where did my gold go???

[snowfrmee2day]

Hi all.

I'm new to this and I had 3+oz of red mud with about 20% gold plate (that came from Escrap) that tuned in to a 5gram silvery button when I melted it. now I thought the gold was in the "flux=borax+lite salt+lite baking soda", but I worked the flux in the furnace and I got a lot of silvery metal back then nitric acid, then melted the resulting black powder again got a 5ish G button of silvery metal
I'm very flustered I have over 1000$ in this and am going no where but broke and I'm at the end of my rope with this.

I started with removing the plate form lots of boards and 8oz metal pins(from very old milatary scrap board) that when I melted 3grams it tested to ten K.

Is there a chance that the gold fumed off into the air and left me with worthless button of base metal or is it in the solution still???

where is the gold? please tell me its not lost...

please help I'm desperate.

 

[goldenchild]

 

[Barren Realms 007]

Sounds like a bunch of contaminets in your button. Flatten it out with a hammer and an anvil if you have one to very thin metal and run it in a batch of nitric and the redissolve it and see what you end up with. What ever the nitric dosent dissolve should be your PM's.

 

[snowfrmee2day]

I dont have any of that. I did all the steps and melted the resulting mass of metal slat witch should of been mostly gold...


ok BR007 Ive don that 2times now and Im still geting the same crap. what I want to know is DID IT BURN OFF if its still in solution I will try som more other wise I am going to throw in the towl Its been 6months now I've had about 5oz+ go through to end up with a 2.gram button Im in deep and there Is noting to show for it so here I am can any one help????


DID IT BURN OFF??????????????????????????
is it possible that's what happened?????????????????

 

[Barren Realms 007]

It is unlikely that you vaporized your gold off.

I started with removing the plate form lots of boards and 8oz metal pins(from very old milatary scrap board)

When you say you removed the plating from lot's of boards, what kind of boards? Computer mother board's? Or other type of computer boards?

What were the metal pin's from? 8 oz of pins might give you .25g-1.5g maybe less maybe more.

that when I melted 3grams it tested to ten K.

How did you test this? Did you test this or did you have it tested by someone?

3+oz of red mud with about 20% gold plate (that came from Escrap) that tuned in to a 5gram silvery button when I melted it.

Your reference of 3 oz of mud and 20% gold flake is very misleading. Processing Escrap it is highly unlikely that you had 20% of your material being gold. Gold can look to be a large percentage of your material in a glob of mess when you are looking at it because the color difference is so vast that it obscures the view because the gold flake stands out at you and slaps you in the face and say look here I am. And then poof it is gone.

I'm very flustered I have over 1000$ in this and am going no where but broke and I'm at the end of my rope with this.

This is a very cheap education compared to what some have been thru learning this field.

Do you still have you still have your solutions that you processed this material in?

And what type of solution did you use to process this material in?

 

[snowfrmee2day]

It is unlikely that you vaporized your gold off.

well thats re-leaving could it be in the flux?

I started with removing the plate form lots of boards and 8oz metal pins(from very old military scrap board)

I started with removing clean metal pins and there was about 1200+ relay tabs. the 8oz of pins were from very old board about 1/2inch thick with large pins that had silver wires for the circuits no solder I melted 3grams of the pins smashed it flat with a hammer, had a jeweler test it he used a stone that he rubbed it on then acid tested three times to 10K.

When you say you removed the plating from lot's of boards, what kind of boards? Computer mother board's? Or other type of computer boards?

sorry this batch there was only the above described material

What were the metal pin's from? 8 oz of pins might give you .25g-1.5g maybe less maybe more.

that when I melted 3grams it tested to ten K.

Do you still have you still have your solutions that you processed this material in?

yes I did not through anything away

And what type of solution did you use to process this material in?

nitric acid then rinsed it with distilled water. I know that it was not 100% clean but!! where the hek did the gold go I know that even if there was way less than I thought I should of at least got something more than I did.

 

[eeTHr]

I did all the steps and melted the resulting mass of metal....

All what steps?

Whose directions are you following? It sounds like you are using some method found on eBay or a Website who wants to sell you high-priced chemicals or equipment.

Where did you get your directions, and what were they?

(Three ounces of "red mud" just doesn't sound right.)

 

[goldsilverpro]

If you didn't put anything in the trash or down the drain, you still have the gold somewhere and, if you still have it somewhere, you can get it out. It would help us to help you if you could, in detail, tell us exactly what you started with and, in detail, how you got to this point. What you've said so far has been quite undecipherable and incomplete.

 

[snowfrmee2day]

ok here is the beginning to present

I started with removing clean metal pins and there was about 1200+ gold relay tabs. the 8oz of pins were from very old board about 1/2inch thick with large pins that had silver wires for the circuits no solder I melted 3grams of the pins smashed it flat with a hammer, had a jeweler test it he used a stone that he rubbed it on then acid tested three times to 10K.

I used nitric that I made from sodium nitrate and sulfuric acid In a still that I made out of glass (I've been blowing glass for ten years professionally) Dissolved all the metal then took the resulting mass and melted it in the handy melt furnace that I bought from Ebay.

the main thing that I need to know is, could the gold have fumed off in a large enough quantity to loose most of it or did I not heat it hot enough or long enough. I use gold & silver all the time to fume my glass work but I dont know about smelting that much. I do know that with the right flame on my torch that I can make a piece of silver fume of fairly fast the gold takes a little more to get it to tech to get it to burn off.

 

[patnor1011]

ok here is the beginning to present

I started with removing clean metal pins and there was about 1200+ gold relay tabs. the 8oz of pins were from very old board about 1/2inch thick with large pins that had silver wires for the circuits no solder I melted 3grams of the pins smashed it flat with a hammer, had a jeweler test it he used a stone that he rubbed it on then acid tested three times to 10K.

I used nitric that I made from sodium nitrate and sulfuric acid In a still that I made out of glass (I've been blowing glass for ten years professionally) Dissolved all the metal then took the resulting mass and melted it in the handy melt furnace that I bought from Ebay.

the main thing that I need to know is, could the gold have fumed off in a large enough quantity to loose most of it or did I not heat it hot enough or long enough. I use gold & silver all the time to fume my glass work but I dont know about smelting that much. I do know that with the right flame on my torch that I can make a piece of silver fume of fairly fast the gold takes a little more to get it to tech to get it to burn off.

I don't think that those pins can be made from 10 karat gold or that they have plating equal 30% of their mass. Well at least I never heard of that kind of pins in electronics, not even military grade. Maybe some very thin pins like on laptop mother boards can run high percentage of plating to mass but they have to be really extremely thin. Do you by any chance have picture of that board or pins?

 

[husker4515]

I dont see any where in your process that you precipitated your gold solution with SMB, did you?

 

[Barren Realms 007]

ok here is the beginning to present

I started with removing clean metal pins and there was about 1200+ gold relay tabs. the 8oz of pins were from very old board about 1/2inch thick with large pins that had silver wires for the circuits no solder I melted 3grams of the pins smashed it flat with a hammer, had a jeweler test it he used a stone that he rubbed it on then acid tested three times to 10K.

I used nitric that I made from sodium nitrate and sulfuric acid In a still that I made out of glass (I've been blowing glass for ten years professionally) Dissolved all the metal then took the resulting mass and melted it in the handy melt furnace that I bought from Ebay.

the main thing that I need to know is, could the gold have fumed off in a large enough quantity to loose most of it or did I not heat it hot enough or long enough. I use gold & silver all the time to fume my glass work but I dont know about smelting that much. I do know that with the right flame on my torch that I can make a piece of silver fume of fairly fast the gold takes a little more to get it to tech to get it to burn off.

The gold on the pin's you had melted was the color dark like a gold wedding band or was it a light color like a watered down glass of tea?

See if you can pick a color from this picture.

 

[skeeter629]

"

Dissolved all the metal then took the resulting mass and melted it"

Nitric by itself will not dissolve gold.
Also, what resulting mass? How did you get a mass if everything is dissolved.

The numbers you provided about the number of pins is not as important to the steps you used to refine the PM's. If you would like help, you have to be more specific.

 

[Claudie]

If you only started with the 3 grams of pins that you tested, I doubt you will find it.
I am with the others on this, you need to be more specific about what you started with, what you have now, and what you did to get here.

 

[eeTHr]

ok here is the beginning to present

I do know that with the right flame on my torch that I can make a piece of silver fume of fairly fast....

This is a very good point---silver will vaporize easily with an oxy-acetlyene torch.

If anyone ever sees a puff of white smoke rise from molten silver they are heating, get your snoot out of the way, quick, and don't breath. Then turn off your torch and leave the room until it totally clears of even unseen vapors.

This is just one more reason why strong fume hoods are best.

Also, you can lose significant silver mass from this.

 

[dtectr]

This from Steve re: yields from pins, cut & pasted from my archives:
YIELDS FROM PINS

I just plucked the pins out of 4 headers here are the results:


Total Weight 16 Grams

Pin Weight: 5.5 Grams

Plastic Weight: 10.5 grams

From this we have 5.5/16= .344

5# x .344 = 1.72 pounds of pins from 5# of headers.

Average yield per pound 100% plated= 2 gms.

Average yield per pound 75% plated= .75 X 2 = 1.5 gms

The gold yield estimate is :

1.72 pounds X 1.5 gm/pound avg estimate = 2.58 gms ESTIMATED YIELD for 5# of headers


I hope this helps,

Steve

1.5 gm/pound avg estimate

8 0z. = 1/2 lb. so 8 oz. would yield, on average 0.75 grams.

Not an invisible BB if it were clean, but from the junk still mixed with it, likely indistinguishable.

It does sound like your instructions came from a source other than this forum, as no one here would recommend melting garbage & hoping to find a golden egg. I know thats not what you thought, either, but unfortunately, there are a lot of "experts" out there (esp. FeeBay) that prey on the unwary. Will Rogers rightly said that "an expert is just a damn fool a long way from home."

I can honestly say that before finding this forum, I thought smelting & refining were the same thing, & if others would be forthright, they probably did, too. The briefest amount of basic research here will confirm that & point you in the way you should proceed.

My recommendation, if you want to pursue this hobby, throw away whatever junk information you've been using as a guide & begin reading here, then asking questions in a respectful manner. No one here is obligated to help you or me, so try to be gracious or you may find yourself frozen out, not by the board, but by its members.

BR007 has been VERY patient with you, even giving you visual aids to help you along; one of our moderators who is very busy as well has used his valuable time to chime in & we seem to be no further along than when we started.

If someone took advantage of you with junk information, I am really sorry - you seem to be a hard worker & obviously know your craft, which is glassworks, an art form that borders on the miraculous to me

I don't say this to add to your frustration, but its kind of like complaining to a Ford dealership about problems you're having with your Toyota, & then getting mad at them for not providing the answer you want.

We want to help, but you really must provide the info requested, esp. with photos, before we can do so.

Please accept this in the spirit it is intended & we hope to see your first gold button soon!
dtectr

 

[patnor1011]

Only handful of relay types uses pure gold buttons as contact points. Most of these are from exSoviet union or Soviet satellite countries like Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania. Most of relays use gold plated Ag or Ag/Pd alloy or other. They appear to be golden but it is only plating.