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My introduction

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  1. #1
    tenke started this thread.
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    My introduction

    Hey fellow scrappers, I was told to introduce myself, so here goes: I mostly scrap by bicycle for small items and to spot larger ones for pick up. I focus mostly on Cu, Al, Brass and Stainless, but also e-scrap. I get money from the metals, but am on a mission to make a gold ingot from the computer and flat screen tv's. I have more recently been selling TV boards, power adapters and mics. parts that are small and have value on ebay. It sure floats my boat to sell stuff that I got for free.

    My goal is to recover enough gold to make an ingot, maybe silver too. I am amassing gold pins, fingers, BGA chips and CPU's. I just got a decent deal on a Bernzomatic TS800 torch. Now I just need to get some glassware, decide on which method to use, chemicals (leaning towards hardware store stuff) and a crucible, resperator and safety glasses. This is going to be one expensive ingot, but that's what the metal scrapping money is for.

    I am doing this on the side of my regular job, and am struggling to not let it take over my life. I love the hunt and gather, like the use of tools to manipulate the material to increase its value and believe in diverting from the landfill. I have been increasing my accumulation rate and am down to as low as 1 month turn around time for successive loads to Aaron's Metals in Hayward. I have a small car, so my load size is limited. So far I am gotten as high as $285 for one load. I would like to do a $300 load, but that will depend on what I have at the time.

    I have sold a 2 lots of small gold bearing boards and RAM on ebay, but now, as I say, I am saving the Au for my own processing. I have found a e-waste yard in Fremont that pays for e-waste, but did not find the it to be very lucrative. They do pay for CPU's, HDD, DVD Drives and whole computers, Li batteries, etc. The best thing they do is take for free ABS plastic. I need to find out what he does with it, but am glad to not have to throw it away.

    Enough rambling on, that's an intro, I just love making $ from curbside junk, well some dumpsters too. The more I look, the luckier I get!


  2. #2
    eesakiwi's Avatar
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    We don't really deal with gold refining here at SMF. While we do deal a lot in escrap, refining a different ballgame.
    Its far more dangerous than anything involved in scrapping metal.
    There's so many unknowns and it can go bad very quickly and without you even knowing that its already gone bad.. (The guy who did refining in his garage, using HCL acid, and noticed after 3 days that his $18,000 Saab was developing rust spots in weird places...)

    I did intend to gold refine, I tried, and had two close calls involving safety, never got any Gold at all.. Now am the owner of 3 gallons of a bright green highly acid liquid..

    So, refinings a bit of a 'No No' here. We don't discuss it past recommending not to do it.

    If you want Gold, easy, sell escrap and use that money to buy Gold. Its 100% Gold, in a ingot, and sellable.
    Golds all the same really, except the stuff that people refine, since nmobodys going to buy it without a expensive assay. And in getting (if one does) gold, people miss getting any of the other metals, Copper/Silver/Tin/Lead/Platinum/Pladium etc etc.
    A good Gold refiner (commercial) makes their money from the 'scrapmetals' in escrap, Copper/Tin/Bismuth/Lead etc.
    You get the Gold and PM's back afterwards.
    Same with selling escrap, you get it, but in ca$h, minus a few obvious overheads maybe.

    If you want some real escrap Gold you got yourself, try 'Patnors method'. Its basically collecting normal IC chips, cleaning the legs off and incinerating the Chips to burn the plastic coating off, then Gold panning out the Gold wires from the carbon dust/Copper legs/silicon die.
    Since the wires are pretty much clean, you can melt them down into a chunk, still unsellable, but something you did yourself.

    But, collect your escrap, clean it down roughly to make it take up less space, sell your plastic and wire and Aluminium and Copper and Steel cases, sort and in time clean it down again to get it to sellable condition, and sell it in bulk to a buyer from here.
    Theres a few to choose from and they can help you get the best $$ for the most effective work/time value.

    Good luck and stay safe/e
    Last edited by eesakiwi; 11-13-2017 at 04:58 AM.

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  4. #3
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    Welcome to the forum and what eesakiwi said. 73, Mike

    "Profit begins when you buy NOT when you sell." {quote passed down to me from a wise man}

    Now go beat the copper out of something, Miked


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