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Name : William G
Sex : Male
Age : 49
Location : San Diego
Profession : IT & Pastry Chef
Hobbies : Fixing computer and computer recycling
Interests : Gold reclamation & computer networking
How long have you been refining gold or have interest in precious metals? : this summer since my unemployment ran out
What are you looking for in our community? : guidance
How did you discover our Forum? : while reading gold Recovery books on Kendal

My school science class was a total letdown. This is how I am making up for it:
So far: I have made my own fumer collected my chemicals and done some small tests as well as collected foils from fingers . trying to have small successes as I get comfortable. I don't like to guess and have written down all the steps so I can fully understand each step, why, and what will ultimately happpen to the solution in the end game. So I started this is a side hobby because of all the old computers collecting in the garage. I quickly realized that it's not one of those things that you can hurry up and make money with. Taking it slow getting momentum and doing lots of research is really best practice.
I read several books and would love to get a copy of Hoke's book. It sounds like it would be a comprehensive look into the art of precious metals so nothing is waisted and everything valuable is gleaned.
So far I really appreciate the advice I've read on the forum an am excited to move forward !
Thanks
William G
 
I read several books and would love to get a copy of Hoke's book.
Click to expand...

It's free in the library. Both the screen readable copy or the printout. Click on the link in my signature line.

Take your time, read and acquaint yourself with the chemistry and the testing, it's all in the library. The more you study before you dive in, the more successful you will be. And if you are asking questions please search first, we do help newcomers, but the ones who have done their homework (we can tell!) do the best.

Welcome and enjoy.
 
Name : Mohammed Al-shatti
Sex : Male
Age : 26
Location : Baguio City, Philippines
Profession : Electronics Engineering
Hobbies : Playing Volleyball, Basketball, Reading books (recently :D)
Interests : Uncovering the secret to success and hoping that I will be able to share it to everyone.
How long have you been refining gold or have interest in precious metals? No experience ever. Just had the idea this month and since small scale miners are present in our place, I thought this could be an opportunity to reach success and help as many people as I could.
What are you looking for in our community?Priceless knowledge that schools never teach. I also like to meet new people and make friends with different people around the world.I hope to travel in the future and I look forward to see you guys.
How did you discover our Forum? while searching for ways to combine different purity of gold and make it pure,.
This is due to the fact that the small scale miners here produce gold of different purity. What I want is to buy these gold and combine them to produce pure gold. I also want to learn ways for these miners to improve their way of life. You see I feel sad for these men because they risk their lives every because safety is not observed in their job. I went to see how they work and they just dig a hole on a side of a mountain, then use a blower to pump air inside if the hole becomes deep and oxygen is low. There is no support whatsoever on these holes. The processing also is very poor in safety aspects. They just cover their face with a shirt when they smell something bad with chemical reactions. I want to learn and share with these miners everything that I will get from here. I'm getting a bit emotional here but I am really sad about these miner's conditions. They do these dangerous things not for themselves but for their families. Some of these miners died unfortunately suffering from oxygen depletion inside these holes. May they rest in peace and I hope I will make a difference with the lives of the remaining miners.
I look forward to know you all here in the forum. Thank you very much!
 
Hey everyone, My name is Chris, I am a guy, pushing 30 (pulling it more times than not, it feels)...I live in Wichita, KS (that is directly in the middle of the ol USofA)...Ive been in to precious metals for awhile, used to metal detect quite a bit, found a couple gold rings and a few silver coins, nothing too grand... I initially got into recovery/refining by stumbling into it I guess?...I used to fix cars in the summer, computers and electronics in the winter...I would save anything that looked cool and precious to someday either scrap or figure it out and do it on my own... well, after my wife had my 2nd kid a few months back, we wanted to I guess have enough stuff to keep me busy... so we bought 30 desktops and 50 "modems" from a guy for 75 bucks.... turns out it was like 35 desktops and 75 ibm thinkcentres that are a small compact tower with a horizontal fingerprint... ..well, ...that got me thinking of scrapping (they were too old to be good to sell really, but too young to be the great gold finds... so, I started off watching youtube (yeah, I can be that dumb), did some fingers.... yay.. well, then I was perusing the local craigslist... ended up there was a guy that had a ton of mobo scrap to sell or recover and refine...I called him, talked to him, he gave me a couple hundred lbs of boards and 5 lbs of pins already pulled ...**** yeah! I thought..... into the AP they go.. ...well, I learned the hard way that you should definitely double check to make sure you have no iron....and no solder.... and...yeah... well only after a week of them running in a bubbler setup did I find out had bad I had err'd, but, thanks to hoke and this website I managed to salvage it ...(I'm never relying on ONLY youtube for anything..ever...again..cross my heart)... the pins are still losing gold and I'm hoping they finish up in the next couple days... I just got a good sized shed in my backyard to set up a decent lab... space back by it to build a small fire-brick propane furnace to melt and/or incinerate whatever I need.. I'm going to be making a cell soon, and Im thinking of running it and everything else needing power in my shop off of a battery bank powered by a few wind turbines in my back yard... ...well, I have a few ideas that I am wanting to do so I have a pretty ghetto system set up... one thing I am eager to find out is about electrostatic separation... I've went through the majority of the electrochem forum thread but didnt find much, maybe I need to check mechanical first... I guess I'll get there eventually... I plan on reading all 10k++ threads here on the forum eventually... and memorize hoke... and intro to chemistry...and stoichiometry...inorganic chemistry... any and everything that encompasses this great hobby.. ..I'm far from stupid (I am going to account my initial errors as being too much of an eager beaver...) ...anyways, thanks for reading


...oh, in case anyone reading this wonders/cares the first nug I melted down from when I went through the pins after being in AP a couple weeks ended up being 3.2 grams (...had another problem when melting it and some blew out...alot actually...good thing for me, I was thinking ahead and I had put a grill under the crucible to help heat a little. {..and just in case something detrimental happened...}...glad I did, because I am pretty sure I was able to recover and put into AR another few grams...(just started the precipitation before I decided to stop being a creeper and introduce myself....figured its the least I could do ...since im stealing all your knowledge 8)

Thank you for the great and informative site...I appreciate it very much...and I will certainly give a donation with the funds I receive from my next melt..this one had to be kept as a memento...its beautiful.... and it would have never been without everyone here...so, again, thank you
 
Name : David
Sex : M
Age : 47
Location : PA
Profession : Crude Oil Trader
Hobbies : Coins
Interests : Sports
How long have you been refining gold or have interest in precious metals? : I haven't, but want to learn.
What are you looking for in our community? : Information, Support and Community (place to belong)
How did you discover our Forum? : YouTube Video search sterling silver into pure silver

Ok, with that being said, I am very happy to have found this in my search today. I have been actively collecting coins for a while now. I want to learn how to turn sterling silver into pure silver. I am absorbing information right now.

I bought LaserSteve's dvd on Silver today off paypal. I am looking forward to getting that dvd and start my learning curve. I need another skill to work on mastering. I would like to eventually be able to make pure silver myself out of my home.

Brave goal ... but what's life without a few good goals. This seems to be the right place to be from my search today. SO I look forward to being a sponge here.

Kind Regards,

Dave
 
Welcome to the forum David!

I'm sure you will enjoy the DVD and learn a how to set up your own miniature silver cell.

Steve
 
Hello all. I found this board from the scrap metal forum. The title sounded interesting and I thought I would take a look. I have a couple questions that I would be interested in your opinions. I was told you were fairly intolerant of noobs asking questions, but they are not stupid dangerous stuff, so I figure I will ask and take the punches if they come.

I am also providing the service of changing the 666 replies to this thread to 667. Funny thing is, it seems I am usually the one who posts the 666th reply, so this will be a nice change of pace.
 
Name : Joe Skulan
Sex : Male
Age : 55
Location : Lodi, Wisconsin USA
Profession : Isotope chemistry and vertebrate paleontology
Hobbies : inventing, fishing, mushroom hunting, finding things on the ground, history, literature, philosophy
Interests : PGMs and other rare metals
How long have you been refining gold or have interest in precious metals? : I've never refined gold and don't plan to. I've been interested in metals since I as a child.
What are you looking for in our community? : Information on rare metals, especially osmium and iridium, interesting conversation.
How did you discover our Forum? : Internet search.

My best precious metal story is this: In the early 1990s I found a dinosaur site where all of the bones were radioactive. They contained a lot of thorium and up to 1.3% uranium. This is not all that uncommon, but it is unusual for the formation I was in (Hell Creek). One of the ways U gets into bone is by the reduction of the soluble U (VI) oxide to insoluble U (IV) oxide, which occurs when groundwater flows through sediments that have been stripped of oxygen by the slow (10,000 year +) decomposition of buried carcasses. I thought at the time, and still think, that many so-called iridium anomalies could be explained by the transport of soluble PGM oxides through sediment columns. Reduction of the oxides to metal would cause PGMs to accumulate in reducing layers, such as organic-rich clays. If that was the case, you also would expect PGMs to accumulate in dinosaur bone just as uranium accumulates. So I decided to test this. In those pre-ICPMS days the only way to look for PGMs in the parts per billion level was by neutron activation analysis. I brought a small sample of radioactive dinosaur bone the the research reactor at the University of Wisconsin. For some reason I can't remember we couldn't get an Ir measurement, but the results showed 1700 PPM (0.17%!) Ru.

That was A LOT, and he reactor technicians could find no flaw in their analysis, Using typical PGM ratios, the bones must also have been loaded in Pt and Pd. Under even the most conservative estimates of the abundance of bone in rock and the area over which radioactive bone could be found, I had made the largest platinum find in history, at least 100 times larger than any previous discovery. For a day or so we thought that we were rich as Midas. But part of me thought that is was too good to be true, and of course it was. On thinking about it more, I realized that the Ru we saw was not originally present in the bone. What happened was that there was so much U in the bone that in the intense neutron flux of the reactor core it could sustain fission chain reactions. The Ru was a fission product. We were poor again.

I eventually did get an Ir concentration on the bone using ICPMS. It was something like 10 ppb, which does qualify as an Ir anomaly, but not one that will make anyone rich.
 
Hi there! I'm the hightechhippie, aka Adam. I live in Florida, and love fishing. I enjoy mineral hunting, though in this state, that doesn't lead to very many different exciting minerals, but there are more than a few fine samples of very pretty quartz I have found and collected over a few years. Anywho, after watching many YouTube videos on precious metal refining, I've developed a strong interest in the subject, and was referred to this forum for more information on it, by Cody'sLab on YT. I am a complete newbie on the practical application of refining knowledge, but I believe I have a rudimentary understanding of the topic, and would really love to learn much more.
 
Name : Don Hunt
Sex : M
Age : 43
Location : San Diego, CA
Profession : Co-Owner/Printer repair tech/Toner cartridge recycler-remanufacturer
Hobbies : Way too many to list....or to have time to enjoy.
Interests : Same as hobbies. However, saving the earth...and making money(?)...
How long have you been refining gold or have interest in precious metals? : I haven't even begun the journey, yet. Very soon, though.
What are you looking for in our community? : Help. Knowledge/safety. Inspiration. Camaraderie.
How did you discover our Forum? : Google. I think I may have been linked here through Lazersteve's site.

Hey all! I'm extremely new to the idea of refining gold, and other precious metals. I do have almost a passion for trying to save the earth. I work with printers and toner. I see the tons of waste that our society breeds on a daily basis, and I would like to help everyone find a way to reduce this. If I can make a little cash to help secure my family's future, that would be a bonus. I use all of my projects/ideas as a basis to educate my kids, so this is a perfect avenue for this work. You guys, on this site, are definitely a godsend for those of us looking for solid and reliable information for these processes. I really respect the emphasis y'all put on safety!! Thanks!
 
Name : Ben
Sex :M
Age :38
Location :Wisconsin, USA
Profession :Computer Tech, Medical equipment
Hobbies :Computers... Games.. Anime/manga
Interests :Computers, games, robotics(CNC), DIY, Autos, metal detecting
How long have you been refining gold or have interest in precious metals? : a couple of years
What are you looking for in our community? : Some instruction, and information on refining.
How did you discover our Forum? :CodyDon on youtube.
 
Name : Joshua Massey
Sex : Male
Age : 18
Location : Decatur, AL
Profession : Computer Programmer, Hardware Technician
Hobbies : Metal Recycling
Interests : Computers and Computer Hardware
How long have you been refining gold or have interest in precious metals? : Since my dad started.
What are you looking for in our community? : Knowledge
How did you discover our Forum? : Through my dad, Geo


Also, i just want to add this footnote here. I am billfold, but i forgot my username/password. But all is well, i will use this account more often. No need to welcome me again. :)
 
Welcome to the forum Joshua nice to have another member of the Geo family here.
I'm sure you will learn although your dad is pretty good at refining but perhaps you can help find new methods and processes.
 
Name : Terry (wildmantel)
Sex : Male
Age : 54
Location : Colchester, Essex .U.K.

Profession : Unemployed, recovering from major surgery

Hobbies : Metal Detecting

Interests : Learning about our history through my hobby. Especially the Medieval Period

How long have you been refining gold or have interest in precious metals? : I have not started refining, yet! I only became interested within the last couple of weeks. I found I had time on my hands while I recover. This interest came about after I joined a social media group about lead finds and I decided to melt my scrap lead. While researching the melting of lead I got side tracked by the idea of melting some scrap medieval silver coins to use the silver for making a token or something similar? Please note..the coins are beyond any interest to coin collectors and historians alike, the majority of them are 90+ % blank from use.

What are you looking for in our community? : As a newbe to the refining process in any way, I am unable to offer help to others, sorry. But I do hope to learn so that I can be of use to someone sometime in the future.

How did you discover our Forum? : While searching Google for information about the use of Acid and peroxide to dissolve base metals.
 
Welcome to the forum Terry! You would be surprised how many members have landed here while recovering from illness or injury. I found the forum while recovering from my second herniated disk.

Please be careful with the lead. It's nasty stuff.

If you haven't found it already, I like to recommend new members read through the Tips for Navigating and Posting on the Forum thread. It will help to get you off to a good start here.

Dave
 
Name :JiM
Sex :Male
Age :46
Location :South Africa, KZN
Profession :Civil Engineer
Hobbies :Scuba diving, Nature, Electroplating hobby
Interests :Geology, Minerals :D
How long have you been refining gold or have interest in precious metals? :Refining Years, Interested decades
What are you looking for in our community? : Knowledge :idea:
How did you discover our Forum? : Researching alternative refining methods your web site constantly delivered excellent results. Been reading posts on various subjects for months, just saying hello.
 
Hello all! My name is Bård, I'm a 37-year old father of two from Norway. I have a Bachelor's degree in chemistry, originally with a broad base of organic-, analytical- and biochemsitry courses, though since graduation back in 2003 I have switched over to a more biochemical focus, working primarily with biotechnology/microbiology/genetics.

I recently came across some of the videos posted to Youtube by, among others, several of the users of this forum. That got me thinking this could be an interesting hobby, as well as a way to recover valuables from scrap. I have no illusions this will make me rich, and considering time spent on this I will likely never be even close to earning money on it, but that's not the point. I find it interesting and as such worth my time looking into.

As for my goals, I want to learn, simply put, and if that nets me a small nugget of gold at some point, all the better. I have started collecting various sources of gold in terms of electronic waste, and while I have nothing resembling the quantities most of you deal with, I have access to a slow, steady supply of it, making this a long term project.
I am most interested in looking into slower and safer methods for recovering gold, rather than quick and dirty, profit is not a factor. From what I have seen, there are quite a few people looking into amino-acid leaching of gold, something I find interesting and would like to explore. Maybe I'll do some trial runs and post any interesting findings, though for now I am just reading and reaquainting myself with the chemistry involved.
 

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