telecom. boards and removing film mask?

[old thompson]

I got my hands on a couple of telecommunication type boards and they seem to be gold printed over copper on whatever boards are made from. I thought I read something recently about using sodium hydroxide to remove the film or the mask with this type of board, but I can't seem to locate that thread again and I am not sure if I know what I am talking about. These board, just two of them, look sweet There is a green mask over most of the boards but some exposed areas appear gold, not copper. I would like to be successful refining these.

So I stopped.

What I did so far is to cut up one of the boards into slices and snip of any solder and components. I would like to use acid/peroxide on these like I have with fingers or with Kovar pins(Poor and Patient!). Not real sure if I need to remove the mask first, or if the A/P alone will eventually eat through the edges of board and leave the mask/film free itself. If I should use lye, please advise.

Thank you in advance for any replies, I have learned a lot from this forum.

 

[butcher]

Research solder mask or terms like this to find information on removing it with sodium hydroxide NaOH (caustic soda or lye).
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/search.php?keywords=solder+mask&terms=all&author=&sv=0&sc=1&sf=all&sk=t&sd=d&sr=posts&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search

With using the copper chloride leach, your success with dissolving copper under the mask and gold plating will be limited, it can attack some of the copper under the mask but it cannot penetrate deeply under the mask as bubbles from the reaction tends to keep fresh solution from getting to the copper, so your best bet is to remove the resin (solder mask), before using the copper II chloride method your calling A/P.

 

[old thompson]

Thanks Butcher. I guess I just need to learn some proper terms for searches. - "solder mask".

It's hard to get anywhere with the search function when I don't know what I am talking about.