Welcome In!

[Goldieboy]

Name :Nicholas
*** :M
Age :22
Location :Canada, BC
Profession : Scrapping for the time being
Hobbies : Shopping, driving, hockey, diy projects, precious metals, coins, dismantling electronics, scrap collecting, anything retro/vintage/antique, buying and selling, and this is basically my new hobby now
Interests : Jewllery, chinaware, pcb boards, electronics, coins, vintage anything & everything, alchemy, jewlery making, smelting in an efficient manner.
How long have you been refining gold or have interest in precious metals?: Back when I was younger I was taken under the wing of someone who knew what they where doing (knowledge about gold buying selling and even detecting etc.), now I've recently rediscovered something that ties in with this and I feel most magnetized by what I could possibly do after finding out all this and what I can physically do.
What are you looking for in our community? : Honest help with with my first ap and hcl-ci drop as I've been doing research and kind of getting a tiny bit frustrated on the saftey and equipment used for ap and hcl-ci. I wont start till I know im ready and completed all the saftey percautions and readings. I would love to do acquaintance tests but in canada im not sure if you are allowed to used nitric acid (hokes book) so I mean hopefully there may be some acquaintance tests for ap and hcl-ci so i could get comfortable with small amounts. Ive been writing down notes and printing papers to create my own bible basically.
How did you discover our Forum? : My friend mentioned it to me while we where talking about silver bars or something of the like. Went on youtube and like discovered something I would like to do and could see myself doing for a looooooong time!

 

[butcher]

Welcome to the forum Nicholas,

We do not deal with alchemy or anything related to it, we deal with real-world facts and the real science of the chemistry of these metals.

It is good to see you doing work to study, you can use the ideas put forth by Miss Hoke in her book with most anything we deal with, doing small scale experiments to see how metals and different acids or solutions react, to see what happens in different circumstances, what if you add more of this or that what happens...

Example, use the information you gain through study to come up with your own small scale experiments to get acquainted with the reactions your studying about.
IE:
Put a piece of copper wire in a test tube, add some HCL (what happens)?
Add a drop or two of 3% H2O2 what happens?
Allow it to sit several days what changes?
Bubble air or oxygen into solution what happens?
Allow the wire and test tube to sit for a few days while you study what happens? Why?
Remove the copper wire from the test tube, add an iron nail. Now, what happens? Why? Is this now the same solution? what happened to the nail? What is coming out of the solution? Why?
Decanting the solution to another test tube, add a drop of sodium hydroxide to the solution. What happens?
To the powder in the original test tube, add some HCl and 3% H2O2 and the piece of copper wire...
To a test tube add a flake of gold leaf, add HCl what happens?
Add a few drops of bleach what happens?
Try this try that what happens?

Use the reactions you are studying to make small experiments to gain a better understanding. make a few messes in a few test tubes to work your way back out of them to gain an understanding of the problems on a small scale, before working on a larger scale...

Not only useful in getting acquainted experimenting but working with test tubes and doing tests on a small scale to see what would happen before doing a similar operation to a large batch of precious metal solution can save you a lot of trouble... Seeing what will happen on a small scale before trying it on a larger scale batch of precious metals...Just like using copperas or stannous chloride to see what is happening, use your test tubes to see what will happen...

Use your imagination and your mind to learn the science involved, be safe, and have fun.

Gain an understanding of the safety aspects of anything you deal with, metals. acids. salts of metals, gases, anything you work with including using the torch to safely melt metals, we need to gain an understanding of the dangers and how to stay safe so we can enjoy the gold we melt...


Start your own test tube experiments while studying how to safely dealing with waste (after you do a few of the others you dream up)...

 

[pegasus]

Name :Jim
Location :US
How long have you been refining gold or have interest in precious metals? : Started 1992
How did you discover our Forum? : After losing a lot of money to a crooked refining company, I purchased a DVD from Noble Metals Recovery online. Steve invited me to the forum, and helped me get things up and running doing my own refining.

 

[Elemental]

Name : Joel
*** : Male
Age : 38
Location : Charlottesville, VA
Profession : Network Engineer for US Army
Hobbies : Scuba Diving, Sailing, Horology
Interests : IT Security / Engineering Design / Au-Ag-Pt Recovery & Refining
How long have you been refining gold or have interest in precious metals? : ~3 Months (interest) / Preparing my first batch of Au for inquarting and then refining.
What are you looking for in our community? : Knowledge and the ability to contribute
How did you discover our Forum? : Google-Fu

I am a former US Army Signal Officer and have a B.S. in Chemistry from Michigan Technological University with a specialization in analytical chemistry. I was looking for a hobby that would allow me to enjoy conducting wet chemistry again. I also look forward to process design and analytical precision in the refining process.

 

[butcher]

Welcome to the forum. Jim and Joel, it looks like we will have some fun learning from each other.

 

[gwoody83]

Name : Glenn
*** : M
Age : 52
Location : Las Vegas
Profession : truck driver
Hobbies : computers, gaming,
Interests : Gold and Precious Metal recovery
How long have you been refining gold or have interest in precious metals? : a few months
What are you looking for in our community? : Helpful interesting and educational information from professionals on refining and safety requirements of the hobby.
How did you discover our Forum? : google

 

[Rotz]

Name : Mehmet
*** : M
Age : 31
Location : İstanbul
Profession : Qualiy Manager (chemist)
Hobbies : Cars, photography, travel, I like to learn
Interests : electronic waste,
How long have you been refining gold or have interest in precious metals? : 1 month
What are you looking for in our community? : Generally, PGMs refining process or material.
How did you discover our Forum? : google

Hello Dear All,
I have study for 1 month in this work with my high school friend. I almost know the apparatus and safety rules from school. I am working 6 year in textile industry, so I forgot my knowledge about chemical, but I remember when I read. I also add my question about the headlights maybe some body help me to find true page. I don't really know use the forum site. I can't use, beucase everybody talk something in different page.Somebody know, SB don't know something but they are talking. but I will try to learn. I attention their information, they are miscellaneous experts => Butcher, Noxx, Lazersteve, paladium, kurtak, patnor etc. I can't remember everybody, sorry.
I read Hoke's book (1/10) and a book belong to this site. I am reviewing sometimes. My eyes don't support me sufficiently

I learned from hear that as I remember;
A/P method for base metals
It is slow but no fumes, air is important,H2O2 amount is important. I wonder how much I can heat the solution for acceleration the process? Some base metals result told in here but I can't find about Fe so much thing.I would like to make a table showing which metal will react in HCl and nitric acid. Fe is no quick dissolve in nitric or HCL. It takes a lot of time. I do not know exactly if it is collect precious metals while collecting them with magnets.
I dilute my H2O2 with this chemical formula = M1xV1 = M2xV2
CuCl (white) & CuCl2 (soluable in HCl(%32)Green), When I add HCl, my white dust didn't dissolve. there is many white dust supplier as I understand..
Sulphamic acid = ıt provide deNOx but It convert the HNO3 to sulphiric acid. How much quantity should we use in order not to crush our paper.
I learn a little bit cementation and it will work. I tried that in my solution which precipitated gold. Cementation again precipitated a little bit. 50 celcius is looks nice as I understood to quick process.
Carbon issue(chip process): If we can't burn our chip sufficiently, active carbon can collect some Au ion. I don't want to incinerate the chip, but I don't know which process better. I can't do suplhiric acid method, my solution dencity was very high like hot melt.
SMB & FeSO4, I used both. After that I will use FeSO4 (copperas). According to me it is clean way than SMB.
I don't want to AR solution with nitric, I don't recommend anybody. Nitric make hard the work, it is my 2 cents on issue. I have a lot of questions. I am researching.
Depopulation and distmastling is very important. Old devices include more PGMs.
I lose approx. 10 gr gold my old experience.
Cupellation useful for little amount Pgms as my experiment. You need special pot, from portland cement. (You can do your own pot if you find portland cement as I read) I found but I didn't try.

Thank you for your helps and I hope I can make a contribution to you. There is more know how, if I find myself some of the answer how can I share here, I don't want to write randomly. So I want to improve and make this work in future.

 

[Martijn]

Hi Mehmet, welcome to the forum.
So many assumptions that need correcting or nuance and questions that really don't belong here in the 'Introduce yourself' thread.
Start a new thread to ask these questions and keep them there for your own and others ease.

Martijn.

 

[Ranaz]

Hello everyone
I am called Rana
Age 48
*** M
Permanent Residence Zürich
Currently Kribi
Businessman
Corporate Farmer

Hobbies scraping travelling learning new things

I wish you all happy Christmas and good start in new year
I am new here
Wanna learn refining process by reading
Found this form Google

 

[FrugalRefiner]

Welcome to the forum Rana!

Merry Christmas to you!

You'll find all the information about refining here you could ever hope for. The problem is, it's scattered all over the forum and you'll have to spend a great deal of time to absorb it. I like to recommend my Tips for Navigating and Posting on the Forum to new members. I hope it will get you off to a good start.

Dave

 

[Caustic Fury]

Hi Everyone!

Name J
Location: Australia
Age: 21 with a little experience
Occupation/s: Coal Miner, Dragline Operator, Fitter, Machinist
Hobbies: Fishing and tinkering
Reasons for being here: Learning to refine precious metals so i can set my children up for a good life.

Little About me: I play with BIG machines, I move mountains (in every word of the sense), I build Big Boats
but the biggest thing in my life is my children and its because of them that i am trying to learn.

Sidenote, Is lazersteve still around? Was wondering on getting the dvds he has or the book version as the links to his store are broke.

 

[Penmaster]

Welcome In guys
Present your self to the rest of the community, feel free to add things :wink:

Name :Rocky
*** :male
Age :50
Location :Oklahoma
Profession :artist
Hobbies :gold prospecting
Interests: learning how to extract gold from e scrap
How long have you been refining gold or have interest in precious metals? : I am entirely new to electronic scrap , but I have been interested in gold prospecting for many years
What are you looking for in our community? : help learning how to extract gold from e scrap . I know nothing about chemistry though . Just interested in it as a sort of hobby .
How did you discover our Forum? : Google

 

[war_child]

Hello everyone!

I've been reading through this amazing forum for a while now, as well as reading through Hoke, because I see it is widely advised here. This is my first post and I just wanted to finally introduce my self and thank the many of you who have selflessly given of yourselves to make this site such an amazing source of knowledge.

My name is Mike. I'm a 44 year old father and husband. We live a few miles outside of Detroit, where I make my living as a residential HV/AC installer, though I still am able to sneak away from heating & cooling to pour concrete several times a month during the summer.

I've always loved old coin collections and to see and hold bullion since I was a young boy, and I was interested in PM recovery from computer scrap from the first time I heard of it years ago. I always believed holding some bullion was a wise choice, especially in a fiat currency world. I got the bug in me late 2019 (mid November), and boy did that bug bite!

I found, with the help of competent you tube channels, that stacking silver was easy enough, but the high prices and premiums of gold coins had me feeling a bit discouraged about gold ownership. I remembered e-scrap mining and I decided to start scrapping in my county of Macomb, MI.

Playing in the garbage was actually a fairly rewarding experience. First, I started out grabbing ANYTHING with a cord on it. I can still remember how excited I was to find the first few computers I ever scored at the curb on garbage night. I thought a computer mother board with a p4 processor was all I needed to start rolling in gold! I eventually became more selective, and also started combing through sights like craig's list and let go, ect.

I started watching a lot of e-waste recycling/ gold recovery videos on you tube and went right out and bought some sulphuric acid?!? :lol: Thanks You Tube! Any way, I didn't get very far. Luckily, I found this place and saw MANY of you make it a point to be very clear about the dangers of some specific procedures. I don't even know if I got the right stuff, so I guess I'll be sitting on these two bottles of "liquid heat" until I get some mean drain clogs. I really wanted to try even after reading some of the warnings, then I realized: if these dudes rip through stuff like nitric acid & aqua regia without hesitation, but they seem almost leery about hot sulphuric processes, then I had just better slow down.

So far I am still reading through Hoke for my first time & I have been on this site for about a year or so, reading through hundreds of posts written from the last decade till last week. As I have come to realize how much there is to learn about recovery and refining, I have become more tempered and much less eager to experiment without thinking it through fully and researching everything about the process at hand.

That being said, I did start experimenting a bit last year. I started with some ram/ slot card fingers using muriatic acid (31.45% hcl), hydrogen peroxide (3%), and an aquarium bubbler. I recovered some dirty looking gold powder after my first drop, but I haven't refined anything or melted a button yet. I started generating gallons of waste & didn't want to get out of control, so I paused & shelved all of my experiments and got back to reading and working with my scrap. My next experiment to complete is making stannous chloride...correctly.

I am very eager to show the current status of my few experiments and to seek any replies to help me continue. I have a lot of pics and questions, but I'm not very sure how/when/where to post appropriately. I will try to learn, and abide by, the forum rules. Thanks for your time today & inviting me to introduce myself
-Mike

 

[nickvc]

Welcome to the forum Mike.
You have made the first good move by realizing that you have much to learn, it’s not rocket science but you do need to understand the basics and the language we use here on the forum to discuss what we all do.
Your second good move was to decide not to start processing but doing small experiments, this bodes well for your future as a refiner.
While you learn do not stop looking for and sorting your materials, learn what to keep to sell or discard, unless you mess up the recovery or refining you will not lose anything but you will have plenty of material to process once you feel confident in your ability to proceed, it’s much better to have a stash of material ready to process rather than buckets of toxic mess.
Take your time and keep reading and if you find points that just don’t make sense ask a question, if you have done your part help will be there but we don’t do hand holding as none have the time and virtually every process has been discussed many many times.
Good luck and happy R & R.
That covers the two areas you need to master recovery which is really the hard part and refining which by comparison the easy part.

 

[BuckNaked]

Name :Robert
*** :male
Age :58
Location :California
Profession :auctioneer
Hobbies :Wood working, Gold refining
Interests: learning how to refine gold without using chemicals
How long have you been refining gold or have interest in precious metals? : I am entirely new to refining gold , but I have been interested in gold refining for a few years
What are you looking for in our community? : help learning how to refine gold without using chemicals
How did you discover our Forum? : Google

Hey guys first off I would like to thank All of you for you knowledge and willingness to share it.....
Secondly I hope my username does not conflict with forum guidelines ?
I have 82 grams of melted gold, 2 grams of tooth cap gold, 23 grams of 18kt gold ring, I have been researching refining gold online for awhile now and realize I need expert advice, I have downloaded Hokes literature available on this forum.

 

[FrugalRefiner]

Welcome to the forum.

I hate to be a wet blanket, but I'm afraid you won't find any way to refine gold without the use of chemicals of some type.

Dave

 

[jhop1994]

Name : Jason Poole
*** : Male
Age : 27
Location : Phoenix
Profession : Patient Care Technician
Hobbies : Playing all forms of games especially table top rpg an FPS, buying & selling precious metals, smelting, refining, jewelry making, silversmithing, and innovating.
Future Hobbies:Sword making, plate & scale armor maker, investing, inventing, chemistry, and gold smithing.
Interests : Everything under the great blue sky and all that lies beyond it. (Within moral boundaries of course)
How long have you been refining gold or have interest in precious metals? :I haven’t refined gold yet, 1 year ago I took interest in silversmithing, I have smelted and made things with fine silver and in the process unrefined that silver with base metals and hope to do the opposite now.
What are you looking for in our community? : A group of people to help teach me to refine precious metals and to later on design more effective ways to refine precious metals.
How did you discover our Forum? : After several days of interest in gold/purchasing, I had enough to start refining, though after days of watching videos and reading about refining. I didn’t feel anymore confident to start. It was only after looking up on google a comparison of nitric acid and sodium nitrate. This was a pretty hard to find forum.

 

[Toasted]

Name: Joyce, I, post for my Hubby Gary
***: female, Gary Male
Age: me 68, He's 78
Location: Florida, gulf coast
Profession: Gary's wife and caregiver, he's 220% disabled Vet, looking for hobbies, to keep him going
Agent Orange has bit him

I sew, craft, photography, working on website, I designed my home, Gary built it, he had worked at First energy, in OHio, Preventive Maintenance Systems Analyst on 8 coal fire plants and he would also visit 2 nuke plants to procure out dated items for the coal plants ....Tribologist

Gary, car nut, can paint a car better than "show room" hasn't met a tool he doesn't have them all, he wants them all!

This, new adventure started with copper, and snowballed.

 

[FrugalRefiner]

Welcome Joyce and Gary!

I hope you both find something here of interest. This forum has been a source of therapy to many members, including myself.

My brother was an excellent body man / painter as well, though the years have taken a toll and he's no longer able to do what he once did.

Tools? Who doesn't need them all?!

Watch out for that snowball effect. An avalanche can bury any of us. :lol:

Dave

 

[Cryogaijin]

Name: Greg, but I go by Cryogaijin online.
***: M
Location: Forest Grove, Oregon, USA
Profession: Nerd
Hobbies: Rockhounding, event running, cosplay, land stewardship (Ever hear of the Gambler 500?), photography, astronomy, Nerf Blaster Modding, Nerf Wars, Humans vs Zombies, conventions, Fluoroscopy, paint and pigment mixing, Airbrush painting acrylics, LARPing, Hiking, Rafting, Backpacking, Ice Camping, electrochemistry, and now Metal recovery and melting.
Interests: SF/F, blacksmithing, forging, history of metallurgy, random acts of Nerf.
How long have you been refining gold or have interest in precious metals? : TBH my only interest in precious metals is in attempting to make blue gold. I'm more interested in copper. Always have been, but did my first melting about a month ago.
What am I looking for in our community? Perhaps a bit of advice here and there. To learn.
How did I discover the Forum? Google searched something about de-oxing dross to reclaim the metal. I've been subscribed to Sreetips for years, so the algorithm. . .