OK, so I have a thing I normally come on Reddit and lurk the forums and read and study What not, on whatever ADHD directed-new hobby that I am wettin my feet in.

So I have a bunch of ore and it has gold in it not a lot of free meal gold but a lot of gold dissolved in the calico pyrite and or Galena and just pyrite. It’s really very easy to get the sulfides concentrated, but my crazy idea was to dissolve the concentrated or in some nitric acid.

Get the sludge off the bottom, which would be any gold (hypothetically), wash it, etc, which I could melt into a bead with some Map gas and a little baby crucible or something, and if I wanted to access any of the dissolved silver, I think I could precipitate itout with salt..

Obviously, I’m not doing this for money or anything. I just have many interests that I seem to let my ADHD direct me to. It kind of fits in with my other hobbies, like panning for gold and streams, wandering into all abandoned mines and chiseling rock off the walls lol….

anyways I was looking on BVV and was gonna just start off by getting 500 ML of nitric acid and then I guess I would need to get beaker and what not and some chemical to neutralize the acid after I’m done…

I’m fairly good at learning pretty much anything I put my mind to. Any pointers to any two cents I would love to hear it thanks. Have a good day. Sorry if this is the wrong place.

So I have 100+ pounds of copper ends off of these buss fuses that Iv been saving up for a couple years to scrap. I assumed they were tinned but after trying to dissolve it off with hydrochloric acid and it doing nothing I now think they may be silver plated. So my question is what would be the easiest way to test if its silver, the best/easiest way to remove it, and do you think it would be actually worth it in the end to go through the trouble?

Just a word to those who are still new to this hobby, watch out for silver cementation. I still consider myself new to this hobby, even after 4 years of consistent refining. There is so much to learn and I am constantly humbled. However I do like to share things I've learned so others can avoid similar frustration. Apparently, silver cementation happens when the silver dissolved in nitric drops out of solution and is replaced with the base metal, once the base metal is exposed. Predominantly due to super high copper content.

This is my experience: I was beeboppin' along in the initial nitric acid bath step. Everything was fuming all spicy and happy. Once the reaction was completed, I expected some remaining solid waste due to the plated material I started with. However I did notice a lot more gray sediment than expected. At this point there was no reason to think anything was wrong. So thinking nothing of it I filtered the liquid from the solid and proceeded to creating silver chloride.

We all know that feeling when the expected reaction does not occur. Even worse when nothing happens. As you can expect, I added saline solution and absolutely nothing happened, less than a fart in the wind. So yadda yadda yadda and I decided to scrape all that solid material from the waste pile, dissolve it in nitric and see if that produced anything. Which it did. Brilliantly. Time to celebrate.

After a little retroactive research, I discovered the silver plated product I was using initially had a core that contained about 50-60% copper. And as we all know, when silver nitrate is exposed to pure copper, silver falls out of solution and is replaced with copper. So as soon as the silver plate was dissolved and the copper core was exposed, the copper began to pull silver out of solution and replace it. The sneaky thing about this is, there are no warning signs. The solid sediment can look like anything else and the reactions continue to happen as they normally do. Even the color of the solutions look regular.

Long story long, just be sure to keep your waste until the end of the project. I ended up yielding 62 grams of 99.999% silver. Luckily, because I almost tossed that sediment with the rest of it. Keep it froggy my friends.

I’ve had this bracelet for a few years now and it used to be 14k gold plated sterling. Now it’s sterling with a pale yellow glow. How do I get the “rest” of the gold off so it’s just a nice silver bracelet? I love the weight and feeling of it but the pale yellow is ugly now imo. Any suggestion’s appreciated :) TIA

I have never done any refining. I do have some casting experience. I’m wanting experiment with working with silver. I have access to buy these rings at about $1/gram. I could sell them as a lot on eBay, but I would only be able to keep 50% of the proceeds after fees so I’m thinking I might as well pay that approximate amount and keep them myself. Some are very nice, but nothing really valuable. What do you think? I want to get a crucible and try melting and casting, maybe with cuttle fish bone or oil and sand. I would remove the stones first of course. Or what is the learning curve and cost basis for refining this amount myself into .999? I have the ventilated space and some glass beakers already…what are your thoughts? Silver cell?

So I bought these from a seller on eBay. They were all supposed to be 5% plus AU and an alloy of gold filled materials.

By the time I got to an XRF and they tested more in the area of 1% AU, I was outside the window to return.

I can melt this up and cornflake it, but I’m concerned that if I use dilute nitric, I’m going to end up with a colloid.

I really not interested in adding Gold to it. Just not worth the risk that something goes sideways.

I thought about corn flaking it, and then doing HCI boils to remove as much as I can before using dilute nitric

Anyone have any ideas?

The use of microorganisms to extract copper from low grade ores promises to be much more cost efficient and less damaging to the environment, due to the rise in demand for copper globaly scientists and engineers are pioneering new and innovative ways to extract metals that are increasingly become scarce.

Hi yall, I’m hoping to start up my first silver cell in a couple weeks at 3.5L. Is there significant gas that is produced while the cell is running or can I get away with running it indoors? Sorry if this is a dumb question but I’m quite inexperienced with electrolytic refining. Appreciate any input, thanks!!

Hey everyone!

I’m hoping someone here might be able to point me in the right direction.

I’ve been searching for used laboratory equipment for a small-scale precious-metal refining project, and I’m realizing that finding affordable equipment is a lot harder than I expected.

I’m particularly looking into fume hoods and gas scrubbers suitable for hydrochloric acid, nitric acid, and aqua regia.

I’ve found a few older laboratory scrubbers on eBay, but I’m having trouble figuring out which ones are worth looking into and whether replacement parts are still available.

I’m also wondering if there’s a market for equipment being retired from universities, laboratories, or industrial facilities that I’m just not finding.

Ideally, I’d like something relatively compact that wouldn’t require permanently modifying my garage, although I’m open to hearing if that’s simply not realistic for this type of work.

For anyone who’s purchased secondhand lab equipment:

- Where did you find it?
- Are there particular manufacturers or models worth looking for?
- Are there any surplus dealers or auction websites you’d recommend?
- What should I watch out for when buying older fume hoods or scrubbers?
- Is a removable setup even feasible once you account for safe exhaust and gas treatment?

I’m not expecting a cheap air purifier to handle corrosive fumes. I’m trying to figure out whether there’s a practical way to obtain proper equipment without paying the price of an entirely new laboratory system.

I’d appreciate any advice or recommendations.
Thanks!

How i can extract tiny microscopic gold particles from soil , through chemically or by any means pls help

I have around 2 kg of soil or 4.409 lbs

If I search it just tells me about RAM fingers and cards but not the sockets. I can't tell if these contacts are gold plated but it looks like they're not. Anyone else mess with these?

My goal was a really aged hand hammered look on the front and to practice getting cooling lines in the back.

This was a first using wood to create the mold/pattern and looking for any feedback on the aesthetics...

It’s was only $65 on Amazon. It melted my cement in 5-8 minutes flat and got my first full ounce of smelted down cement. Worth every penny if you’re sick of torches!

I purchased a vintage glasses lot which was pre cleaned/sorted 113g of frames and 31g of pieces/hardware. I ran the hardware without any issues when sorting I did find 2 10k gold bridges I put to the side. Last night I ran the 113g of frames in nitric when I checked on them this morning there is a large pile of gray/white sedeament at the bottom. When running the 31g of parts I didn't encounter any sediment it was a clean run.

Look for help/advice on identifying the sedeament and is this going to cause an issue when it comes to rinsing. The glasses frames came out in large foils.

Pictures of the parts, frames, foils and sediment added.

Any assistance will be greatly appreciated.