Sunlight distroyer of worlds

[Barren Realms 007]

I feel with the vast amount of processing tecnologies and the varied amount of material you can encounter it is going to be hard to do this in a way that it can be properly deciphered.

 

[goldsilverpro]

I just noticed that Noxx has already changed the category title. Great. Let's go on to something more productive.

 

[Palladium]

I would like to mention that, as far as mining stuff is concerned, I think we are lucky to have Richard36 (The Rock Man) on the forum. He's knowledgeable, considerate, practical, helpful, and he understands and accepts the forum rules and philosophy. When adding the Prospector category, he's the type person I hoped we would attract. I would hate to lose him.

I to find it helpful having someone like rick onboard. He's insightful and all the things Chris said. I to feel like his talents would be of good use here on the forum. Now and in the future. I understand the argument about prospecting, but his talents are somewhat of a different category i would say.
He's got my vote.

By the way, did anyone check out his facebook page?

 

[beaks]

I thought this forum was all about refining PM's not just recycling/refining scrap, I am a prospector that refines most of the pm's that i mine and the process is the same as when i refine my scrap.(i also reclaim and refine scrap PM's from boards and KT scrap)
Refining is still refining no matter how you look at it, gold doesn't come out of the ground pure it has other metals mixed in that have to be separated the same way as the metals on a circuit board or other scrap material the only difference is the amount of PM's they contain.(most gold is found in a flour or flake form and the steps to refine are exactly the same as for scrap)

so whats the big deal?

 

[goldsilverpro]

I thought this forum was all about refining PM's not just recycling/refining scrap, I am a prospector that refines most of the pm's that i mine and the process is the same as when i refine my scrap.(i also reclaim and refine scrap PM's from boards and KT scrap)
Refining is still refining no matter how you look at it, gold doesn't come out of the ground pure it has other metals mixed in that have to be separated the same way as the metals on a circuit board or other scrap material the only difference is the amount of PM's they contain.(most gold is found in a flour or flake form and the steps to refine are exactly the same as for scrap)

so whats the big deal?

I have no problem with this. The word "refining" means purification and the methods of refining PMs from placer gold, or anything else already in metallic (the key word, as far as I am concerned) form, are often similar to that of refining karat gold, etc. Regarding this, you can post anywhere you want. However, if it involves the "recovery" or separation of PMs from ores, black sands, any other earthly gangue, or any form of prospecting, post it in the Prospecting, etc., section.

As I said before, this forum started as a pure PM scrap forum and that is the subject that the majority of the members are interested in. The Prospecting (mining) section was added later as an after thought only to accommodate those few people that were interested in that subject. There are tons of mining forums on the internet but this is essentially the only good PM scrap forum in existence. Personally, I want to keep it that way. My greatest fear is that, if people are allowed to post mining subjects in the other sections, we will attract more and more miners and, eventually, this will be just another mining forum (there are a helluva lot of miners and weekend prospectors out there). Primarily, for this reason, mining topics are confined to a single category. This will continue to be enforced, if I have anything to say about it.

I'm not totally ignorant in the subjects of mining and prospecting. I spent 2 frustrating years - all day, every day - developing processes and doing assays for many miners in Oregon. I had about every possible piece of equipment (both lab-size and production-size) at my disposal - wheels, tables, jigs, flotation equipment, shaker screen sets, crushers, furnaces (about 6 of them, including 3 very large tilts), fire assaying equipment, AA, 3 wet labs, grizzlies, fume hoods - you name it, I had it and I used most of it. I hated every moment of it and the biggest reason was the general mindsets of the miners and prospectors themselves - for me, there was way too much pie-in-the-sky, dreaming, and the general inability to accept realistic negative results, with few exceptions. Everyone thought they had hit the mother lode (miners seem to just love talking about unrealistic big numbers and, the longer they dwell on it, the bigger the numbers seem to get) but, probably, 99% had next to nothing - just try convincing a miner, technically, that what he has is worth very little, especially when he has sunk a lot of money and time into this - very frustrating. I loved working with the material and equipment, but hated working with the people (although I really liked most all of them). They quickly burned me out. I am so burnt out on this that I rarely read anything written in the Prospector section - I just click on the threads so they don't show up, next time, as being un-read. The moment that this forum starts leaning towards becoming a mining forum is the moment it will have at least one less participant, if anyone gives a s**t.

In the above, I hope I didn't offend anyone. After all, it was only my opinion based on what I experienced. I know that there are many exceptions to the type miners I described. I also know that scrap people, especially novices, act in the same way. How often do any of us get more gold than we expected from a refining job, especially when we own the material? It's usually the other way around. We all have a little pie-in-the-sky in us. An irreverent old saying in this business is: Wish in one hand, s**t in the other, and see which one fills up the fastest.

I guess I'm just a realistic (or, try hard to be) old scrap guy, period, and I have no desire to change.

Chris

 

[Harold_V]

I'm not totally ignorant in the subjects of mining and prospecting. I spent 2 frustrating years - all day, every day - developing processes and doing assays for many miners in Oregon. I had about every possible piece of equipment (both lab-size and production-size) at my disposal - wheels, tables, jigs, flotation equipment, shaker screen sets, crushers, furnaces (about 6 of them, including 3 very large tilts), fire assaying equipment, AA, 3 wet labs, grizzlies, fume hoods - you name it, I had it and I used most of it. I hated every moment of it and the biggest reason was the general mindsets of the miners and prospectors themselves - for me, there was way too much pie-in-the-sky, dreaming, and the general inability to accept realistic negative results, with few exceptions. Everyone thought they had hit the mother lode (miners seem to just love talking about unrealistic big numbers and, the longer they dwell on it, the bigger the numbers seem to get) but, probably, 99% had next to nothing - just try convincing a miner, technically, that what he has is worth very little, especially when he has sunk a lot of money and time into this - very frustrating.

In my years of refining, I worked with several prospectors. They were, without a doubt, the hardest people I encountered. As you alluded, they had pie in the sky ideas and were not easily deterred by fact. One of them, an old friend, sent his son to me with some of his "spoils", and included in his tirade how I was not to be trusted. I sent him home with his goods, not interested in dealing with anyone that is so stupid------it was obvious to me at the outset that regardless of the outcome, I would have been a crook. I won't accept treatment like that from a stranger, let alone a friend.

I have nothing against prospectors, but, as a group, they are the most ill-informed of all of the people I encountered in my years of refining. As you alluded, nice people, just no grasp on reality. We've seen it here, too. Everyone has a big discovery---often at the roadside----which I'll believe when I see the gold.

I agree---the forum is about refining---it is not about prospecting, nor should prospecting be allowed to dominate.

Harold

 

[beaks]

i agree about the prospecting part, it should be in the prospecting forum.

but gold is gold, silver is silver, etc, and has to be refined if you want a pure/close to pure product. miners usually refine their PM's so they can make some cash (if they are smart anyway)

i dont refine nuggets but i do find a boatload of small/micron gold which has to be processed just like the kt gold i get and i usually dump it all in the same batch because for me it's all about the money lol

Most people never find enough raw gold to refine so i am all for keeping most of it in the prospecting forum unless someone needs advice in chemicals or separating pm's during refining process which should be handled in the other forums because that is where the answers are.

as far as the remarks made about prospectors and miners("much pie-in-the-sky, dreaming, and the general inability to accept realistic negative results, with few exceptions") ("miners seem to just love talking about unrealistic big numbers and, the longer they dwell on it, the bigger the numbers seem to get"), i am not a dreamer, i am very realistic and really dont care to be insulted because of what i do for a living or for the stupidity of a few people that happen to work in the same field.(those were pretty rude general comments, i agree quite a few prospectors are like that but none that i know that have been doing it for a long time unless they are just crazy or stupid)

i have been refining pm's for years and i make a good living doing it and i also happen to be a miner/prospector (i buy pm's, i find them, i refine them and i sell them for a profit because thats what pays my bills, dreams, stupidity and nutbags dont have a place in my life at this point)

 

[Harold_V]

beaks,
Clearly, if the comments do not fit your description, please don't take offense. Those of us that are on the other end of this issue have no clue when we are encountering an individual that is out to lunch, or has his stuff together. Only through prolonged interaction will any of us know that you are not in the same category as those that have been mentioned.

The point here is that we don't want the forum to be overrun by people that have already been described. They exist, and in great numbers, and there are more than a few places for them to spend their time without interrupting what is a forum without equal. Only here can you pay a visist and get answers to refining issues---often from folks with years of practical experience. We simply do not want this thing to be overrun by well meaning but clueless people. Surely this is something you can understand? Can you not see that it is in your best interest, as well as the best interest of anyone that is serious about refining?

Harold

 

[goldsilverpro]

beaks,

Of course, you weren't included in the group I described. It was obvious to me that you weren't, and I apologize if you thought my statements included you. As a moderator, my posts are often directed to everyone and that was the case in my post. I definitely wasn't pointing at you.

Luckily, most of the mining people this forum has attracted have been realists but we get a few that aren't - note the recent threads involving rhodium ores with the giant numbers!!! Also, with some of the people in Oregon I dealt with, alchemy and spiritualism somehow got into the mix - map dowsing and beliefs in things like "immature gold," e.g. It was a weird 2 years.

Chris

 

[Barren Realms 007]

beaks,

Of course, you weren't included in the group I described. It was obvious to me that you weren't, and I apologize if you thought my statements included you. As a moderator, my posts are often directed to everyone and that was the case in my post. I definitely wasn't pointing at you.

Luckily, most of the mining people this forum has attracted have been realists but we get a few that aren't - note the recent threads involving rhodium ores with the giant numbers!!! Also, with some of the people in Oregon I dealt with, alchemy and spiritualism somehow got into the mix - map dowsing and beliefs in things like "immature gold," e.g. It was a weird 2 years.

Chris

What is immature gold?

 

[goldsilverpro]

What is immature gold?

Beats me.

It is often used as part of a con to explain why ores aren't assayable under normal means. They tell the sucker that the gold and other PMs in the ore are "immature" and can't be assayed using standard methods. They say that their associate, Dr. Whatsit (always a Doctor, it seems), has spent 40 years developing a special, very expensive, complicated, secret flux, usually containing 30 or 40 ingredients (including PMs - "like attracts like", they explain), which will convert the "immature" PMs to "mature" PMs, so they can be extracted to the visible world. Usually, they say that the good doctor is in hiding and fears for his life, because the world powers don't want him dumping all that gold and PGMs on the market. If you add up the amounts of all the immature PMs they say are actually in the ore, it might figure 35%, by weight, more or less. All they need is $10 million to get the process rolling. They usually involve a bunch of people, are well organized, and can be very convincing to the right people. The suckers are slowly brain-washed to develop a mentality like those in a religious cult - they know the "truth" and you don't.

You may laugh, but this con has been successfully going on for centuries. The suckers are usually those who buy into such things as alchemy. The Germans even have a special word for this con, although I don't remember what it is.

While in Oregon, I saw a group of investors lose $7 million on a deal like this. About 40 years ago, in L.A., a miner brought me a 5 gallon jug of water, from his well in AZ or NM, that he believed ran about 5-10% gold plus a lot of silver. He had already given his life savings, $50,000, to some people that had developed special chemicals that would drop the PMs (just guess what those chemicals contained). He had begun to get some doubts about this and came to me. I felt sorry for him and assayed the water, for free, in several different ways. Of course, there was nothing in it. However, since he had sunk all this money into it and had been told that the PMs were "immature" and couldn't be assayed, he didn't believe anything I told him. Even in my rural Missouri home town, I heard of a wealthy group that got sucked into a con like this, about 20 years ago, involving the fines from a gravel operation in Colorado.

An idiot named Lasley (I think that's the right spelling) used to promote crap like this, usually in alchemy-like double-talk, in his monthly column in the California Mining Journal. He seemed to really believe it. He had formed some bogus "Institute" in Utah, to study this stuff. If you can wade through all the BS, though, he did come up with some interesting experiments on thiosulfate leaching.

 

[HAuCl4]

There was also a guy promoting something similar calling it ormus, ormes, or some thing like that...He claimed the stuff cured all diseases and was the key to eternal life...no less!. And people fell for it in droves...some with incurable diseases, etc, etc. Selling Death Sea salts, etc, etc. as "manna" from heaven...Laughable and shameful at the same time, but there you go!.

 

[goldsilverpro]

There was also a guy promoting something similar calling it ormus, ormes, or some thing like that...He claimed the stuff cured all diseases and was the key to etenal life...no less!. And people fell for it in droves...some with incurable diseases, etc, etc. Selling Death Sea salts, etc, etc. as "manna" from heaven...Laughable and shameful at the same time, but there you go!.

I think his name is Tom Bearden (or, maybe it was Hudson) and he also called the stuff "white gold". I think he even had a patent or two on making it, but I may be wrong.

 

[beaks]

rotflmao man yall need to start associating with smarter people, sounds like there is a bunch of nutbags running around in the hills.

tell them i have a yard full of dirt that contains 15oz/ton of invisible gold anyone want to buy a few tons of dirt?

Hahahahahahahah

 

[goldenchild]

rotflmao man yall need to start associating with smarter people, sounds like there is a bunch of nutbags running around in the hills.

tell them i have a yard full of dirt that contains 15oz/ton of invisible gold anyone want to buy a few tons of dirt?

Hahahahahahahah

GSP and Harold have the best stories on this forum. :lol:

 

[Harold_V]

GSP and Harold have the best stories on this forum. :lol:

Indeed! And real life experiences, too, which is exactly why each of us say what we do. Neither of us is trying to be an ass---it's just the nature of people to be the way we've implied.

Needless to say, there's always a guy that breaks the mold and shows us we're not right all the time. Beaks appears to be one of them. Assuming he's telling us the truth (no reason to doubt him at this point), he is very unlike those that I encountered on a regular basis.

You get toughened up when you start dealing with people where refining is concerned. One of my very first experiences came at the hand of a guy that had been religiously recovering gold from pins, using nitric acid to eliminate the base metals. I've related this story before, but it may be worth repeating.

When this gentleman arrived, he had in his hand a plastic container, probably a whipped cream substitute, in which he had a pound of material (foils). It was wet, although not standing water. Included in the mix was a small amount of plastic (insulation).

Bear with me on the amounts, because I'm trusting to memory, and this goes back more than thirty years. I recall that the yield was about six troy ounces. My fee was 10%.

He was incensed. "Where's the rest of my gold?" he asked. "I kept my 10%", I replied. "No, no---I mean from the pound I delivered?".

I placed his container on a small scale, added his button, the filter paper, and filled the container to the level at which it was received. So close to a pound that it was obvious that he had water, not gold.

Not to him. He went up one side of me and down the other---secure in the knowledge that he had been screwed.

He hadn't been. He simply had greater expectations, and hadn't even considered that his gold was wet, and, thus, would not weigh what he imagined.

He left in a huff-----and I never saw him again.

Dealing with uninformed people where precious metals is concerned is a losing proposition.

Harold

 

[nickvc]

Your so right Harold, I still remember a friend who was also a client when I was refining for a living who came in with 4 kilos or there abouts of washed and dried residue from his gold stripper and I melted it in front of him and the bar weighed just over 2 kilos if my memory serves me correctly and he admitted if he hadn't seen it done in front of him he would have assumed I had robbed him.Expectation and reality don't make for good bed fellows in refining.

 

[Palladium]

There was also a guy promoting something similar calling it ormus, ormes, or some thing like that...He claimed the stuff cured all diseases and was the key to etenal life...no less!. And people fell for it in droves...some with incurable diseases, etc, etc. Selling Death Sea salts, etc, etc. as "manna" from heaven...Laughable and shameful at the same time, but there you go!.

I think his name is Tom Bearden (or, maybe it was Hudson) and he also called the stuff "white gold". I think he even had a patent or two on making it, but I may be wrong.

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=395&p=3288&hilit=alchemy#p3288