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    gustavus is offline Metal Recycling Entrepreneur
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    What I'm Planning for my Catylitc Converters.

    I've been saving cats for a bit over two years, originally I had planned to refine the precious metals out myself. I did a small lot and found the task rather time consuming, like who wants to sit and watch a flask of liquids evaporate so that you have a concentrated solution from which you can now precipitate your precious metals as salts which now have to be calcined then melted into a button.

    Here's where common sense kicked into high gear, sell the darn things. Alright there are many buyers out there offering to purchase, all claiming to pay you the most for your cats. All you have to do is mail them in for payment.

    Then there's those buyer further up in the food chain that offer to purchase with an assay. Ding a bell goes off, who's assay. Alright the buyer is a de-canner, he has a crew removing the guts from your cats which he claims to have an assay done on your behalf. I'm thinking yea right, how do I know that the buyer has not diluted my lot with crap from another customers lot that would assay lower than mine.



    Do you really think this could happen in this day and age, someone trying to outsmart me.

    Ok lets bypass the de-canner, go straight to a refinery. I remove the guts myself, grind everything into a fine powder in my home made ball mill. When I have enough milled powders saved up.

    I will have to combine everything into one large drum, rotate that drum for several hours maybe overnight into the next day. What we're doing here is homogenizing all the powders into a harmonious batch from which I will remove a sample to send out for an independent assay one I pay for.

    From my independent assay I will now know the exact amount of precious metals I have and what to expect for payment. Now I go shopping for a refiner, the one I choose will get a sample, he will assay then get back to me, we will then compare assays. If they're only a fraction off we would split the difference.

    Also before I shipped my material, I would heat it to drive off any accumulated moisture, inset a moisture meter making note of the moisture content. The refiner would also be informed of this. Because he is going to do the same procedure, my drum will be hermetically sealed as well with the legal type seal along with the Umpire if I'm not able to be present in person..

    Seal the drum with a legal seal, inform the refiner that you will be present when the drum is opened then refined or have an Umpire present on your behalf to keep an eye on the process. We wouldn't want out material to become diluted now would we.

    If you believe any of the above, ask yourself this.

    It;s a proven fact that a poorly tuned automobile can and will burn out the guts from a catalytic, the buyers account for this by saying they will pay such and such if a cat is half or one third full. Here we go giving someone else first count, the only way one would know is to open up the cat to know how much biscuit is left inside.

    On the other side of the coin, buyer has a schedule that he pays such and such for this type of cat - period.

    Well if that cat came from a poorly tuned automobile the biscuit could be intact but the precious metals could have blown out the pipe onto the street to be washed down the storm drain.

    Many farmers cut and bail hay from the roadside, you could have platinum in your cheese and the milk you drink.

    The well maintained automobile should have a reasonable amount of precious metals left and end of life. The only real way to know for sure is to have an assay performed on the material.

    Make sense, sure but the cost of having an assay done on very individual cat would break the bank. This is why I de-can my own cats, mill them into powder for refining.

    It is a long term project, it has taken me two years to save up enough material, and even then I will not know for sure until I open up the last of them to see if I have enough to ship.

    So if your confused buying cats, get into line. The winners are those who are getting first count on your hard earned goods.

    The biscuits are made from a ceramic, under a microscope the surface has millions of irregularities, the biscuit is dipped into a precious metals liquid solution made up from precious metals of the platinum group. The solution finds it's way into the pores where it stays to act as a catalyst.

    My guess is that the more expensive cats are double dipped giving them a much thicker coating of precious metals.

    Roadside Contamination.



    Home made ball mill
    Last edited by gustavus; 10-01-2011 at 12:50 AM.

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