My real passion - Prospecting

[bc.gold 3,403]

I did not know carbon brushes had silver in them.

 

 

 

[bc.gold 3,403]

Testing some worn out starter brushes for silver, when the brush is heated the silver sweats out in little beads maybe while their good and hot a centrifuge would bring all the silver out.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 2, 2021 by bcgold

[bc.gold 3,403]

Grabbed a couple of starters from the copper barrel at the farm while using a zip cut blade to cut the long bolts that hold the end in place, sparks from the zip ignited some titanium oxide from some pieces laying on the shop floor.

 

Large flash with lots of smoke kinda caught me by surprise, I was aware that titanium does some strange things if you cut or grind it but holy smoke never expected a huge flash to take place.

 

Now have 161 grams of brushes, I don't thing the newer ones have as much silver in them as I could not get any to sweat out while burning off the oil and grease but did see some evidence of silver.

 

If there is enough oxide left I'll see if i can recreate the event on camera.

 

Many years ago was trying to make magnesium powder  from an old chainsaw on a belt sander, catching the dust from the dust collector in a sock, unexpectedly hit a metal screw and poof my duct work and everything including the sock was gone in an instant, magnesium gives off a lot more smoke than the titanium did.

 

So much for my pyrotechnics project, I think my guardian angels are trying to tell me something.

 

Edited March 3, 2021 by bcgold

[Jeff-C175 7,202]

40 minutes ago, bcgold said:

pyrotechnics project

 

When we were kids we used to fool with home made PT 'devices'.  We had an old magnesium wheel that we used to file powder off of to include in our 'devices'.  We were young, foolish, and invincible.  We DID file it outdoors though...

 

When those devices went off, I can attest to the BRIGHT! flash, and copious smoke.

 

Ahhhh, the days when one could purchase black powder and cannon fuse with their paper route money, over the counter without any ID.  Kids today don't know what they're missing!

 

[bc.gold 3,403]

29 minutes ago, Jeff-C175 said:

 

When we were kids we used to fool with home made PT 'devices'.  We had an old magnesium wheel that we used to file powder off of to include in our 'devices'.  We were young, foolish, and invincible.  We DID file it outdoors though...

 

When those devices went off, I can attest to the BRIGHT! flash, and copious smoke.

 

Ahhhh, the days when one could purchase black powder and cannon fuse with their paper route money, over the counter without any ID.  Kids today don't know what they're missing!

 

 

Then you probably made a marble gun from a piece of pipe loaded with a five inch firecracker bomb.

 

After finding a small roll of cordite thinking it was fuse set a match to it, lesson learned " I " now know the difference between cordite and fuse.

Edited March 3, 2021 by bcgold

[Jeff-C175 7,202]

Just now, bcgold said:

marble gun

 

yes, of course!  We also discovered that the metal pipe concreted into the ground for the clothes drying 'tree' (remember those?) was the perfect size for a cherry bomb with a golf ball on top.  I hope nobody ever got hurt or proptery damaged when those golf balls eventually landed... we never found a one of them!

[bc.gold 3,403]

2 minutes ago, Jeff-C175 said:

 

yes, of course!  We also discovered that the metal pipe concreted into the ground for the clothes drying 'tree' (remember those?) was the perfect size for a cherry bomb with a golf ball on top.  I hope nobody ever got hurt or proptery damaged when those golf balls eventually landed... we never found a one of them!

 

I was never able to master a sling and never knew where the ammo was coming down.

 

Ancient Weapons – Sling

 

 

 

[bc.gold 3,403]

On 3/2/2021 at 12:54 PM, bcgold said:

Testing some worn out starter brushes for silver, when the brush is heated the silver sweats out in little beads maybe while their good and hot a centrifuge would bring all the silver out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

If your following don't waste your time with brushes and silver plated junk, it was reported by someone else from another forum that I belong to that 90 pounds of silver plate will give you 20 grams of silver.

[bc.gold 3,403]

Made an interesting discovery, ion exchange filter from a water softener has gold in it.

 

I think the ion canisters get clogged beyond capacity when the home owner neglects to keep the brine tank filled with salt, the brine flushes the ion canister and rejuvenates the beads.

 

Out of curiosity tested about a quarter pound of beads and this is what I got from it.

 

 

[Jeff-C175 7,202]

5 minutes ago, bcgold said:

quarter pound of beads

 

Zeolite resin?  has gold in it?  Really?

[bc.gold 3,403]

36 minutes ago, Jeff-C175 said:

 

Zeolite resin?  has gold in it?  Really?

 

No, the colloidal gold in the water was attracted to the beads.

 

The beads did not dissolve in aqua regia, just what was on the surface of the beads did. Plenty of iron oxides but have an idea how to separate the gold in a more economical way via electrolysis.

Edited March 27, 2021 by bcgold

[bc.gold 3,403]

Went back to the landfill for more canisters, one is about 30 inches in diameter and 5 ft tall, needed help to get it loaded.

 

So far cut one open, this one has a lot of calcium and had lots of small rocks ( half inch minus ) on the bottom which must have played havoc with the pump impeller.

 

A test sample for the second canister the beads look clean and show no presence of gold.

 

Two choices to recover the gold, stainless steel sheet used as an anode with another as cathode, this should strip the gold out, seconded option is activated carbon.

 

Read an article last night were the author claimed one ton of activated carbon is capable of absorbing 68 kilograms of gold. The easiest way to release the gold is to ash the carbon then refine the ash.

 

Last image gold impregnated carbon.

 

 

 

[Handy Don 12,270]

On 3/3/2021 at 3:28 PM, Jeff-C175 said:

 

yes, of course!  We also discovered that the metal pipe concreted into the ground for the clothes drying 'tree' (remember those?) was the perfect size for a cherry bomb with a golf ball on top.  I hope nobody ever got hurt or damaged when those golf balls eventually landed... we never found a one of them!

We had a heavy steel pipe set in cinderblocks and used old tennis balls with "ash cans" and "cherry bombs". We set up on our baseball field at the back of our property. The ball went out of sight and all the kids scattered around with their baseball gloves to try to catch it when it came down. Balls lasted for 3 or 4 trips then they tore apart. 

The idea came from my Dad and he supervised the "launches"!

[bc.gold 3,403]

12 minutes ago, Handy Don said:

We had a heavy steel pipe set in cinderblocks and used old tennis balls with "ash cans" and "cherry bombs". We set up on our baseball field at the back of our property. The ball went out of sight and all the kids scattered around with their baseball gloves to try to catch it when it came down. Balls lasted for 3 or 4 trips then they tore apart. 

The idea came from my Dad and he supervised the "launches"!

 

We used a metal pipe large enough to insert a marble attached to a wood handle, the store that had metal siding had plenty of pock marks from the projectiles being aimed at it.

 

No adult around to supervise ( spoil the fun ) those launches.

[bc.gold 3,403]

On 3/3/2021 at 1:58 PM, Jeff-C175 said:

Kids today don't know what they're missing!

 

All you have to do is watch a couple of yourtube videos to see that today's youth have surpassed our pranks.

[Handy Don 12,270]

1 hour ago, bcgold said:

 

All you have to do is watch a couple of yourtube videos to see that today's youth have surpassed our pranks.

YT and the internet expose them to ideas beyond anything I could have imagined doing, that's for sure...

[bc.gold 3,403]

On 3/27/2021 at 12:20 PM, bcgold said:

No, the colloidal gold in the water was attracted to the beads

 

I stand corrected on that statement, the resin exchange beads used in a domestic water filter are not formulated to remove gold from ground water, the gold attached itself to the iron. Judging from my experiments these filters are rich.

 

Contacted one of the refinery's I deal with asking if they have processed water filters for the gold and they replied in the affirmative , so its obvious others are in the know.

Its often been said among prospectors that gold wears an iron hat and the Spanish claimed gold rode an iron horse. If your looking at filters for the gold you want ones filled with rust,

 

Two different experiment's each with different results, top filter processed with aqua regia and the bottom one just a simple dilute muriatic wash to remove the iron

 

 

 

Edited March 29, 2021 by bcgold

[bc.gold 3,403]

Some success.

 

 

[bc.gold 3,403]

The chamber of commerce, making carbon.

 

[bc.gold 3,403]

My carbon making days have come to an end, I purchased a one cubic ft sack of activated carbon for $163.00.

 

This video is well worth the time it takes out of your life, in fact it just might save someone or even your pet that has been accidentally poisoned.

 

 

[bc.gold 3,403]

Palladium salts precipitated with DMG, the precipitate is canary yellow and contains about 33% palladium by weight.

 

[Jeff-C175 7,202]

45 minutes ago, bc.gold said:

canary yellow

 

What's that worth?  and what was the source material?

[bc.gold 3,403]

1 hour ago, Jeff-C175 said:

 

What's that worth?  and what was the source material?

 

Source material catalytic converters from scrap vehicles. Value depends on how pure I'm able to refine it, as it is now there's some nickle in there.

 

The nickle came from the converters using metal foils instead of ceramic comb, I have yet to learn how to refine rhodium which is currently going nuts price wise and i expect it to worsen as things heat up with Russia a major producer.

 

Platinum	1198.00	+9.00
Palladium	2688.00	+39.00
Rhodium	26200.00	0.00

 

 

 

[bc.gold 3,403]

I may have earlier made a post where I have built an ultra sonic tank operating at 28 MHz, the tank removes the precious metals wash coat free from the catalytic comb.

 

Next time I'll leave the foils out of the tank, comb acts as an acoustic while 28 MHz is very destructive on the metal foils, this is where the nickle came from.

Edited April 16, 2021 by bc.gold

[bc.gold 3,403]

The ammonium chloride that I made was used to precipitate platinum as a brick red salt, the green liqueur still has be be processed for pt.

 

Stannous chloride is used as your eyes, each precious metal present has a specific color.

 

Just remember I'm a hobby refiner, started much to late in life to be a professional.