I'm sure people will look at this and the end product and think "oh wow look at all of that gold", but the great thing about these videos is you can also see how much effort and cost goes into it. You have the energy costs, time investment, materials cost, reagents, and then all of the equipment too such as your fume hood, beakers, glasses, torches, furnace, crucible, ultrasonic cleaner and so forth. It must be quite the investment to get to the stage where you can actually produce the beautiful pure gold (and silver) like you do. Fascinating to watch as always.
I don't know what I have going on. I keep getting a layer of white powdery substance on the bottom of my beaker of dilute nitric solution that has gold filled scrap. Any idea's of what this substance is? I diluted with distilled water.
@@sreetips Thank you so much for your time. Very appreciated! What should i do? If I try to filter I will have it and the gold in filter. It looks like silver chloride to my inexperienced eyes. Well it's not Silver chloride. I just did your test with hcl in some of the solution. No real reaction. Just a quick green splash. I almost forgot. I wanted to tell you about some Hcl that I came across that is supposed to be user friendly. It's called Acid Magic and is 31.45%
@@sreetips No worries, Thank you! I did a nitric boil and dissolved all the sediment into solution. It cleared up pretty well. I filtered it all, rinsed with distilled water, and now I have it in fresh diluted nitric. Got a awesome reaction now. Hopefully I'm on the path to success.
Sreetips: We're going to drip some nitric acid into our reaction. Sreetips: Let's go ahead and add more nitric acid Sreetips: You know what we need? More nitric acid! Love these videos! I like to play a game and take a shot whenever you say nitric acid. I had to stop the other day on one of your longer videos lol. Keep up the great work educating the world on this awesome process!
Good morning excellent video as always thank you 😊!!!! So I have an idea on your fume hood exhaust if you put in a jtrap in with a drain at the bottom with a valve to drain into a bottle you can recover some of the nitric acid from your exhaust instead of venting it into the air !!! You can also cool the j trap with cold water and recover your acid
I can't help but think how handy it would be to have a tap that screwed on to your nitric bottle then you could feed the acid through the tap and a pipe straight in to your reaction. I guess it would need a vent pipe to stop the bottle sucking in and then some way to hang it upside down in your fume hood. I'm no refiner or chemist none the less thanks for making these videos, I love to watch them.
I got suspended for a week , . That whole week my Grandma had me crack and pick out hickory nuts . So to make your watch bands easier crack and pick out hickory nuts until you get a cool whip bowl full . Then you will look forward to watch bands .Just trying to help
Those ultrasonic machines are interesting. I bet you could hook one up to your waste container, to make it drop everything in record time. Possibly even make your refining go faster. It seems like it would remove the scale as soon as it formed, letting the acid be in contact with the metals more often.
Them piles of gold stuff be good to run the gold cell with maybe I'm sure it would take way more then that to keep it going for an extended time like the silver cell though
I’ve been refining gold filled material specifically for the past 14 months straight as a source of income from large lots purchased nicer time, I’ve done yields on each individual piece/type to see what is worth the time, labor to prepare for nitric, total yield and of course initial cost. Pocket watches, bangles, and charm bracelets are by far the best and easiest to get into avid fastest, while having amazing yields. Watches (bands included) although can be significantly lower in cost, just take too much time to prepare for nitric processing. As a FYI, I DID inquart gold filled once as an experiment to see if I could speed up the time in nitric. Results were yes it does speed it up, however there is a huge amount of purple gold nano particles flying around in the nitric, making it hard to see much, especially the overal saturation of the nitrate water, and filtering sometimes must be done twice through Buchner to catch small particles. (Learned that trick from you!)
When I first started, I melted some silver once. I didn’t wear a respirator and breathed the fumes from the melt. The next day I was sick in bed with flu-like symptoms. Turns out there’s an illness called “welders fever” and I must have gotten it from breathing those fumes from melting silver. I always wear a mask whenever I do a melt. Learned my lesson the hard way.
Thank you for all your videos, I learn a lot from you and they help tremendously. I was wondering though if there is a way to refine gold filled material without nitric acid. I watched the one you did for karat gold with products you can buy easily at the hardware store. I do it more as a hobby so I haven’t tried to find nitric acid but if there is a way I can do it with items I already have or that I can just pick up when I go to the store then that would be awesome to try it out. If it’s possible could you try and make a video of refining gold filled with house hold products, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you for all that you do and I tell everyone about your channel so they can check out your work.
Sr, I have saved up a large box of gold filled watch bands I'm going to send you…😉 Good idea with the nitric savings. I'll see you in part II. I'm thinking the pure gold you're left with from the gold filled scrap is going to be a bit more than your prediction.
I try to pay attention to logic and sequence tailored for those who know nothing about refining. But even then, you can’t expect to understand the concepts after watching just one video. Refining batches of gold is like landing an airplane. Each one is the same yet they’re all different, based on many variables.
I’m sure you’ve probably considered this but could you mount the nitric delivery system into the wall of the fume hood itself? Or are the walls not thick enough to support the weight of the liquid? Just though a mounted fixture would be more efficient instead of having to put the whole apparatus into the fume hood over and over again.
I used to spare some pieces. I would list them on my eBay site. They didn’t sell because nobody wanted them. So I recovered the gold. So now I just save myself the trouble of listing, and scrap em out.
Thank you for another great one sir ! Got a quick question for you . Have you ever done or thought about smelting your watch bands instead of peeling them ? I realize It would then Become the inquartation process as well But wouldn’t it release all steel and the steel float to the surface or at least remain in the bottom of the crucible while you pour shot just like it does when melting brass or copper polluted with steel ? I don’t know if that’s a viable option for the acid processing but for the time of prep work it would save it would be monumental that is if it is possible . If you could let me know that would be amazing I have a decent little bit I have been saving myself I need to process and I’m more versed in smelting then the inquartation process . Sorry for the long winded comment thank you again for everything sir !
It's possibly more of a cost issue. Melting it all together means using more gas for the melt and then using more acid to separate the gold chemically when it can just be done by hand, instead.
I have some thick gold plated ex missile parts, I have nitric acid, but I was considering a HCl and Peroxide treatment at 60C.....Would you advise just Nitric the base metals out........And btw another fantastic video I keep telling refiners to subscribe to your page.
Steetips, could you have just added the karat gold right in with the gold filled and saved a bit on inquarting and nitric acid? Would the nitric not break down the base metals in karat gold the same as gold filled?
I have watched many of your videos and I’ve been interested in refining metals for some years now. I’m to the point where I would like a shot in doing this. There are so many questions I have, before I get started and would love to pick your brain a bit. I don’t want to hit the pavement running, but I also don’t want to do things wrong or waste money. I would like to start making small bars of metals to leave for my kids and also to cash in for my family. I’d like to get in touch with you and ask the questions. Thank you
Daniel, unfortunately I don’t offer training or tutoring. Please ask here in the comments. Others may have the same question. I try to read and answer all comments. Thank you
Love your videos. I want to add watch repair to my bench jeweler resume but im having a very hard time finding watches worth repairing. If you have any mechanical watches you would like to sell i would be interested in purchasing them.
With the GF scrap, does the karat rating refer to the thickness of the gold essentially? IE relatively pure gold on top of a base metal instead of being an alloy, hence the lack of needing an inquarting step?
No. The thickness is determined by the fraction in front of the karat. For example 1/20 14k will have a thicker coating of 14k over the brass than 1/40 14k. But both will be 14k gold layer.
People don't realize just how dangerous playing around with acid is, if you can smell it then the damage is already done, i would watch this clips with passion so i bought everything i needed and started to try my hand, i accidently exposed myself to the vapors, my eyes became a blur and it took me for ever to get my voice back as my vocal cords were damaged also... and that for just an instance of exposure. If you are not equipped with a fumehood DO NOT TRY THESE proceedures
Well said. When I first started thirteen years ago, I ignored this and did refining in my back yard. Approaching the reaction from the upwind, as I got close the wind currents wrapped around my body from behind and pulled the deadly fumes right into my face. Holding my breath and turning walking ten paces away, when I finally took a breath I could still smell the fumes. They get in your hair, eyes, clothes, skin, and in your lungs no matter what. Today I suffer from impaired lung function. The only way to safely do these reactions is in a fume hood where the vapors are drawn away from your work area. Can’t afford one? Then forget about refining. Or, you can pay with your lungs and eyes.
I have a question. You advised caution when using your torch to burn off grease, papers, etc in the melt dish before you put your gold filled scrap into your breaker because you don't want to melt any base metals to avoid creating an alloy. Which you mentioned would be a more difficult reaction. Could you elaborate on that please?
Melt the gold and it will mix (alloy) with the brass and form a fine powder that’s hard to filter. Avoid melting and the foils are much easier to recover
I heard you say that if the scrap melts together it makes it difficult to refine. How is that? And why would you not be able to melt it all as scrap and pour it in water to get shot and dissolve it that way so you have more surface area to make the refining go faster? I’m just curious I love your videos!
As you go through all these objects/jewels do you ever find something mysterious or hidden? Messages, pictures maybe? Or maybe even other foreign objects? Just curious :) Also I noticed an early digital watch (with red LED display) amongst the other watches... is it for sale?
I find pictures from time to time. It’s a pulsar with red digital display. I put batteries in and it came on but the display is not right. Needs some work.
Please forgive me if this is an ignorant question. Is it possible to grind up all the material on some sort of disc or belt sander and do nitric boils on ground up material to increase surface area of the base metals and dissolve it faster? I guess it's similar to when you've done jewelers filings in the past. Thank you.
Are all gold products worth recovery? Example is thin gold plate cost effective to refine. If you rated them what would your expected yield be for different items vs cost of chemicals. I find the process interesting and was just wondering
Brother, after a few years watching vids we would like start Experiment with refining. checking the supplier it seems chemicals can be gotten in several % purity. the quest is, should we just go for highest or would the cheaper less pure do for our purposes. also, there seem be several types of paper/material to use for with buechner or funnel, which to use for which purpose. perhaps you have done or could do a vid on starting your own lab at serval stages, very much interested in your opinion. thanks a lot ...
Precious metals assay in parts per thousand. So less expensive technical grade chemicals can be used. They aren’t as pure as ACS (American Chemical Standards) but they work fine for refining gold and silver. I get many of my chemicals at Ace Hardware
ok, I’m hardly experienced in any of this, but…if you weigh out the beaker and liquid for a beginning weight and then add metal hot enough to make steam, are you not reducing the beginning weight of the beaker/water and thereby providing an incorrect actual metal weight?
How can you tell if it’s gold filled or plated when your purchasing it. You can’t do any tests on other people’s jewelry so you have to determine what it is when you buy it.
If I can’t test it, then I hand it back to them and walk away. If they’re selling then they shouldn’t be concerned with me testing because they are getting rid of it anyway. But if they refuse then that’s a big red flag. Same with gold and silver in plastic containers. If they want paper dollars then they won’t mind if I open it to ensure authenticity. If they say no, then that’s a rip off that there’s something to hide.
Would it be easier to place the steel pieces into some sulfuric acid and let it sit for a few weeks or so until the iron has dissolved? then process the remains for copper and gold.
hi there sreetips watch your vids with interest but would not attempt what you do as i havent the equipment or know how but it is fascinating i wonder if you or any other viewers for that matter can inform me if it states one tenth or one twentieth rolled gold etc is this a reflection of the percentage the gold weighs of the whole weight of the article and is it accurate? thankyou
Yo Mr Sreetips, You should reach out to Jason from Mt Baker Mining and Metals, he's on UA-cam. He could hook you up with a hammer mill and shaker table that would make metal separation a breeze
He’s a miner. I’m a refiner. Two totally different operations. He works with metals out of the ground. I work with metals already above the ground. But I’m in touch with him and he wants to collaborate. So do I.
I may just have missed it or I may just be slow, but why two containers where one is having nitric acid dripped into it but the other you just pour it in…?
Renee, at first, adding the nitric by drip is critical because there’s lots of hot metal that will react violently with the nitric and cause it to boil over easily. After some of the metal has been dissolved then the nitric can be added much faster because there’s much less metal to react with the nitric as it’s poured in.
I learn something new each time I watch your videos! Thank you Chief!
I'm sure people will look at this and the end product and think "oh wow look at all of that gold", but the great thing about these videos is you can also see how much effort and cost goes into it.
You have the energy costs, time investment, materials cost, reagents, and then all of the equipment too such as your fume hood, beakers, glasses, torches, furnace, crucible, ultrasonic cleaner and so forth. It must be quite the investment to get to the stage where you can actually produce the beautiful pure gold (and silver) like you do. Fascinating to watch as always.
Watching this, I find myself instinctively leaning back and holding my breath!
I wish I could do this so badly. You getter better results that some refiners I Anna send to
“These GF watch bands” sounds like you might mean “G-d Forsaken”…🤣🤣🤣
Cheers and thanks for the education!
🖖😎👍
love your videos learned so many good things and loved all your fails as i wondered them myself .. You saved me the 1st hand learning experience.
Another great video. Thank you so much for doing what you do. It's always a treat for chem nerds like myself.
I dont know why as an engineer i find your channel so fascinating. I think its manipulating the noble metal gold with such ease.
i look forward to part 2 and seeing the beautiful gold bar made from this refining. stay Blessed
I like seeing you do two at the same time!!
Always a good time! Videos are excellent! Thank you!
I don't know what I have going on. I keep getting a layer of white powdery substance on the bottom of my beaker of dilute nitric solution that has gold filled scrap. Any idea's of what this substance is? I diluted with distilled water.
Probably a piece of plated junk metal got thrown in by mistake.
@@sreetips Thank you so much for your time. Very appreciated! What should i do? If I try to filter I will have it and the gold in filter. It looks like silver chloride to my inexperienced eyes. Well it's not Silver chloride. I just did your test with hcl in some of the solution. No real reaction. Just a quick green splash. I almost forgot. I wanted to tell you about some Hcl that I came across that is supposed to be user friendly. It's called Acid Magic and is 31.45%
Sorry, I don’t know what to tell you
@@sreetips No worries, Thank you! I did a nitric boil and dissolved all the sediment into solution. It cleared up pretty well. I filtered it all, rinsed with distilled water, and now I have it in fresh diluted nitric. Got a awesome reaction now. Hopefully I'm on the path to success.
Senior Chief, you DEFINITELY need a larger fume hood!
It would be like a breath of fresh air
Great work as always - thank you for your fantastic attention to detail.
Sreetips: We're going to drip some nitric acid into our reaction.
Sreetips: Let's go ahead and add more nitric acid
Sreetips: You know what we need? More nitric acid!
Love these videos! I like to play a game and take a shot whenever you say nitric acid. I had to stop the other day on one of your longer videos lol. Keep up the great work educating the world on this awesome process!
Gooood morning from central Florida! Hope everyone has a great day!
Good use of the NADS, Nitric Acid Delivery System.
Good job master. Thank you. let's go to part 2.
I find these videos very fascinating and quite relaxing. Thank you for sharing. 😀
I enjoy every video you post. Thank you for consistently providing great content to your audience.
This is sergeant craphead here to say thanks for sharing
Good morning excellent video as always thank you 😊!!!! So I have an idea on your fume hood exhaust if you put in a jtrap in with a drain at the bottom with a valve to drain into a bottle you can recover some of the nitric acid from your exhaust instead of venting it into the air !!! You can also cool the j trap with cold water and recover your acid
When Sreetips said the gold foils are "empty shells of what they used to be"..... I felt that
Definitely ready for part 2!!!! Excited to see that gold bar!!
Woohoo!! I love surprise gold videos! Thanks sreetips!
…just hollow shells of what they used to be…. Ouch. I can relate. 😩😂😂
Awesome video, thank you so much for doing the work you do.
Perfect timing for chow! Thanks Man!
Man, I’d buy you and the Mrs a really nice dinner to know how you get so many pieces, lol. Cheers bud, good video.
I can't help but think how handy it would be to have a tap that screwed on to your nitric bottle then you could feed the acid through the tap and a pipe straight in to your reaction. I guess it would need a vent pipe to stop the bottle sucking in and then some way to hang it upside down in your fume hood. I'm no refiner or chemist none the less thanks for making these videos, I love to watch them.
Thanks It is absolutely impressive on how you do what you do! Not that I would ever attempt any of this myself!😁
Thanks for the video! Always very interesting!
Hard work! Looking forward to the next part 😄!
Fascinating to watch. Hope you and family are doing well :)
Very cool. Keep the videos coming!
hello tips.,.,tkzz for the vid.,.,good stuff as always.,.,peace
Looking forward to seeing part 2!
Nice content again in getting high priority gold thanks for sharing.
Love the videos. The gold filled scrap requires a lot of nitric
I got suspended for a week , . That whole week my Grandma had me crack and pick out hickory nuts . So to make your watch bands easier crack and pick out hickory nuts until you get a cool whip bowl full . Then you will look forward to watch bands .Just trying to help
Those ultrasonic machines are interesting. I bet you could hook one up to your waste container, to make it drop everything in record time. Possibly even make your refining go faster. It seems like it would remove the scale as soon as it formed, letting the acid be in contact with the metals more often.
Now that's an interesting idea! Wort a try, I'd wager?
I tried it with negative results.
@@sreetips That you've already tried speaks for you and your scientific approach to matters.
Always a pleasure to watch your videos, sir!
@@sreetipsdarn. Thanks for trying.
Way to stay busy when doing gf material excellent video sir five stars
Them piles of gold stuff be good to run the gold cell with maybe I'm sure it would take way more then that to keep it going for an extended time like the silver cell though
Awesome video as always
Thanks for the content!
That's going to take a while to sort through that material. But i guess it'll be well worth it in the end when you pull a nice bar of gold from it!
I’ve been refining gold filled material specifically for the past 14 months straight as a source of income from large lots purchased nicer time, I’ve done yields on each individual piece/type to see what is worth the time, labor to prepare for nitric, total yield and of course initial cost.
Pocket watches, bangles, and charm bracelets are by far the best and easiest to get into avid fastest, while having amazing yields.
Watches (bands included) although can be significantly lower in cost, just take too much time to prepare for nitric processing.
As a FYI, I DID inquart gold filled once as an experiment to see if I could speed up the time in nitric. Results were yes it does speed it up, however there is a huge amount of purple gold nano particles flying around in the nitric, making it hard to see much, especially the overal saturation of the nitrate water, and filtering sometimes must be done twice through Buchner to catch small particles. (Learned that trick from you!)
My experience matches yours
Long time viewer…seeing your fume hood rebuild and what not, have you ever gotten sick from any of the fumes accidentally? Any Veteran stories?
When I first started, I melted some silver once. I didn’t wear a respirator and breathed the fumes from the melt. The next day I was sick in bed with flu-like symptoms. Turns out there’s an illness called “welders fever” and I must have gotten it from breathing those fumes from melting silver. I always wear a mask whenever I do a melt. Learned my lesson the hard way.
@@sreetips whoa, I braze with silver solders a lot. I wasn't ever told anything about fumes from silver.
@@aredditor4272 Last time I bought some silver solder, it came with a long list of warnings.
@@torchandhammer I'll bet, but I'm referring to my HVACR schooling in 1980. Since then, I don't read solder product lables.
Thank you for all your videos, I learn a lot from you and they help tremendously. I was wondering though if there is a way to refine gold filled material without nitric acid. I watched the one you did for karat gold with products you can buy easily at the hardware store. I do it more as a hobby so I haven’t tried to find nitric acid but if there is a way I can do it with items I already have or that I can just pick up when I go to the store then that would be awesome to try it out. If it’s possible could you try and make a video of refining gold filled with house hold products, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you for all that you do and I tell everyone about your channel so they can check out your work.
Hello Ray, that’s not a bad idea. Thank you
I bought some of your silver crystals 😊🎉🎉❤
Thank you. They have been shipped.
Heck yeah, i just found you and i get an awesome video!!!!
Welcome and thank you!
Sr, I have saved up a large box of gold filled watch bands I'm going to send you…😉
Good idea with the nitric savings. I'll see you in part II. I'm thinking the pure gold you're left with from the gold filled scrap is going to be a bit more than your prediction.
Hello Mr sreetips. I am see forward to the next clip😊
Hope you and Mrs sreetips have a lovley weekend 😊
Take care, and god bless you both🎉
Gold-filled refining can be tedious. But, it's got to be done! I have 1.5 kilos fairly clean GF to go through.
i know its written on it, but i have a tough time determining what is what, your video helps a lot for experiece of course.
I try to pay attention to logic and sequence tailored for those who know nothing about refining. But even then, you can’t expect to understand the concepts after watching just one video. Refining batches of gold is like landing an airplane. Each one is the same yet they’re all different, based on many variables.
@@sreetips glad im not crazy, i will rewatch as many time as i need to understand fully. Thanks again for the explanation and the video ofc. :)
Awaiting for part 2)
Already posted
@@sreetips I've just seen it. Subscribed now. :) Thanks for reply)
Yay,new video for my birthday today
I have been waiting on this
I’m sure you’ve probably considered this but could you mount the nitric delivery system into the wall of the fume hood itself? Or are the walls not thick enough to support the weight of the liquid? Just though a mounted fixture would be more efficient instead of having to put the whole apparatus into the fume hood over and over again.
Possibly
Thanks..im super happy you uploaded a video tonight.
Do you ever see a very nice antique looking piece or something, and spare it from the acid?
I used to spare some pieces. I would list them on my eBay site. They didn’t sell because nobody wanted them. So I recovered the gold. So now I just save myself the trouble of listing, and scrap em out.
Thank you for another great one sir ! Got a quick question for you . Have you ever done or thought about smelting your watch bands instead of peeling them ? I realize It would then Become the inquartation process as well But wouldn’t it release all steel and the steel float to the surface or at least remain in the bottom of the crucible while you pour shot just like it does when melting brass or copper polluted with steel ? I don’t know if that’s a viable option for the acid processing but for the time of prep work it would save it would be monumental that is if it is possible . If you could let me know that would be amazing I have a decent little bit I have been saving myself I need to process and I’m more versed in smelting then the inquartation process . Sorry for the long winded comment thank you again for everything sir !
It's possibly more of a cost issue. Melting it all together means using more gas for the melt and then using more acid to separate the gold chemically when it can just be done by hand, instead.
I have some thick gold plated ex missile parts, I have nitric acid, but I was considering a HCl and Peroxide treatment at 60C.....Would you advise just Nitric the base metals out........And btw another fantastic video I keep telling refiners to subscribe to your page.
Thank you. I’ve never worked with the parts you are referring. No experience with that. Sorry
Steetips, could you have just added the karat gold right in with the gold filled and saved a bit on inquarting and nitric acid? Would the nitric not break down the base metals in karat gold the same as gold filled?
I don’t want karat gold in the GF due to the presence of tin and lead in the GF material.
I have watched many of your videos and I’ve been interested in refining metals for some years now. I’m to the point where I would like a shot in doing this.
There are so many questions I have, before I get started and would love to pick your brain a bit. I don’t want to hit the pavement running, but I also don’t want to do things wrong or waste money. I would like to start making small bars of metals to leave for my kids and also to cash in for my family.
I’d like to get in touch with you and ask the questions.
Thank you
Daniel, unfortunately I don’t offer training or tutoring. Please ask here in the comments. Others may have the same question. I try to read and answer all comments. Thank you
Love your videos. I want to add watch repair to my bench jeweler resume but im having a very hard time finding watches worth repairing. If you have any mechanical watches you would like to sell i would be interested in purchasing them.
I have four old wind up watches listed on my eBay site. There’s a video of them posted three or four days ago
11:05 maybe a couple grams more than 1102g due to couple mls/g of water evaporation from the hot medal cooling
No, a couple grams of water won’t affect the yield
With the GF scrap, does the karat rating refer to the thickness of the gold essentially? IE relatively pure gold on top of a base metal instead of being an alloy, hence the lack of needing an inquarting step?
No. The thickness is determined by the fraction in front of the karat. For example 1/20 14k will have a thicker coating of 14k over the brass than 1/40 14k. But both will be 14k gold layer.
3:33 I'm curious what criteria might you consider to save time w/a purchase of something like an XRF spectrometer?
Too expensive for my small hobby operation.
People don't realize just how dangerous playing around with acid is, if you can smell it then the damage is already done, i would watch this clips with passion so i bought everything i needed and started to try my hand, i accidently exposed myself to the vapors, my eyes became a blur and it took me for ever to get my voice back as my vocal cords were damaged also... and that for just an instance of exposure. If you are not equipped with a fumehood DO NOT TRY THESE proceedures
Well said. When I first started thirteen years ago, I ignored this and did refining in my back yard. Approaching the reaction from the upwind, as I got close the wind currents wrapped around my body from behind and pulled the deadly fumes right into my face. Holding my breath and turning walking ten paces away, when I finally took a breath I could still smell the fumes. They get in your hair, eyes, clothes, skin, and in your lungs no matter what. Today I suffer from impaired lung function. The only way to safely do these reactions is in a fume hood where the vapors are drawn away from your work area. Can’t afford one? Then forget about refining. Or, you can pay with your lungs and eyes.
I have a question. You advised caution when using your torch to burn off grease, papers, etc in the melt dish before you put your gold filled scrap into your breaker because you don't want to melt any base metals to avoid creating an alloy. Which you mentioned would be a more difficult reaction.
Could you elaborate on that please?
Melt the gold and it will mix (alloy) with the brass and form a fine powder that’s hard to filter. Avoid melting and the foils are much easier to recover
Believe me I was accepting your video and got a notification 🤣
I heard you say that if the scrap melts together it makes it difficult to refine. How is that? And why would you not be able to melt it all as scrap and pour it in water to get shot and dissolve it that way so you have more surface area to make the refining go faster? I’m just curious I love your videos!
Alloy makes very fine particles. More difficult to recover.
This is magic to me
As you go through all these objects/jewels do you ever find something mysterious or hidden? Messages, pictures maybe? Or maybe even other foreign objects? Just curious :) Also I noticed an early digital watch (with red LED display) amongst the other watches... is it for sale?
I find pictures from time to time. It’s a pulsar with red digital display. I put batteries in and it came on but the display is not right. Needs some work.
Thank you for the info. I sent you a mail with a few more questions
This one took a lot of nitric. How much nitric acid do you typically go through in, say, a month?
About one 2.5 liter bottle per month
@@sreetips Between this video and part 2 you used that much on just this refinement. So this is just an outlier?
I do gold filled about once every six or eight months.
21:14 wow that smoke on the carrot gold is super dark orange
Please forgive me if this is an ignorant question. Is it possible to grind up all the material on some sort of disc or belt sander and do nitric boils on ground up material to increase surface area of the base metals and dissolve it faster? I guess it's similar to when you've done jewelers filings in the past. Thank you.
Possibly
Can gold filled scrap be processed in a sulfuric stripping cell? Seems way cheaper than many litres of nitric
I don’t know, I’ve never tried it
Are all gold products worth recovery? Example is thin gold plate cost effective to refine. If you rated them what would your expected yield be for different items vs cost of chemicals.
I find the process interesting and was just wondering
Karat gold - 50% by weight
Gold filled - 2.5% by weight
Gold plated - 0.0001% by weight
Arrr that's me pirate boots matie ☠️
Not sure if you've explained this anywhere else, but where do you get your gold material from?
His wife buys it from ebay ect, then sreetips refines it, have a good day!
Yards sales, consignment shops, estate sales, resale shops, thrift stores, flea market, etc
Brother,
after a few years watching vids we would like start Experiment with refining.
checking the supplier it seems chemicals can be gotten in several % purity.
the quest is, should we just go for highest or would the cheaper less pure do for our purposes.
also, there seem be several types of paper/material to use for with buechner or funnel,
which to use for which purpose.
perhaps you have done or could do a vid on starting your own lab at serval stages,
very much interested in your opinion.
thanks a lot ...
Precious metals assay in parts per thousand. So less expensive technical grade chemicals can be used. They aren’t as pure as ACS (American Chemical Standards) but they work fine for refining gold and silver. I get many of my chemicals at Ace Hardware
I find that those watch band tops are better of Refining separate … because the metal part is left in tack and you have to manually remove them
I absolutely loath them. They hurt my fingers, my back, my eyes, they are a scourge! But they have good on em.
ok, I’m hardly experienced in any of this, but…if you weigh out the beaker and liquid for a beginning weight and then add metal hot enough to make steam, are you not reducing the beginning weight of the beaker/water and thereby providing an incorrect actual metal weight?
Yes, but it’s insignificant and won’t change the yield
How can you tell if it’s gold filled or plated when your purchasing it. You can’t do any tests on other people’s jewelry so you have to determine what it is when you buy it.
If I can’t test it, then I hand it back to them and walk away. If they’re selling then they shouldn’t be concerned with me testing because they are getting rid of it anyway. But if they refuse then that’s a big red flag. Same with gold and silver in plastic containers. If they want paper dollars then they won’t mind if I open it to ensure authenticity. If they say no, then that’s a rip off that there’s something to hide.
Sorry for asking,what do you do with the waste.
No problem, waste treatment
you seem to use a lot of nitric acid for these videos, do you ever try and recover pure nitric from the waste that you pour off?
I add silver to consume the excess nitric
I want to see you sorting out the stones
From the green flame I'm betting there is a lot of copper.
Probably
Would it be easier to place the steel pieces into some sulfuric acid and let it sit for a few weeks or so until the iron has dissolved? then process the remains for copper and gold.
I don’t know
@@sreetips if so it should reduce the manpower needed to process materials.
Can’t help notice you wear a gold watch - do you have to resist your natural urge to melt it - or is it already 24k gold
Yes, sometimes I’m overcome by a terrible urge to yank it off my arm and throw it in the acid - it’s horrifying and I can’t help myself.
Seeing your shirt sleeve may have acid damage? Have you had any bad spills or accidents before?
Minor, thankfully.
hi there sreetips watch your vids with interest but would not attempt what you do as i havent the equipment or know how but it is fascinating
i wonder if you or any other viewers for that matter can inform me
if it states one tenth or one twentieth rolled gold etc is this a reflection of the percentage the gold weighs of the whole weight of the article and is it accurate? thankyou
You are correct. 1/10 14k will have more gold than 1/20 14k
@@sreetips thankyou for your reply
cant wait to see the yield
Looks like its time to make the extreme size fume hood one that has 2x space
That would be like a breath of fresh air
Yo Mr Sreetips,
You should reach out to Jason from Mt Baker Mining and Metals, he's on UA-cam. He could hook you up with a hammer mill and shaker table that would make metal separation a breeze
He’s a miner. I’m a refiner. Two totally different operations. He works with metals out of the ground. I work with metals already above the ground. But I’m in touch with him and he wants to collaborate. So do I.
How strong must the nitric be for silver refining?
The bottle on my nitric says 68% to 70%
I was hopeing ud put one out tonight!
On the inquarted gold, why did you only add Nitric acid, and not HCL, too?
Inquarted with silver. We don’t want HCl anywhere near until all the silver has been removed by the nitric boils.
@@sreetips I thought that Aqua Regia removed everything but the gold in inquarted gold.
@@sreetips Or maybe I misunderstood. Aqua Regia dissolves everything, so first you get out the silver, and then the gold with Aqua Regia - got it.
I may just have missed it or I may just be slow, but why two containers where one is having nitric acid dripped into it but the other you just pour it in…?
Renee, at first, adding the nitric by drip is critical because there’s lots of hot metal that will react violently with the nitric and cause it to boil over easily. After some of the metal has been dissolved then the nitric can be added much faster because there’s much less metal to react with the nitric as it’s poured in.
Do you ever have pieces of gold filled scrap where the gold surface is so 'flawless' that the nitric can't penetrate to the base metal?
I’ve never seen that happen