I am a jeweler and prospector of many years. I have a magnet trick too. Put the magnet inside a plastic bag. Run it over your material. Invert the bag over the material. Remove the magnet. Now all the magnetic material is in the bag and the magnet is clean. Makes for easier clean up.
I've been watching Sreetips do this for literal years and I still hear him say "I'm just a know-nothing novice who is experimenting." Even a garage scientist is a scientist. I'm a high school chemistry teacher and I've literally shown my students these videos to try to get them interested in the activity series.
You done right. If you want to rise students interest to knowledge, show them how to use it, and better prove that using knowledge they can get profit.
That’s very humbling. I wish I had more chemistry knowledge. Be nice to be able to explain what’s going on at the the molecular and atomic level in my beakers.
@@sreetips Learning by doing is a good way to go, sir, but teaching others adds a powerful catalyst to the reaction. Humility in your approach is good, but be proud of your efforts in educating us. It's a big win-win, and that's worthy of praise. Teaching science in a way that entertains and engages people isn't exactly common, you know. Edited to add that I'm the son of a science teacher, and a damn good one. He kept his students engaged, and while he was less entertaining, otherwise, you remind me of being in his classes. You also don't remind me of him outside the classroom, and trust me, that's good. The context of the reaction is situation, which is why you use nitric boils, rather than putting it all in a freezer. But I appreciate your efforts here.
I so love this channel. I’m having a bit of a time right now. My employer is letting me go. However, I’ve had so many good memories of Sreetips executing his craft even on a night like tonight, I’ve got somebody out there doing good and being kind enough to bring me joy. Even if the day is bad, I know in the back of my mind that Sreetips is excellent.
I really appreciate all of your comments. I hope I didn't take away from Sreetips' video. That's why we're here, right? That said, you folks have been extremely supportive. I appreciate that more than you know.
I've learned so much watching your videos over the years. So much so. I melted up a bunch of my silver crystals that I've harvested from my silver cell. I had to pull out and use my postal scale because the overall weight in the 4 silver bars was 6lbs 2.9oz. Now it's time to melt up some cement silver and start the whole process over again. Thank you Sreetips for the step by step knowledge in refining precious metals. Have a wonderful holiday season. God bless...
As a metal refiner and Copper smith I love the use of copper. If you can get the copper free enough of contaminants, when it comes to the buffing stage, it just looks like a precious metal itself! So no calling copper ugly, It make me money over here in South Wales UK! 👍
I was curious how long I have been watching you do your thing so I scrolled back in your videos and it has been 4 years that I have been a regular viewer of your channel. You do such a great job with your videos that I find them to be informative, relaxing and just plain fun to watch. Thank you for all the hard work you put into them! I for one really appreciate it.
Thanks for the great content once again Sreetips, I was thinking one could use copper for inquartation, and now thanks to you, I've seen it with my very own eyes!! Beautiful work as always!
"pour a little more nitric acid" Is Sreetips version of Bob Ross's "happy little friend". What you do is an artform in and of itself. I should have studied more as a kid so I could afford to do what you do.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed your page. It reminds me of my work at Ullenberg. We refined hundreds of kilos of karat gold daily. I noticed that you have a few borax glazed crucibles. We used to clean them with diluted sulphuric acid in an ultrasound. They came out clean and useable again. I know this is a minor savings but every dollar counts.
Fumes, fire, danger of other fun stuff that makes life interesting...blah blah. Thanks for your content I've read dozens of books played with fire for decades and you have helped bring things together by far on understanding. Thank you!
They sell a shallow stainless steel pan for bolts at harbor freight. It has a magnet in the bottom, and works great for separating tiny pieces of ferrous and non ferrous metal
Very interresting. Because more easy to find copper than silver for this kind of purification process. Thanks a lot for time spent to this. Best regards. Sylvain
I had this problem with borax the other day. I let the molten metal harden and focused my flame on the borax with the crucible on a 65-70 degree angle and it poured out just fine. The metals stayed still too, and as a precaution, i did this over a bucket of cold water in case the metal fell out. Evenetually, enough borax came out and i vibrated it when the metal was molten and it unstuck, allowing the borax to settle on the bottom again
You’re welcome! Thank you Sir, for tossing the change up! A very “Cubrik”-style production…A Clockwork Rosegold?… .996 Metal Jacket? As a gringo, I’m going to stay away from the tequila sunrise…for me, that has international incident written all over it. Keep firing them out, I’ll get to them when the datos allows. 👍👍🤙
Thank you sir I was wondering how that would work out with copper and know I see why you use silver outstanding video great content thank you for sharing this with us six stars brother
Very nice video. Great job 👍🏻 I was wondering if you’ve found any advantages to making AR with sulphuric rather than hcl? - also you should really look at making nitric acid yourself, its hell of a lot cheaper and you’ve already got everything for it 🙂
Wow, turned out great for "junk gold".. The jeweler will surely love what you did here! One defining an copper inquartation.... beautiful well done Sir as always ✌🏼💗😊👩🏼🔬
I think my favorite part is watching that dark cloud of precipitate rolling around. Almost looks like it's boiling under the gold solution in some of you other videos at high purity and super saturation.
Those first boils would be removing all your Pd and any plated Rh or Pt, as well as Cu and Ag. I'm thinking all those bright flecks ARE Rh or Pt. Conceivably, those flecks could be plated Cr. If that's the case, you'd have also taken off the plated Ni under the Cr, into your filtered solution. 'Sure looks ugly' - Sreetips That layer that formed might be the gradient difference between very low pH and near neutral pH. That gray filter paper makes me think 'PGM'. Thanks to you returning that filter paper to the initial melt, from that first precipitation after the HNO3 boils, you returned them to the raw Au. Good job!
Sreetips, nice job, it begs the question just how many methods are there to successfully skin this feline? This is excellent for the folks that do not live near a Dell web community to pick up some unwanted silver. I sure hope you have been able to monetize your video library...it seems vast.
inquarting with copper is awesome to see work so well. the concept of inquarting seemed unreachable to those without a stash of silver... now its very obtainable. what other metals are possible?
Yeah nice video. You can say you where making it up while you went but it looked like a plan to me. Good way to solve an unknown. Good choice also to inquart with electric wiring. That's usually electrochemically refined copper and the purest source of Copper on the market. I think you should really dig into molar mass calculations. It's not hard once you see it, but hey I'm watching you for the hands on expierience :).
Copper works fine to inquart the thing is that 1. Copper takes twice as much nitric acid to dissolve compared to an equal mass of silver. 2. Silver is very easy to cement out and re-use, copper can be reduced back to metal either by electrolysis or by the addition of ascorbic acid. How ever its more work and is harder to separate from any other base metals that are present.
I'd have to say copper boils where looking a bit nasty but that solution cleared up nice. It seemed to have more fine gold particles then usual too. Thanks for posting.
Great video! Different again. I suggested this process a few videos ago and I guess you were already planning it! Unfortunate about the melt dish and borax incident, but a good lesson on what you have to watch for with molten borax. Did that happen because you used too much borax, or was it timing, or some other reason?
Wow copper sucks I see why you use silver...still content like this from you is awesome it really shows why what you normally do is the best way! Keep it up!
The chemistry: It takes four moles of nitric acid to convert one mole of copper metal into copper nitrate, resulting in one mole of copper nitrate, two moles of H2O, and two moles of NO2. It takes only two moles of nitric acid to convert one mole of silver into silver nitrate, resulting in one mole of silver nitrate, one mole of H2O, and one mole of NO2. Copper has a much lower atomic weight than silver, so a gram of copper has 70% more moles of copper than a gram of silver, by a factor of about. If my figgers are correct, it takes over three times as much nitric to dissolve a given weight of copper than it takes to dissolve the same weight in silver. This explains why inquarting with silver is preferable to inquarting with copper.
The stump out stuff you add, is it a pre determined amount depending on the weight of scrap or it’s just by eye and knowledge you get to know about how much each individual batch?
Another excellent video Sir Sreetips! Was cool to see you inquart with copper, but I think I will continue to use Silver. Silver seems to be quicker, cleaner and is easier on the Nitric. Question for you please. How do you clean your porcelain Buchner Funnel? I worry about contaminates or residue being trapped under the perforated bottom of the funnel. Thank you for all you do!
I use a small brush bent to get in there with some alconox. With acidic solutions there’s not much residue if you clean then immediately after use. I have put them in a large beaker then boil some aqua regia and let it sit in those fumes. This usually takes care of any junk in there. But it’s hard to tell because can’t see inside. Another option it two-piece plastic Büchner funnels.
@@sreetips Thank you for the direction. Very appreciated! I need to get a new one and practice better Buchner hygiene. I only have one and if Sir Sreetips seen it, he would probably smack me and say shame on you! I really lean towards the porcelain funnels as opposed to the plastic, but I think I will get a couple plastic too. Thanks again!
I do this when i feel like i am not in a rush. I process it through my stockpot but i still have to hit it after with some nitric to remove any silver that is in it as the Hcl in the stockpot wont remove the silver. Saves on chemicals but time wise it takes a while.
It’s crazy to think that just one ounce of gold could save me from losing my home and 11 acres. I am a disabled veteran on a fixed income and these last couple years have been tough. I have sold my tractor and everything else I can but I have been falling farther behind because of the higher cost of things. Taxes and heating oil for the winter have put me in a tough spot and if I could somehow scrape together an ounce of gold I would be in a good place. 🤔 🙏
Hi Sreetips, excellent refining as usual,thanks for using the copper method. What are the little plastic squirty bottles called? Does anyone know the correct term?
ive wondered what his arrangements are too....its probably very difficult to estimate how much gold will come out of the sweepings....unless he buys them for a low price....or charges a fee to refine the sweeps no matter what comes out of it....and he's got video proof he isnt cheating anyone...
Hi Sreetips, I respect the process you have learned. I understand why you inquart the gold with a more reactive metal. Have you considered a manual process of flaking the gold and immersing the flakes in very strong aqua regia?
If someone wanted to cut back on nitric acid usage, could they inquart with copper and then use boiling HCL to remove copper? I'm pretty sure there would be somethings that the HCL wouldn't remove, like silver, but after the HCL boiling, could you then use a nitric acid to remove final contaminates from gold. Thus, saving a lot of nitric acid? I've used .925 with inquartation and sulfuric acid boils and the gold came out beautiful, I just hate using boiling sulfuric acid. I was just wondering if copper and HCL for the bulk of it and then thoroughly wash, rinse and then small nitric boil to save money.
Didn’t realize your melt table was on the ground (well almost)…..need to keep an eye out for a stainless steel commercial kitchen prep table…You won’t kill your back bending down anymore and it’s got storage above would be perfect for your use!
You should replace the "I've got a specially prepared folded filter paper, that rides up the side of the funnel" with " I've got a funnel with with a Sreetips fold safety filter paper in it". I's shorter.
Thanks Mr. Tips! I was one who wanted to see the copper inquartation, and it was interesting. Doesn't seem to have any advantage over using silver - just higher nitric use and doesn't leave you with as much feedstock for your silver cell. I'm guessing the higher than expected yield was because the button was somewhat higher than 14k when you tested.
Copper is easier to obtain, just run down to the hardware store and get some copper wire. Any impurities in the copper tends to increase electrical resistance, so copper wire is about as pure as you can get.
@@drtidrow Electrical copper is electrowon just like Sreetips' pure silver crystals. The slimes from those huge cells are a primary source of commercial silver.
I wonder which method works out cheaper? More nitric used but no silver needed, don't have to recover that More energy + time invested though Also, would doing fewer but larger volume boils change much? What would a BIG BOIL do?
search his old videos. He made s couple videos about processing Alaska placer flakes several years ago. Here's one of them. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-GuefIVnZwzk.html
FYI electronics refiners I've done this process using low yield electronic pins instead of silver and removal of nickel and copper is accomplished fairly easy as the gold content is increased
You're getting much better at pouring those bars into the molds. Seems like the key is getting that mold red hot too and shutting off that torch quick. It would be cool if someone else could stand behind that stationary torch and instantly shut it off after the pour. Excellent content here on this channel.
