kurtak
Well-known member
LOL..... Nice teaser there kurtak. Are you in the entertainment business???
Sorry about that but I just wanted to let everyone know that this was not forgotten considering it has been right at a month since I offered to test whitewlf material"Part" of the reason it took so long was that the sample got hung up in the mail due to a major snow storm that we had here - what should have been a 4 day delivery ended up being a 8 day delivery --- once the package arrived in Portland OR the USPS was unable to send it through to John Day due to all the mountain passes coming into John Day being closed for a couple days as a result of being "snowed in" --- then even once it arrived in John Day the post office was unable to deliver it to my door as the road to my house had not been plowed out yet - I actually had to go to the post office to pick it up
Then I also work a regular day job so only had time on weekends to work on testing the sample which took 2 weekends (to be explained)
Anyway - the sample whitewlf sent me weighed was just under 50 grams (49.7) from which I recovered right at 0.5 (or 1/2) gram gold which was weighed on my grain scale (15.43 grains = 1 gram) the dried gold sponge weighed right at 8 grains
The sample whitewlf sent me consisted of 4 pieces from his 8.5 pounds - 2 pieces had the plating build up on the plating rack pins/hooks & 2 pieces where chunks without the pins/hooks - one piece had gold plating on the surface & the other 3 did not
Upon receiving the sample I called whitewlf to see if he could provide more info on what his dad was plating & he told me it was for plating trophy's & awards - so I "suspected" it was likely just layers of nickel & gold - as opposed to jewelry where other metals like silver platinum palladium "might" be layered in - but we certainly still want to test for those
So - testing time & procedure
Weekend 1 day 1 - shovel path out from house to lab - turn heat on in the lab & spend some time organizing to do the testing (get chems beakers hot plate etc. etc. out & set up)
Day 2 - start testing - I nipped/broke a couple small pieces off of each of the 4 larger chunks
Chunk 1 - put one small piece in a 50 ml beaker added 3 ml nitric & 3 ml D-water & another small piece in 50ml beaker with 6 ml HCl - both on hot plate --- Nitric beaker reacted very quickly leaving gold foils in bottom of beaker - HCL beaker also reacted but took MUCH longer before seeing gold foils in bottom of beaker & had to add another 6 ml HCl
While waiting for the HCl beaker to do it's thing I tested the nitric solution for Ag (HCl test) & Pd (stannous & DMG test)
Conclusion - as expected "that" piece was layers of nickel plating & gold plating
Just to be sure though I wanted to test each of the remaining chunks so I did a small piece from each of those chunks only this time I only used nitric - same result = dissolved nickel away leaving gold foils - tested solutions for Ag & Pd = none
So I ended that day by putting all the larger chunks in a 1 liter (1,000 ml) beaker - washed the foils from the nitric only testing into that beaker & added 300 ml nitric (edit - typo - this should have been 200 ml not 300 ml) & 200 mil D-water on the hot plate - shut it off when done reacting letting it sit till the next weekend when I had time to get back to it
Weekend 2 day 1 - though the foils where settled in the bottom of the beaker they where light weight & floaty (easily disturbed) so to minimis loosing gold (foils) by pouring the solution off I used a pipet to draw the solution off stopping when I saw the pipet was wanting to pick up foils - this got rid of 90 - 95% of the nickel solution (also tested for Ag/Pd - just to make sure) in the 1 liter beaker - to that I washed/added the foils from the first 50 ml HCl test & then added 50 ml HCl plus 0.5 ml nitric which was actually enough nitric to dissolve all the foils - I then filtered the solution with water washes to get as much as possible the solution washed out of the filter - I filtered the solution into a 250 ml beaker (wanted smaller beaker for precipitation) - that was all I had time for that day
Day 2 - put the 250 beaker/solution (already filtered) on the hot plate & heated it - added some sulfamic to insure it was de-NOxed - used copperas (ferrous sulfate) to drop the gold - tested with stannous to insure all gold dropped (as well as no PGMs in solution) & let settle for a couple hours - (I checked this by shining a flashlight though the solution to insure all the gold had settled) - I again used a pipet to remove solution so as not to pour off ultra fine gold particles - did water washes on the gold sponge to Ph natural (took 3 washes) giving each wash time for settling & using a pipet to draw off each wash --- dried & weighed the resulting gold sponge (powder) which as said was right at 8 grains (or 0.5 grams)
Side note; - the 2 stainless steel pins/hooks in the sample weighed right at 3 grams (which were weighed after the original nitric treatment)
Test conclusion ----------
I took every percussion I could at each step in the process to minimis loss of gold so the results should be within (plus/minus) a few milligrams considering the test/sample size
So - in starting with a 50 gram sample the expected recovery from whitewlf 8.5 pounds of material should be (roughly but very close) to as follows
50 gram sample with 0.5 gram recovery = 1% recovery (1 gram gold per 100 grams material)
There is 454 grams in a pound - so (rounding to 450 gram for easy math) = (about) 4.5 grams per pound X 8.5 pounds = 38.25 grams (plus/minus) expected gold recovery on the full 8.5 pounds
So - I think we can safely say that the recovery from 8.5 pounds of this material should be about 38 grams within a margin of plus/minus a couple grams
So - based on the above I have made an offer to buy this material from whitewlf - HOWEVER -----------
Because I am the one that did the testing (& so as NOT being the one to skew the numbers in my own favor) I told whitewlf that the material should still be made available to other members to make an offer on - which they can now do based on my test results - which should give whitewlf & members rough but close numbers for making offers/deal
Going just a bit further - I won't say exactly what I offered but will say how I came to my offer
I called the refinery that I send my metals to & these are their terms for 2% or less recovery material
First on 2% (or less) recovery you have to send in a minimum of 50 pounds material (so it is not an option for whitewlf)
Then on this type material their pay out is 85% spot - minus a $250 lot/processing fee/charge - minus a $10 per troy ounce recovered gold refining fee/charge
So I used those terms/charges to calculate my own offer & added a bit more to what that calculated out to which I feel is fair when considering time & chem to process & waste to clean up
Sorry for the very long post - but I wanted to make as much info available (including this last little bit) so that in fairness other members would have the opportunity to make fair offers on this material
After all - some members "may" be willing to pay spot or more on expected recovery on speculation that in 10 or 20 years gold will be worth $3,000 - $4,000 or more --- I don't expect to live that much longer
Kurt
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