need an estimate

its been fun and i think im addicted or at least my wife says i am.

Are we looking at gold powder after it has been precipitated?

Yes , Thanks for the reply Glorycloud.

Thats a question that incapable of being answered.There are variables when dealing with powder.Sometimes the powder precipitates in ultra-fine powder,other times it will precipitate as course "granules".The smaller the particals,the more dense the powder.And obviously the more corse the powder,then less dense the powder.
Therefore when dealing in "volume" like you are,it is impossible to make an accurate guess.....unless you dry the powder and weigh it.However,it looks like the powder is pretty fine to me,and it has a pretty good color to it,so if it is very pure,and very fine,I would guess around 10-14 grams.Again,do not count on that!You may have 4 grams,or an ounce.But I've seen my share of powder over the years,and thats my "guess".
Johnny

what would be the best way to dry it, and when dry is the powder weight equal to melted weight?

Here's a quick how-to for cleaning and drying:

Cleaning and drying Gold Powder

Once the gold is properly dried it will easily pour out of the container without sticking. The key to drying is to keep the hot flask moving while the gold dries. This prevents the gold powder from sticking to the glass. During the process the gold will progress through several stages of varying consistency:

1. Initially the gold is a heavy wet lump very similar to a mud pie. Dirty gold tends to be almost black in color and should be washed before drying. Another indication your gold is impure is when it does not readily agglomerate (stick together). When the beaker is tilted the mud pie should slide around the lower side of the beaker and a thin layer of water will ride on top of the lump. Pour off as much of the free water as possible then heat on low heat (2-3 on the dial out of 10) until the residual free water is evaporated from around the gold mud, and steam vapor is seen coming off of the gold mud. At this point continue to step 2.

2. As the water begins to evaporate out of the gold, the powder will start to stick to the bottom and moist walls of the beaker. Keep heating and swirling the beaker to force the water out. I like to very gently knock the bottom beaker edge on a piece of soft wood or padded surface to dislodge any gold that is sticking to the beaker via water adhesion. Alternate between a few minutes of heating and a minute of swirling and knocking. Don't let the gold get so hot it erupts from the steam exploding out of it. This will shoot mud like jets of gold out of the beaker.

3. Continue as described in step 2 until the gold begins to form into a few larger wet lumps. At this stage the bottom of the beaker is mostly dry and the main water content has been absorbed into the brown lumps. These lumps resemble wet modeling clay and vary in size from a few millimeters to a few centimeters depending on the amount of gold you have in the beaker. The lumps take on a squared off appearance at this stage (like dice). Keep the swirling and knocking going so these lumps don't stick to the glass. Heat, then swirl. These lumps still have water in them, that's what gives them their unique squared shape. They slide easily around the bottom of the beaker.

4. Anywhere there is condensed water vapor the semi-dry gold will want to cling to the glass. So at this stage I take a paper towel and dry the inside of the beaker 3/4 of the way down from the top, being careful not to touch the towel to any of the gold powder. This area of the beaker tends to collect the steam vapors that don't escape the beaker.

5. Now I increase the heat to between 3-3.5 out of 10 and increase the swirling and knocking. 10 seconds on the heat and 20 seconds off, swirling and knocking and repeat the whole thing. The squared off lumps will begin to break apart as they dry and form a grainy, coffee grounds like texture in the entire bottom of the beaker just before the last of the water is driven out. In a very short time the gold in the bottom of the beaker will begin to accumulate into nice round balls which move freely around the bottom of the beaker.

6. At this stage you may get some gold powder clinging to the walls, don't worry as the water is driven out the swirling and knocking will eventually bring the hot dried gold in contact with the moisture on the walls which will dry them out quickly. Once the residual moisture is driven out, the gold will not stick to the walls. You can aid the drying of the walls by covering the top of the beaker with the flat of your palm while tilting the beaker over enough to allow the bulk of the gold balls to come in contact with the moist spots on the walls. While the beaker is tilted over roll the beaker back and forth in a complete rotation so that the hot gold balls make contact with any residual gold stuck in the moisture on the walls. Shake the beaker up and down in short strokes so that the gold balls cross over the clinging gold powder and the powder will accumulate together with the gold balls as the moisture is driven off.

7. Now that all of the gold is in the form of balls and powder in the bottom of the beaker heat until no more steam or acid vapors are given off. It's not unusual for the dried gold to emit a final 'cloud' of acid vapor when all the water is finally gone. Swirling is not necessary at this point.

Here's a photo of the final product:



This powder should pour easily out of the beaker. Any fine particles of gold that stick to the walls of the beaker can be removed with a clean paper towel. Add this paper towel to your burn box with your filter papers.

I'm seriously thinking of making a video of this process tomorrow since I have the day off for Good Friday.

Steve

Great post Steve!! T H A N K S ! ! ! !

Thanks guys, I owe my progress {thus far} to everyones advice. I dont have a scale or fire brick so i wont know how much i have till i get them and i will be getting a fire brick soon i hope. God Willing.

Try Lazersteve's website for the fire brick. Great products can be
found there and a wealth of information.

Steves main site http://www.goldrecovery.us/site.asp
Steves store http://www.goldrecovery.us/pricing.asp

leavemealone said:

Steves main site http://www.goldrecovery.us/site.asp
Steves store http://www.goldrecovery.us/pricing.asp

Click to expand...

If you find Steve's info helpful, please leave a little donation so he can continue to bless us all.

Thanks.

I made a donation recently. Has anyone else? Please do!!!!!!!

I have a book that I have learned a lot from and I enjoyed reading it.
Here is a quote from it:

"Anyone who receives instruction in the word must share all good things with his instructor."

I have received a lot of instruction from Steve's website. Have you?
Come on folks, buy a DVD, a mini firebrick, or make a donation. 8)

There is always a wealth of information on this forum! Thanks, Steve.
Is there any way to speed up the settling process? Settling adds a lot of time to the cleaning process.
The powder is cleaned in acid, water, ammonia, water, etc. But each time that it is stirred we must wait for it to settle, settle, settle.

chemist said:

There is always a wealth of information on this forum! Thanks, Steve.
Is there any way to speed up the settling process? Settling adds a lot of time to the cleaning process.
The powder is cleaned in acid, water, ammonia, water, etc. But each time that it is stirred we must wait for it to settle, settle, settle.

Click to expand...

Pure clean gold settles in matter of minutes. The entire cleaning and drying process takes less than 15 minutes, depending on the contamination in the gold this time could be longer. Boil until the HCl no longer darkens in color *. You'll find that when you heat gold with HCl during the cleaning process, that the gold begins to adhere to itself and forms a nice coherent mass.

Some very fine sized gold may float in the water and rinses, but this is all added to the stock pot as it's weight will not register on 0.1 gram accuracy scales. In the stock pot the ultra small particles of gold (the floaters) will eventually sink and can be recovered from the bottom of the stock pot periodically.

Steve

* =Edit for clarity

Thank you, Steve.
I haven't been heating the cleaning solutions. I do everything at room temp.
Room temperature probably isn't as effective at cleaning as boiling the HCl and ammonia, but it seems a lot safer to me. It is also (probably) having an impact on the purity of the final product.
One of these days I will have to work up the nerve to boil the HCl and NH4OH.

Hi all
I'm from Belgium, and i Baught from steve's site just today to encourage him continue his efforts, great posts and expérience with us.
Thanks again steve and thanks to all members who made this forum the best one i know.

Thanks for the plug and welcome to the forum.

Don't forget to visit my Store for supplies:

http://goldrecovery.us/pricing.asp

Steve

lazersteve said:

Thanks for the plug and welcome to the forum.

Don't forget to visit my Store for supplies:

http:;//goldrecovery.us/pricing.asp

Steve

Click to expand...

Yes for certain Steve sells a quality product along with superior service right down to answering any questions you may ask via email or by PM - questions which should have been posted and answered on GRF.

For the health of GRF we have to keep the Q and A's here where they belong.

Best Regards
Gill

Gill / gustavus / rusty, can you just let it go? Geez!!
Let off the pedal a little - please!!

T H A N K S ! ! ! ! ! ! !

glorycloud said:

Gill / gustavus / rusty, can you just let it go? Geez!!
Let off the pedal a little - please!!

T H A N K S ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Click to expand...

Alright this will be the last of it that you will hear from me on this subject.

Steve's platinum DVD is a very good production and well worth the money, I have already challenged the copyright and transfer of ownership issues.

And we all know were we stand on that, which is good I like things spelled out in black and white, there are plenty of forum members that own that DVD myself included and it's the least discussed topic on the forum. When it come to refining the platinum group metals.

There is nothing proprietary inside that DVD that has not been done long before Steve came along with his platinum video.

About the most I've seen on the forum is that someone will give the Platinum DVD a good plug, would you purchase a book someone has told you that is good or rent a video with out reading the jacket - No.

Those of us that purchased the video do get email help from Steve, in my opinion these discussions should be taking place within GRF.

In school or college every book your class read was covered under copyright law, did this stop the class from discussing the contents of that book - no.

Steve's hidden Easter Egg on the silver DVD could have possibly been perceived by Canadian law as a Private Lottery which are illegal in my country. Finding the easter egg entitled the person to a prize. Which encouraged people to purchase the DVD.