vapors...)
Also check pool and spa stores that sell chemicals in your area, they can carry HCl or several chemicals we use, read the labels, they can also have some test reagents like for pH...

At your grocery store or pharmacy some 3% H2O2, and bleach (not lemon scented...), there are several other chemicals like baking soda, and several more you will find by reading labels.

Your local second hand store kitchen section is a good place to get much of your lab supplies, to name a few solid burner hot plates, crock pots, Mr. coffee Pyrex coffee pots, corning pyroceram casserole dish canning jars, plastic strainers, blenders, small electric coffee mug heaters (warming plate like the hot plate only smaller and not as hot), small Pyrex coffee pot with a handle they use in latte makers, fiberglass stir rods, plastic spoons, funnels, this list goes on and on, but you get the idea.

For memory fingers a few supplies you may use. To begin with, plastic buckets sized so one will fit in the other like a 1 gallon and a two or three gallon, the one gallon you can drill a series of holes in the bottom so that it acts like a strainer, a plastic lid from an gallon ice cream bucket). HCl acid (muriatic) and 3% H2O2 hydrogen peroxide, an small aquarium air pump and some plastic hose, (hot plate and corning pyroceram dish), sodium hypochlorite (NaClO or bleach), sodium metabisulfite, can be found as a bottle sterilizer where they sell beer or wine making supplies, or in the hardware stores as stump remover (Bonide brand sodium pyrosulfite), (just a note here: some brands of stump remover is potassium nitrate), sodium sulfite Na2SO3 is used in water treatment, Or if you cannot find the sulfite (note the ite in spelling or the ate). You can make your own ferrous sulfate to use to precipitate gold from solution, with the cleaned soft iron from an old small transformer (separate and burn off the shellac and wash in water cut the soft iron to thin strips, and dissolve the iron in some heated diluted battery acid (10% sulfuric acid H2SO4) from your local auto parts like NAPA store. Your hardware store (or Radio shack) will have some tin (Sn) solder (95% Sn 5% antimony) or tin fishing weight from the fishing supply, to make your stannous chloride (SnCl2) used to test for gold and other precious metals in solution). A Mapp gas torch, and a few supplies from Laser Steve’s web site like the melting dish, (While on his site read the documents and watch his videos, Study his earlier posts from the forum). Grab some 20 mule team borax soap, from your wife’s laundry section and some study and you have your beginnings in the lab, use this and what you learn from the forum, and from Hokes (and practice a few of the experiments she suggests) I work out doors in the fresh air, but it sounds like you are working on getting your fume hood together, this will help you begin with the basics, and as you keep studying and collecting scrap (study will help you find from where and its value), you will be well on your way to bigger buttons of gold and other precious metals.

But before you focus on gold (gold fever is hard to control), Focus on learning that is the key to getting the gold, without that key you are missing or loosing those values...

Wow, thanks Butcher!! This and the earlier replies are really going to jumpstart me where I want to be. For now I am working on the water cell process and deplating plateware, continuing collecting scrap, working my way thru Hokes and studying up on the whole process. In due order I hope to get the sterling cell up and running. Then on to reclaiming GF, fingers and them maybe karat gold and platinum groups. But thats waaaaayyy down the road. Thanks again and looking forward to learning and sharing with this great group of guys.