Dummies Guide to GOLD bullion refining at home as a long term precious metal investment - made EASY

reply to post by Hessdalen


As far as I see this process does not use mercury. The man tried it with mercury... Besides you shouldn't be dumb enough to try this indoors without a vent hood.

reply to post by LarrofDanu


true - and all the combinations of materials these days + the acid....not my deal...only for professionals - besides in many parts of europe its forbidden to buy acids...especially the high potential ones that you need....more terror paranoia than in US and A

reply to post by tauristercus


You sir, are officially the man! and your effort is deeply appreciated for it's only through the spread of knowledge that we can begin to obtain our freedom... s+f to say the least.

Urea?

Could I not just use pee?

There does seem to be a post missing between neutralizing the nitric and scorching the potato.

S & F while waiting for the "fill"...

Thanks

Originally posted by jamesthegreat
reply to post by tauristercus

 

Im not sure if I have missed something, but how do you "drop the gold sediment" out of the yellow liquid that has been neutralised by the urea?

Darn ... thought I'd been as clear as possible
Once you've neutralized the nitric by repeatedly adding small quantities of urea until no more bubbling to be seen coming off the urea, simply add a small quantity of SMB and almost immediately you'll see a brown cloudiness start to form. This gets darker and darker and eventually all the brown material falls to the bottom of the container leaving a clear liquid behind.
This "brown sediment" at the bottom of the container is actually "raw gold", if I can use that term.

How is the powder extracted from the liquid?

Simply by VERY carefully pouring off the clear liquid into another container. Then add enough fresh clean water to cover the brown sediment, leave to stand until the brown sediment has re-settled on the bottom (because adding fresh water will most likely stir it up), then VERY carefully pour of the water into another container.
Repeat this adding water/let settle/pour off 3 times in total ... the aim being to completely dilute and pour of any remaining traces of acid.

On the last pour off, try to pour off as much water as possible leaving the brown sediment behind. Then just let the remaining water evaporate and the sediment to dry.

Do you dry the powder once it has been seperated?
Is that just a process of air drying?

Yes, air drying shouldn't take long at all.
The aim is to end up with just the brown sediment, which after it's been allowed to dry is now actually more of a powder.

reply to post by Sablicious


I jokingly thought that too, but the concentration isn't high enough and there are other trace stuff that might get in the way.

Originally posted by lonewolf10
very cool.

i'm wanting to start buying scrap gold from individuals, but how do i tell if its real/plated or fake?

When looking for scrap, old, broken, etc gold items at say garage or market sales, etc I carry a tiny plastic squeeze bottle containing a small quantity of 50:50 nitric/water mixture. Then I ask permission to put a very tiny drop onto the item in question. If it's gold or gold plated, there'll be no reaction (no fizzing) but if it's fake, then you'll see a slight fizzing and you can reject the item.
The little drop can be wiped off after the test with a damp tissue or "wet-one". No harm ir damage is done.

how much does it cost you in materials to refine a certain amount of gold?

Thats all going to depend on the cost of the acids in your part of the world ... can vary significantly.
Also depends on the quality or the gold content of the material you're about to process. If it contains a high gold content, then obviously the end result (gold button size) will be worth more as you haven't had to waste as much acid to dissolve copper, etc imputities.

Originally posted by hanyak69
Do you have a way to get Platinum out of plates, lol.
Man your are the man. McGyver for sure.
My silver alchemy is doing good I destroyed 3 potatoes, and my wife is hiding everything that has silver in it. However I am not going to tell her about the gold...this will be our secret......

Hahahaha ... well done !
The potatoes gave their "all" for a noble cause

Originally posted by Tholidor
There does seem to be a post missing between neutralizing the nitric and scorching the potato.

S & F while waiting for the "fill"...

Thanks

edit on 24-2-2012 by Tholidor because: (no reason given)

Darn ... you're absolutely correct that there IS a missing section ... sorry folks
I'll try and get a mod to insert it back into the correct post location.

In the meantime, this is the missing part that describes precipitating or "dropping" the gold.
It fits in between the existing 3rd and 4th post.

Continued from previous post ...
Now that the remaining nitric acid has been neutralized, we can now go ahead and successfully convert the dissolved gold back into a solid form ... in this case, as a brown precipitate that will settle on the bottom of the glass jar.

To create this precipitate, we now sprinkle approximately half a spoonful of Sodium Meta Bisulphite (MSB) into the yellow liquid.

After a few seconds, a brown cloudiness begins to form and spread throughout the yellow liquid. After a few minutes, the brown precipitate begins to fall and settle on the bottom of the glass jar and what was once yellow liquid, starts to turn clear. This colour change from yellow to clear is a sure sign that the dissolved gold is being removed out of solution and precipitated or "dropped" out.

Let the process continue for a couple of hours to ensure all the gold is precipitated.


At this point, looking into the glass jar, we should hopefully see 2 things:
1. What looks like brown "mud" or sediment covering the bottom of the glass jar, and
2. A completely clear liquid where it used to be yellow.


Now, trying very hard to not disturb the brown sediment, pour off as much of the clear liquid as possible into a bucket or other suitable container. Later, the discarded liquid in the bucket will be considerably diluted with plain water and then disposed of.
The sediment and what little liquid is left will be transferred to the empty and clean shallow glass bowl that we've been using earlier for a boiling water bath. Once transferred, add sufficient water to just cover the brown sediment, let the sediment settle again, then carefully pour off as much of the water as possible. We want to give the sediment a really good "wash" so repeat this a couple more times. On the last "wash" try to pour off the maximum amount of water (but not the sediment !) then let the glass bowl stand somewhere long enough until all the remaining liquid has naturally evaporated and the sediment is completely dry.


Continued next post ...

Originally posted by DISINFORMANT
reply to post by ANNED

 

D you use the Butler torch method?

I have used the Butler torch method in the field for rough work when prospecting . but for work at the mine i did the standard old time fire assay
Butler torch method is good down to about 1/4 ounce per ton and using a four crucible .ore melt i could read down to .001 ounces per ton and find areas for large pad leach mines like they run in Nevada

i love these do it yourself threads. hope i can do this someday.

reply to post by tauristercus


I too have read both the silver thread and this one on gold, and I want to congratulate you. The value in these threads is not so much in showing someone how to make a few bucks, because that is questionable. But even if more money is ultimately put out to experiment with these processes than can be reclaimed I believe it is still very valuable.

In these times I think there aren't many people who look beyond what is shown them by the media and school and they don't learn to discover things for themselves. I have always been one to find out how to do things that most people think 'normal' people can't do and everyone that knows me calls me a Rennaissance Man. I won't even get into that because I don't want to try to derail your thread, I just want to say that the value that you bring here is that maybe some people that read these posts will start to think in new ways and realize the potential of human ingenuity. I applaud you. If 5% of the people reading this try a few experiments then I think it was worth it.

I cant read the whole thing right now, but as far as i read, it was impressive and inspired me to maybe do it myself!!!

However, Urea.

I've heard it's also used to make coc aine and/or heroine. Do you need a permit or something for this?

I'm almost sure. Here in my country, there was a minor(should've been huge) scandal over the government giving the most important port of the country to a guy called Walid Makled, who was detained in the USA and extradited back here because he and his narco family were using the port for his drug smugglin/creating and transport. Urea was one of the things they found on the port and the main element that moved around the port.One of his brothers was also a mayor or something for Chavez's party(PSUV)


Quite irrelevant but informative nonetheless, just so you know why I have a doubt about Urea.
I don't know about the other Acids and stuff, i will finish reading tomorrow and find out about the status of those elements.

Star and Flag buddy!

reply to post by tauristercus


I am so tired of hearing about gold, frankly if the world falls apart a pile of gold will do you next to no good. Are you going to sell it to all those post apocalyptic Jewelers? The massive Tech market? If you want to be in a good spot when the world falls apart, Stock up on Water, Salt and Coffee. None of them require permits and as far as I know none of them are monitored by the government. Coffee is a far better investment then gold, regardless of what Commodities traders say. Gold IS more stable, but coffee is WAY cheaper, and even after the end of the world there will be a market for it. Drinking plain water gets REALLY old after a while, and half of the world is addicted to it.

Just my 2 cents.

My husband and I scrap metal for extra cash and a kind of hobby. This was a great post with lots of easy to follow information. I just have a few questions.

When you are using water to rinse the gold, are you using regular old tap water or distilled water? I assume distilled since you are trying to get rid of impurities, but I never saw you mention it.

When you get a decent amount of gold, where do you sell it? Are there any places you would suggest not trying to sell it?

And lastly, someone mentioned copper. Copper is something we have been hanging on to, as well as aluminum, and I was wondering if you had any interest in copper. Do you have any tips, especially for cables/wires? Scrappers typically either strip copper wires or burn them (illegally). Stripping is a pain in the butt and takes hours, and burning is not only illegal but it lowers the value of the copper. So any secret tips would be great. We have boxes of unstripped copper wire because we don't have the time to mess with it.

reply to post by tport17


If you want the copper then you have to strip it. There are no shortcuts in life.

reply to post by wtbengineer


Actually they could use Zink, Gallium, or Germanium to "drop" the copper the same way the silver was dropped.
That only works if the Copper was dissolved in the solution the way it is when you work with the silver.
Though at that point your using an expensive metal to reclaim a really expensive metal and the cost to profit margins are probably negative if you factor supplies and time of effort.

You're right about the wire though the only way to get to that would be to sit there and strip it.
Dedicate 1-2 hours a night to strip while watching TV, eventually all the wire would be stripped.

Originally posted by wtbengineer
reply to post by tport17

 

If you want the copper then you have to strip it. There are no shortcuts in life.

You know..people say that but then someone comes out with some new device or idea that is a wonderful shortcut to some previous laborious task. Perhaps there is a shortcut we haven't heard about yet? And if not, someone get on that would ya?!

reply to post by Pigraphia


Yep, takes time. You have to balance all that and ask yourself if it's woth it.