Gold Plated Pins 10 POUNDS!

eBay Link: www.ebay.com/itm/255149796360...
Pins: $1030
Nitric: 5.2 bottles @ $50 per bottle = $260
Other chemicals and supplies: $100
Total cost to recover & refine: $1390

[@lunkerzinc.8718]

You turned the gold into liquid piss, then you turned it into poop, and melted it into a chunk of gold, magic. True Alchemist

[@marley551]

Liquid piss compared to what? Gaseous piss? Solid piss?

[@lunkerzinc.8718]

@@marley551 yah

[@thepsychoranter]

@@marley551 What, you don't piss solid piss? That's a little weird dude

[@tr984]

Every 2 seconds: “I think I’m gonna add a little bit of Nitric Acid” 😂

[@waynes517]

Not often am I mesmerised for a straight 45 mins. Bonus periodic table content at 00:29:22 I've seen this thing so many times in my life and it bored me to death. Your 20 second breakdown taught me more than 6 years of education ever did. Wonderful video :)

[@mranon42023]

no, it didn't, you were just not paying atteintion in class

[@waynes517]

@@mranon42023The irony of you not being able to string a sentence together using capital letters and full stops whilst critiquing my education is not lost on me. Amazing.

[@mranon42023]

@@waynes517 nice cope right there. people don't capitalize on the internet bc they are lazy, not bc they don't know better... and you are still an ignorant 🤣🤣 besides this dude doesn't even say anything intelligent since there are a lot more precious metals like patinum, iridium, etc that are objectively more stable than silver

[@raytruesdell7873]

It’s always cool watching you do this and making very pretty shiny Gold be safe everyone 👍🇺🇸

[@wgwells]

I know this turned out to be a rough few days, but thanks for sticking it out and teaching a lot of us some new problems to avoid. You're still KZbin's number one refiner! :)

[@QuaaludeCharlie]

You'll get 30 Times the Money Selling the Vintage Computer Parts , and Saving the Parts in the Process :(

[@excitedbox5705]

@@QuaaludeCharlie yea it pains me to see people destroying history, but in this case it was too late. I have seen people destroy commodore 64 that sell for thousands to get a few dollars worth of scrap.

[@ydm6669]

@@excitedbox5705 RIP precious SID chips :'(

[@user-sz2px8pv3f]

No, he's not lol.

[@colonialcharlie8702]

The people buying those parts are over paying haha. They buy em, they sit on them, then they sell them or give away after their gone.. i wait, and i get those free, cuz storage is more expensive then chemicals..

[@crux9584]

Very interesting, you spent $1000 and recovered about $1300. taking into account time spent and acid, it's still a loss. As you say it's a calculated mistake and a valuable lesson learned. Thank you for continuing with the experiment.

[@DiverCTH]

I'd still like to see if the reagent costs couldn't be reduced by decomposing the Copper Nitrate back into dilute HNO3

[@gabem6362]

Add the energy and time .totally loss .not worth it but freakin interesting, ty bro

[@bizarro20daves]

Add onto that the potential revenue from KZbin by making interesting content and it might become worth it

[@bojanl100]

And you can make $ 3000 jewelry piece from it

[@sreetips]

That’s a good idea

[@myrsi2394]

this video, imo , is much more than a refining/chemistry video. What we have here is/are incredible lessons in ingenuity, perseverance, and integrity !! Top drawer!

[@rockreader4298]

Streetips, I was mesmerized by the entire process. My late husband watched your vids and was always doing this sort of thing. Somehow watching this helped me not miss him so much because it was as if he was here watching and or participating in the experiment. I Thank You for following through to the end result, as he or any true scientist would. Very fascinating ....

[@sreetips]

You are very kind. Some comments are gratifying to read (I try to read and respond to each comment). But this one touches me in a way that I can’t describe. I’m glad that it brought you a little comfort. Thank you very much.

[@rockreader4298]

@@sreetips, Thank you for reaching out and responding to me with human kindness. You touched this gal's Heart. I noticed this morning how well our dog rested through the night, being calmed by your voice, which is of a similar resonance to my late husband's. It is the small things in life that many times mean the most .... ( :

[@chadnickels6227]

So sorry for your loss…

[@davidbeckom6299]

I got to tell you. I never went to school for this stuff and only watching your videos and because of that you have taught me everything I know thank you you're an amazing teacher and you're awesome at what you do

[@sreetips]

Thank you

[@BullProspecting]

He is the best!

[@julianmarsh2758]

Thanks for doing this, I'm a former metallurgist and you did great, explained it was the first attempt and you got your gold.

[@Michael-rg7mx]

So why can't you get the gold off of the copper?

[@sreetips]

I used nitric acid to loosen the gold and release it from the copper. Ended up putting most of the copper in solution. This was a giant pain. But it made a good video.

[@Michael-rg7mx]

@@sreetips Yes, all of your videos are good. You could get a bikini model assistant. Call her Beaker. But I was thinking that gold melts at a lower temperature. Melt it off of the pins. But, me contractor! Thanks for the show.

[@sreetips]

The gold would just get welded to the copper, making recovery even more difficult.

[@hardware1197]

@@sreetips Interesting....So using a pyramid smelter would not be a valid method for this?

[@1075twist]

That trick with grabbing the pins and swirling to rinse the foils is brilliant. In the past I spent so much time trying to rinse the foils out of the beaker. I will be using that trick soon....thanks for the tip!

[@lauriehughes8130]

Professor,great video! Really enjoyed your content. I dropped out of chemistry many many many moons ago. Who would have thought the cool stuff you can do with that knowledge. Thanks for the lesson 🙂.

[@RyshusMojo1]

"I was going to try & save face" You did! By continuing on & showing us what's up. Love your work btw.

[@buckwildebeest398]

I used to like watching computer scrap refining. I still do sometimes, but the silver cell is cool as hell, and it won out. Yours is the best.

[@buxtech]

By my calculations 22.5 grams of gold equals about ~$1300-1400 in spot value, which ends up being a small win with the 1000 plus taxes paid on ebay, and a break even after considering the materials/chemicals used. Either way, you have something now more valuable in its form than what you started with and it was sure fun to watch! Thanks for making this video.

[@sreetips]

Buck, you understand! Most people are clueless about gold.

[@zippythinginvention]

@@sreetips I was thinking the same as above. How much do you figure the materials cost?

[@sreetips]

A few hundred, I don’t track expenses for each batch that I do. It’s my hobby. I’m not a pro. I don’t do this for a living - thank God!

[@bolweval]

@@sreetips I'm sure you made some money on the video too!

[@jsullivan5358]

Don't forget the cost of the 4 gallons of acid that's another 200. So technically he lost money.

[@johnizitchiforalongtime]

I'm glad you're doing this, you are by far better educated in the processes of this. 10 pounds of pins yields near an ounce, for $1000.00. You got the facilities for this experiment, perseverance pays off.

[@bltvd]

He used over a grands worth of nitric acid so it could not have been a profitable experiment.

[@ftts9034]

He also has 1.2m views on this video… add that up and he’s way cleared his investment at this point.

[@sreetips]

A million views is about ten grand.

[@sreetips]

I ended up using about five 2.5 liter bottles of nitric. At that time they cost about $50 per 2.5 liter bottle. So 5 times $50 equals $250 for the nitric, not a grand.

[@bltvd]

@@sreetips would it still be a profitable use of your time if you did not have a youtube channel is what I am getting at? I don’t know anything about this I just looked up nitric acid and it seemed to be over 200 dollars a bottle. Excuse my ignorance on the topic.

[@Rhyno186]

Material purchase was $1,000 (plus shipping?). The result was 22.6g 24K(?) .999 pure gold with a current value of ~$1,274. Take out the cost of the chemicals, filters, and equipment... I know you weren't in this one for the money, and I appreciate the great video!

[@TheSmb133]

exactly what i was thinking.

[@hermanteunissen990]

Plus at least $800 for the video!

[@marknlynette6623]

This is fascinating! I’m not a chemist but stand in awe of the science. Thanks for sharing.

[@sizzlean9459]

This was not chemistry, a chemist would never spend all that acid when you could simply dissolve the gold off those pins in 3 minutes using spa chemicals or bleach. 30% peroxide would have boiled the gold off the copper in 15 seconds. smelting in a microwave would have taken 15 minutes. Chemists are cheap bastards anyways for the most part. As for the science my friend this has been done for hundreds of years and they figured out this is not the method over 125 years ago. Just ordering the Nitric alone for this project is a quick way to get yourself on a list, there are much better ways and if you're going to use Nitric, be realistic and buy a setup to make your own, it's easy and cheap and keeps you off ATF's radar. Everyone says it's no big deal until they show up at your doorsteps, then try telling your heart to beat quietly as their Gold Plated Badges tweak your mind and make you ask yourself if you put all your clothes in the hamper and toys in the toybox, better to just avoid them altogether and learn how to make your own chemicals. Everything anyone ever needs is easily made at home and you learn most of what you should learn in learning how to get them and refine them.

[@kanandan6795]

@@sizzlean9459 sir simple method tell pls i am trying but not available for chemical so full easy steps for words reply pls sir.

[@sreetips]

I took one chemistry class 45 years ago - got a “D” - you don’t have to be a chemist to refine precious metals. And your 15 minute “easy method” has been tried by many a novice with negative results. I only wish that it was that easy! Thanks for watching the video.

[@marknlynette6623]

Truth is I am an engineer of 35years experience. Seen many many things. Try to open your mind a bit. There is always another way to a solution and usually all those innovations are borne out of necessity and have their place. That is what learning is all about, but maybe learning has stopped for some.

[@sreetips]

My way is not “the way” but rather “a way” to get the gold. In accordance with the reactivity series of metals, the gold would dissolve, then cement right back out on the copper until all the copper was dissolved into solution. Then the gold would stay in solution. Two other ways to get the gold from these pins; acid/peroxide or sulfuric acid stripping cell. Acid/peroxide could take weeks. And I can never get a good yield with the stripping cell. I chose these pins because I had plenty of nitric, and I knew that I could dissolve the copper to get the gold. I try to pick the battles that I know I can win.

[@BlazenWinchester]

astounding! Great video production. I got 7 miles of silver plated wire. I planned on doing the stair step gravity melt method simply because I'm no chemist and handling 7 gallons of acid simply does not appeal to me.

[@brunodsozza]

I always find those chemical processes so beautiful and relaxing.

[@shaneyork300]

This is no doubt my favorite kind of videos! Since I am preparing for the same kind of recovery and refine myself. I am willing to bet there is a whole lot more people just like me watching this!

[@sreetips]

I normally don’t do much escrap. But it’s very popular right now.

[@shaneyork300]

@@sreetips Yes it is. I think things like this will propel your subscribers greatly! Not that you are hurting for subscribers. I think there is over a million future subscribers that are into Escrap just like me and this kind of video will speed up your growth, which I'm enjoying seeing your amazingly speedy growth!!!

[@bentationfunkiloglio]

Very easy to lose money. Good idea to work on small batches until you are confident in your skills. Moreover, you absolutely need a safe, well ventilated work area including a fume hood and other safety equipment. Fumes are insanely toxic wouldn’t take much to seriously injure or kill. Also, there is a hidden cost, safe disposal of waste material. Not often discussed. You WILL generate nontrivial amounts of toxic waste.

[@shaneyork300]

@@bentationfunkiloglio I'm doing this because of my passion for it, so if I loose money I'm totally fine with that. I've been studying this since 2017 and I understand very well most all the dangers & I'm taking all the precautions I can. The KZbinr Ewaste Ben said you should study this for 4 or 5 years before you start just to be educated as much as possible on the safety side of things! Thank you for response & concern!!

[@bentationfunkiloglio]

@@shaneyork300 Good luck. Wish you the best.

[@ebrylkation9538]

Incredibly blatant work !! So much work that I kneel down. I am a chemist myself. Mega respect.

[@justme.9711]

Since you're a chemist, How would you do it??? cost effectiveness wise.

[@joearkle1327]

You are truly awesome for a self taught refiner

[@sreetips]

Thank you

[@gordonwbell]

That’s fantastic. $1390 in supplies and you got $1950 worth of gold! Seems like a decent return on investment. Also, chemistry is cool! Wish I had projects like this to motivate me to learn it haha.

[@CyberGenesis1]

As he said, he makes it up as he goes - this was the least effort, but probably least efficient method as well

[@joelwilman8712]

His yield is 1275.00 at todays price 1763.00/oz

[@oldkingcrow777]

​@@joelwilman8712the video revenue is the REAL bonus lol. Plus he said he had a necklace made out of it, sold it (probably to a fan) for $2600

The meticulousness of the process is mesmerizing.

[@dougdennis3681]

Call me crazy, but I wouldn't mind having a Sreetips poured and stamped bar made from the precipitated copper waste. I can't afford the high purity gold or silver crystals, but I think I could definitely afford a nice "refined" copper bar.

[@excitedbox5705]

Yup. He needs a logo and then he can pour high purity coins. If he makes oxygen free 5 9s copper he can charge as much per gram as the gold for scientific use.

[@jam2190]

Damn right, I was thinking about that too, with the amount of "waste" copper, that he is producing, could probly make a lil bit of profit. Cuz anytime you can sell something you see as "waste" that is pretty much pure profit, usually

[@jam2190]

I would like to buy some, as well

[@JacobE-23]

Hell yeah I'd buy some. Sreetips copper bars would be awesome!

[@dougdennis3681]

Since he doesn't sell merch, I'd like to support him somehow. At least flip him a few bucks for his next jug of Nitric or something.

[@gothicangel6313]

When I wanted to see liquid metal at it's best. BAM, here it is! 💙💙💙 Thank You!!!!

[@Greg1096]

I made the mistake of starting refining with this same type of material, it was a very steep learning curve, though after fumbling my way through it im much more comfortable dealing with unexpected things popping up during refining, i do a lot of circuit board and electronic scrap which can be interesting at times for sure. Love the videos man.

[@Alondro77]

Some of the metals in the brass for insoluble oxynitrates from the reaction's heat. The brass also forms tin nitrate, that creates white crystals after a while.

[@Vibe77Guy]

For pins, I use an electrolysis cell with a titanium anode. The dilute sulphuric acid electrolyte is relatively fume free. It leaves foils like the other processes, and is non sensitive to the presence of tin in the base alloy. I've processed 40 pounds in 8 gallons of solution, using 1 quart of sulphuric acid, before the underlying nickel plating fouls the electrolyte to the point where it slows down. Recovery of the remaining dissolved copper, that's not collected on the cathode, is treated with iron to form copperas, which I use later to drop gold.

[@tech-e-cycle2608]

Hello David: would you mind sharing some details of the electrolysis process you use? Details on your titanium anode (perhaps where we can find one)? Cathode set-up? Electrolysis conditions (voltage, amps)?

[@Vibe77Guy]

@@tech-e-cycle2608 I use basically the cheapest titanium foil I can find on eBay for the Anode. I think it's something like 0.005" thick and 4"wide, but anything that will carry the current and not corrode would work. Cathode is simply a stripped end of 10-12 guage wire. It will get bigger in surface area as it collects copper. Solution is one quart of sulphuric acid in 7-8 gallons of water, but that can be scaled back to what ever size you want. I run my cell with a 5vdc 60A power supply, but I've never seen it draw more than about 10 amps. My meter didn't survive my latest move, so I can't tell what it's pulling exactly now. I use a 5micron filter bag I got from Duda Diesel for the Anode bag that keeps the pins in electrical contact with the Anode and each other. It's basically the same as any other parting cell, except I found out that it's not necessary to melt the pins into an Anode plate first. I am discovering that the pins have to be porous enough for the saturated electrolyte to be able to be replaced with fresher electrolyte or it will slow down and stagnate. This is not the same as the Faraday cage effects you see in the concentrated sulphuric acid stripping cell.

[@ATAATX]

Watched a guy on KZbin do it using distilled vinegar and salt in a bucket. Took a long time but it did separate the gold from the base metal pins. Very safe way to do it.

[@Vibe77Guy]

@@ATAATX Not really that safe. Vinegar and salt can create peracetic acid, which has a dangerously low flash point.

[@ATAATX]

@@Vibe77Guy Well, don't flash it!

[@lexinexi-hj7zo]

"Corrode, explode or kill you" best quote I have heard so far.

[@phoe8523]

As always, a nice video. The moment you started to get pissed at your own project was very clear and the (understanable) result was a "I don´t care anymore, I just want to be with" attidude. It only ended after you realized that is was actually more gold than you believed and the mood shifted back. That was a very human reaction and I think that made the video even better.

[@JacobE-23]

Thanks for posting Sreetips, these have to be some of my favorite videos of yours. And they help so much to those of us who are going to start refining or are still new to it. Edit: you ever considered doing copper bars to sell? Looks like you got a ton of waste in that bucket! But hey, one mans trash is another man treasure lol. Don't ever be afraid to admit mistakes also! That's how we learn best, past failures.

[@sreetips]

I’ve had many requests. But I don’t have the time

[@richardk6695]

@@sreetips how about you turn it in to metal that can be melted and you send it to big stack casting and he casts into ingiots and he sends you some subscribers well hes at it

[@sreetips]

It costs more to process it than it’s worth.

[@dire_prism]

I wonder what your costs are with your waste material in general?

[@Jonnie244]

@@sreetips in this case too? I got a lot of gold pins/strips coming from computer boards, well I got it practically for free, so it is worth it for me anyhow. How much in % was left in the end? Because 22g is like 1100-1200 euro's (srry, living in the rat-hole of the Nether-lands)

[@louisleroy4580]

Hey man love you videos You're the most knowledgeable guy I have ever seen on here as far as recovering gold or any other precious metal for that matter, you are very good at what you do kudos to you my friend!!!

[@bfarm44]

I don’t pretend to understand any of the chemistry process here but I find it fascinating watching a solid get turned into a liquid then mud then gold somehow comes out of it all.

[@finality4795]

There was a chemist who used this strategy to hide gold from the Nazis.

[@lebby1688]

@@finality4795 Yeah didn't some nobel prize winners do this with their medals?

[@raymondbigdog3745]

@@lebby1688 34:45

[@QYXP]

22.5 grams of gold is currently $74.27 per gram, meaning $1671. Not too bad. With the cost of supplies, electricity, etc. Probably about break even, but it was a great experiment and highly enjoyable to watch

[@walkthroughguru]

I have taken to putting any gold covered base metals in my waste solutions from my stock pot to save on acids used. It does take longer to strip the gold from them but it does a nice job at zero cost.

[@Alondro77]

I'm making a bubbler column to catch waste NO2 gas from both the initial reaction with the metal, and that which results from heating iron nitrate to a bit over 80C, and reconvert it to nitric acid using an aquarium bubbler at the bottom of a tall glass column filled with 3% hydrogen peroxide, which greatly increases the recovery of nitrate. The peroxide will convert nitrous acid into nitric immediately. I did something very simple at first, just bubbling the NO2 gas into water, and even that simple method recreated weak nitric/nitrous acid solution. It's a pretty efficient process and costs almost nothing for the little bit of tubing and bubbler.

[@walkthroughguru]

@@Alondro77 You can run the gas from reactions through 3% hydrogen peroxide to make nitric acid for free from your reactions

[@rogerreiner1846]

@@Alondro77 Peroxide also minimizes or eliminates most of the noxious fumes which is great.

[@rockymountainlifeprospecti4423]

This just got added to the refining my chemicals folder, thanks for sharing and the valuable safety information, and expected results. All the best from CO.

[@deadlikedisco4726]

Hey glad to see a fellow refiner in Colorado

[@firstnlast]

Thank you thank you thank you. For your transparency and educational content. This is a journey for all of us, and mistakes are valuable learning opportunities. Outstanding video!

[@yameen7563]

I know how much patience you require while making such video and you're hard work and Patience was the real Gold. Look at your views my dear. This is real Gold not that one in the beaker. ♥️ i appreciate your hardwork.

[@kylecissell958]

Unfortunate that you weren’t able to get your investment back on those pins and the acid, but definitely an insightful video for science 😁

[@Derfnam46]

Thought he paid 1000 for the pins; by my calculations 22.5 grams equates to $1,226 so, ya ... it's a push to say he made money.

[@sreetips]

I converted paper to gold, made a new video and gained experience. Money doesn’t compare to these gains.

[@Martin-tb4oo]

@@sreetips if you would have bid on it instead of using the buy it now I'm curious how much different your investment. I like the option of one poster saying make a piece of jewelry out of it but again that will just have more cost

[@jimmybrannan7303]

I know how thin plated gold can be and how far they can make an ounce of gold stretch when pounded into sheets. This was more than I expected to see.

[@marcuslarwa9098]

Was it worth it? If he paid 1000$ and used up 5 days of his time only to get 22.6oz then I’m not sure if it’s worth it. Plus the 5 bottles of acid which I don’t know how much that is but I’m sure it anit cheap. If we just give him 8 hours per day at 10$ an hour that’s another 400$ on top of the 1k he spent on the scarp. That’s 1400$ for 22.6oz of gold. That comes to 61$ per gram. That’s really not good at all, you can pretty much buy gold at that price

[@Therealpro2]

​@@marcuslarwa9098 depends if he buys nitric acid in bulk or gets it somewhere for low price. if he got it for cheap somewhere, he probably made breakeven on just acid + pins cost

[@Therealpro2]

actually nvm, he shows the bottle in vid. it costs 100usd per bottle. yea theres no way he profited in anyway from this vid

[@oldkingcrow777]

​@@marcuslarwa9098no he says in multiple other comments here thst this one wasn't fruitful, and they rarely are. He does it for the video educating. The bottles are 2.5 liters, cost him about $60 ea. He used 5 bottles. So $300 there, plus he probably values his time at 2-3x the $10/hr you estimated haha. But doing something fun like this you wouldn't "charge" yourself for the time. So figure $1300, and he didn't get 22oz of gold 😂 If anything though, he didn't "lose" much technically, and considering the video you could say he actually netted a great bit

[@samm928]

I do PCB design and there is electroplated gold and soft ENIG. The gold substrate in ENIG is less than 5 microns and is usually over Nikel and not worthed.

[@jaredcolahan759]

I was surprised that you didn't use electroplating to pull the copper out of the acid. Thats how they do it in the mines. I've seen those work. By the way excellent video

[@fgjfjehfbhg]

yeah, I remember reading native copper has either gold or silver or both in it, they make more money pulling out the valuables, and it's one of the reasons why copper has a strong market.

[@TheMegalegenden]

I loved the periodic table rant over which elements are good for storing value. That was brilliant! ❤

[@sreetips]

Thank you!

[@roastedright]

Where does Platinum fall into values

[@sreetips]

Platinum is a precious metal and has value. When I first at became interested in refining platinum was more valuable than gold.

[@sreetips]

But it’s not suitable for currency because the melt temperature is too high

[@roastedright]

@@sreetips so you're saying because Platinum is more difficult to refine / recover its not a good metal to store as a currency

[@stephenquinn3950]

Just in awe of your chemistry skills and knowledge. Also you haven't died through a massive reaction, so that's pretty cool too lol!

[@FrostbyteCoins]

Tons of great information. Appreciated this experiment. This was a good use of my time. Hard to say that with lots of the content on KZbin.

[@TheBaronAaron]

Sreetips, I hope this finds you well and having a good holiday weekend. I am a 45 year old artisan and biomedical devise repair technician. I spent the last 17years repairing medical ultrasound probes. All along the way I have saved a bunch of these gold plated pins. I have never sold gold reclamation materials before. I love your videos!!!! I have images of the pins. I used a kitchen scale to get my weight and tally 5.4kg of the pins. They are not new. They have varying degree of sheen. I sanded on a pin and can see it has a copper core. I have images with a 10x magnifier of this. I can see these pins have less copper than the pins you used in the video! Better yield for you I hope! I also did a test with some Birchwood Casey brass blackener on the sanded area and can see the blackened copper and unaffected gold layer. I have 10x images of that. I see that Gold prices are about the same as when you shot the video 9 months ago! I also have a small pile of worthy computer processor chips that should have some amount of platinum, gold, and silver. Would you be interested in buying my one time lot of this stuff?????

[@sreetips]

Actually I only on stuff my wife and I find at local sales

[@Rob337_aka_CancelProof]

I wonder if the gold that was left on those pins you had leftover could be directly smelted? I've been thinking about building a forge for a different reason but if I get the opportunity I'll see if I can't figure that out and let you know what I discover in the process because I've seen quite a few small forges that I could make for easily under $100. I do everything on a tight budget out of necessity (especially lately) and I'm kind of the king of Improv never having what I need to do something the best way but usually always having what I need to do things on the cheap not to mention I love repurposing things that would have gone in the trash otherwise. I'll let you know if I find out something useful or economically significant

[@damdangus8588]

The melting points of copper and gold are too close.

[@Rob337_aka_CancelProof]

@@damdangus8588 electrowinning (electrolysis) I did some more research and recently got some insight (from chat gpt-4) on how to precipitate Copper from the mixed metal solution while leaving gold in solution that is highly temperature dependent and requires the ability to maintain a very specific narrow range of temperatures that I haven't tried yet GPT

[@jordanmendoza1413]

You should add an a proximate $$ of what the cost could be that’s involved in the process along with what you gain as the end result .. great video lesson. I just happen to scroll and kept watching after the first video I seen.

[@cmrracingllc6942]

.999 pure at closing price as of 10/8/21 would be estimated $1271.55.

[@badass55ism]

So he made a couple hundred bucks before adding in the cost of all the acid.

[@jasondejager9106]

R 45ty⁶

[@sreetips]

Jordan, a cost analysis is in the video description.

[@JAKEWJONES]

I am a distiller by trade. My rum won a silver medal at the 2011 San Fransisco World Spirits Competition. I am no longer in the industry but I do enjoy distilling as a hobby. You have me looking through my shelf of hardback catalogs, for lab gear. I am lucky to have hardback and paperback catalogs. These companies have all switched to online digital and I hate it.

[@MarkJones-os1vo]

Idea here: Since the raw material is gold plated on to copper, try some kind of glass bead blasting in a closed cabinet (to recover the bead abrasive and gold) then check to see that only copper is left as parent material. Collect beads/gold from cabinet while sifting out or separating the copper parent material. Use the nitric process on the bead/gold residue to dissolve any parent copper flecked off during blasting (should require a LOT LESS nitric). Process moves to preparing aqua-regia to finally put the Au into solution. Rest as shown in video. Hope this helps....

[@HomeExp]

Отличный результат, дружище! Постоянно смотрю твои видео, жаль только то, что плохо язык знаю.

[@chemistryofquestionablequa6252]

Thankfully KZbin now translates comments, I'm glad that we can now communicate more easily!

[@20greeneyes20]

Google translates

[@pretzel2558]

@@20greeneyes20 that would be quite difficult for a full video

[@IAmNoggin]

great experiment proving that it's best to use lower-cost methods for anything "heavy". Instead of making copper nitrate, much cheaper to make copper chloride. Normally I think you would have taken a small sample and refine to finish instead of your YOLO approach but some days it's all about the content, right? Mechanical abuse of the pins (e.g. pour pins into a 5 gal pail and pound them /w the end of a sledge hammer) would get to the copper quicker. You can also use those pins to exhaust waste nitric by melting into ingots and recover the gold from your waste treatment workflow - but that would make a terrible youtube video. Still always really satisfying to see you get the gold!

[@andrewross3284]

Jnmnm

[@berthageorge2627]

I will just go dig for gold.Not a chemical girl.This is for the BIG boys here....🤢🤒🤔

[@berthageorge2627]

Wow the mind of men, bless them........💯✔

[@sreetips]

Bertha, I’m just and advanced beginner, a hobbyist. Not a professional refiner. I do it for fun!

[@katscreationsasmr2499]

@@berthageorge2627 scary

[@andreww2319]

Minute 29 ... genius insight into the periodic table. Chemistry made powerful and interesting in seconds. I won't even comment about the lame way they shoved chemistry at me in high school.

[@heisenberg5766]

Doesn't get any profit from 1000$ + materials (not including labor), if not for content for KZbin. But I highly respect these kinds of contents. Kudos to you sir!

[@whiskeytangofoxtrot5057]

once again great video. I know it was a tough one but as always the science must go on. thank you for sticking it out.

[@ProjectDIYOz]

I always enjoy your videos mate. This was a very interesting one. 😃 Keep up the great work!

[@nikkolaus]

30:37 Mmmm yummy... the forbidden blueberry smoothie

[@keelo-byte]

The real gold is the friends we made along the way.

[@nicholasb8799]

That was a little painful.....but I am sure another piece of wisdom in the tank!

[@Godofhouse]

Ive done something similar before. I went through every pin and scraped off as much as I could into a separate bin. I used a metalworkers scraper and with the gold and copper being softer than hardened steel, I was able to save time but with the extra effort. Also it exposed the copper under the tips of my flakes easier I’m not sure if that was smart or not but it saved a big load of time for a small amount of pins.

[@Alondro77]

I'm seeing from some refiners that the easiest way to deal with pins is to melt them into a long, thin bar and then use copper sulfate electrolysis to strip away the copper and base metals from the bar in the anode position. Precious metals will turn into a 'mud' that collects under the anode and is much easier to process afterward. Copper will crystallize out on the cathode, which can be a pure copper rod, titanium, platinum wire, or even a graphite electrode can work (thick pencil leads are mostly graphite, and are conductive... plus being very cheap!)

[@Cheburashka_420]

Im sure you see this a million times but..... Full Metal Alchemist. I wish i could do what you do man.

[@technovikingfan]

Man! Totally rad. Glad you got so much. Extremely well done and very enjoyable to watch. Keep up the good work brother

[@alanl.simmons9726]

Would grinding the pins have sped up the process? Where do your exhaust fumed vent. Do you have a back up vent fan?

[@kennyminer2245]

WHO ARE YOU THE E.P.A? THATS TOO MANY QUESTIONS, I SMELL A NARC. ☣☢

[@jcsimmons1035]

I was thinking same thing... How he is scrubbing the air and what happens to those chemicals in the end

[@sreetips]

Your neighbors car is much worse than my occasional chemistry experiments. The acids go through waste treatment before disposal.

[@jonnotuckster8856]

Would have been cool to do a comparison of recovery methods with this amount. Like stripping cell v boiling acid then pros and cons etc

[@ablelawrence5750]

Thank you sir and for your efforts. Very well spoken and informative.

[@cartoonboys5]

well... you cant get rich with this stuff, but the joy and the satisfaction you would get after doing all this work, getting scrap electronics, doing the chemistry and at the end u get that small shiny precious... i gota do this once in my life.

[@josemuzquiz7146]

That gold is difficult to handle, it so friggan fine. It sticks to everything! We didn't have the proper containers so each transfer we would lose so much of it. For your first time you did it very clean, good job man.

[@Hossak]

Great video as always! Chemistry for fun and profit - ok in this case not a lot of profit but really appreciate you taking the massive time and effort to document the whole thing.

[@77Avadon77]

Didn't he make like $1,200 off of this minus the $500 paid that's pretty good profit

[@sreetips]

I turned paper into gold

[@Hossak]

@@sreetips All your videos are gold champ!!!

[@77Avadon77]

@@sreetips lol oh no. Ignoring your time, did you really not turn profit?

[@sreetips]

I sold the gold for $2600

[@mariakoamigo7302]

Faaaantastico amigo! Un placer verte trabajar y ver los resultados. Saludos

[@sreetips]

Gracious!

[@pub6023]

I’m hopelessly addicted to your videos, thank you for your efforts….well done Sir!

[@sreetips]

Thank you!

[@apveening]

I have couple of small points: As far as valuable metals go, I think you overlooked one, right next to gold in the periodic table (Pt). With the amount of nitric acid you are using, you might wish to capture the nitrogen dioxide fumes (not healthy for the environment) and force it through (distilled) water, recreating nitric acid.

[@robgad2271]

Three things to tell you here. Don't use water, just nitric acid, the dilution is costing you time and acid. Don't use so much heat, just 70-90°C is plenty after it has sat in solution for two days. I do this often and it takes a week and only one drain and replace acid after a few days. Pushing the time with more heat and more acid is just cutting into the cost factor on your bottom line. Also the plating is probably 14k from it's color, so the foil remnants you see are only half gold. In your frequent draining and pouring off you are also losing some fine fold at the bottom. Only do your pour offs through a double filter paper, what I can't see in the copper solution is greater than you suspect. Testing with the litmus paper only indicates what is in the opt of the beaker and will not indicate on the floating particles or submerged heavy bits in the bottom or the solution. But I do like your acid drip, that is great and something that I will have to incorporate in my setup.

[@sreetips]

Rob, I add water to provide a medium for the copper to dissolve into. Think of using just liquid dish soap to wash your hands. It would get them clean, but a little water makes the soap work much more efficiently.

[@trepaning]

Some soaps require water of a specific temperature to activate. @@sreetips

[@bentationfunkiloglio]

A win in my book! Nothing better than a handful of pure gold! About $1300 or thereabouts, if pure. Some might think profit margin was a bit too thin given material costs, including acids and pins, and time/labor. However, given crazy inflation these days, you'll definitely come out way ahead in the long run. Also, got a great video! Thanks for sharing!

[@dkwjejdjs3784]

He spent $400-500 on reagents. It was a loss, not even counting lost labor time that could have been spent on a money-making activity. But it's interesting to watch.

[@sreetips]

I sold the gold for $2600 USD

[@bigstyx]

@@sreetips you were lucky to get that price because it was no more than $1400 in gold value on a good day. Not quite sure why someone would pay over that amount. I mine for gold in California and usually can get 30g+ of quarts gold over a weekend after processing, I usually make around $2000 on approximately 28+ grams of pure gold.

[@sreetips]

I made a necklace out of it

[@Yakuza5150]

@@sreetips You made the necklace or had someone else make the necklace? Then sold the necklace for $2600?

[@Ichabod_Jericho]

Crazy cool colors in your combined concoctions.

[@chosen1one930]

Reverse Electroplating is the way to go, saves time and money

[@ChrisTopher_Browder]

Price of time and supplies=$$$$ Knowledge shared = Priceless Ty for making this. I was clueless where to start and what to do.

[@mauriceorayii2964]

I feel like the world is about to go old-school, and learn how to process scarce materials. This information is priceless.

[@NoName-kf1cy]

Ya, that's really cool. I've seen it before but love seeing it done like this!

[@alphadog6970]

Nice i was waiting for an old school sreetips episode like this one.

[@1RebelDog1]

What a fantastic channel this is :)

[@scrappydoo7887]

Lol like your pic SNAFU 🤣

[@tree01house]

Nov 2021, .... 22.5 grams = $1483.60 USD, minus chemical expenses and time, still a great experience. Thank you

[@Reneelwaring]

Also don't forget the $1,000 it cost him for the pins.

[@josemuzquiz7146]

You don't have to completely dissolve the cooper pins, just the top layer to release the gold. Once most of the gold is released, dump out the CuNOH and rinse it with water and shake it to knock most the gold off. You get to point where it's cheaper just to stop than to try and collect all the gold. If you got most of it then it becomes a question of how much are you willing to spend to get small amount of gold out. I live in Silicon Valley and this one time my friends went dumpster diving over at the tech companies around here and salvaged a couple hundred pounds of this byproduct of circuit manufacturing. They we're these boards that were punched out to make the circuit boards anyways it had gold plated circuits and we filled a 55 gallon plastic drum 3/4 full man that was fun! It was like the Comstock load even though it was gold and not silver.

[@JohnSnow-lb6xi]

$1230 bucks worth of gold in today's market, he did stop early in dissolving all the copper he only used 5 2.5l jugs and @ 74 A Jug he spent about $330.... and then spent 501 (hopefully that was the starting bid with 7 days left on the auction) on the pins themselves....... so $830 in pins and Nitric.... he had all the Sulfuric and sodium metabisulfite on hand and only used a few scoops/drops each so the cost was minimal. +~$400 bucks for his time and energy + whatever kind of revenue 850k views on youtube brings in. But if he had to pay that buy it now price...... complete waste of time/money. I wonder if there is any economical way to recover the $40 bucks in copper that is in the bucket now.

[@sreetips]

I spent a thousand bucks for the pins. I did this because I know escrap is popular (even though recovery is expensive and the yield is low). But a million views is worth several thousand dollars. Plus, I re-refined the gold and sold it as a pure gold bar necklace. When the dust settled, I ended up getting about $2600 for the gold. This doesn’t count the ad revenue from a million views.

[@sreetips]

Copper, to precious metals refiner, is considered waste and not worth the time nor effort to recover it. The copper gets tossed after I cement it out on iron.

[@JohnSnow-lb6xi]

@@sreetips Nice an honest reply from the man himself.

[@josemuzquiz7146]

@@sreetips 1000 bucks

[@josemuzquiz7146]

Good job! You got the job done, you got the gold and that's the funnest part is harvesting the gold. Good job.

[@daveb5041]

*Have you ever considered trying to a refining for thing with low gold content the way matt from MBMMLLC mount baker mining and minerals* , where you take all the junk out by melting it into the slag then you are left with a lead/gold/silver metal that could be chemically separated using H2SO4? It would be a hybrid method using heat and chemicals, heat to quickly do the nitric acid part removing 95% of the junk leaving you very little to refine?

[@TheWolfster001]

That was what I was thinking.. It would be cheaper to smelt first, then if needed use chemicals to further refine it..

[@sreetips]

I have not - none of the refiners that I learned from used this method

[@vinnycordeiro]

@@sreetips The method recommended by the other guy is applied to mined raw material, no wonder refiners uses more sophisticated methods with already mined metals.

[@sreetips]

Quite correct, I have zero experience with mining

[@andrewyork3869]

Yeah I have wondered the same thing with gold filled scrap as well.

[@1RebelDog1]

14:53 hahaha! Only an idiot would say call off the experiment! God bless discovery thats what i say lol! thankyou for continuing :D

[@JohnnySwedishScrapper]

perfect info as a scrapper i collect the high and low yeld gold stuff, so 10 lb / 4.5 kilo gives 22.6 gram pure gold realy good to know ;) thanks ;)

[@DanielHouston-uw3ir]

This is my favorite video of yours for so many reasons, would like to see some other evaluations of other material in comparison! Youve been around quite awhile and have all the right set up. Just finally had to let you know, awesome evaluation!!!

[@sreetips]

Thank you

[@brettwatty101]

So at current gold price and the nitric acid costs you basically broke even? I was worried you would get a very small amount. Great video.

[@lklmmedia4715]

Reminds me of seeing a lot of DIY videos where they Pour hundreds of litres of Epoxy to make tables and products that for the most part would be worth a pittance of the cost of the Epoxy itself. None-the-less with refined...ahhh refining techniques, it might well be something that could make some money back with. It shows the process itself is possible if nothing else. Eventually will probably make more in YT $$$ on the video than the pins!

[@sreetips]

I turned paper dollars into pure gold, gained experience and a new video. To me, I’m way ahead.

[@brettwatty101]

@@sreetips true basically turned a depreciating asset into an appreciating asset.

[@sreetips]

Quite true. Holding dollars don’t make any sense.

[@barrypoontang]

he did make a loss of about $610 USD

[@lutomson3496]

thats and interesting process..paying $2k and getting $1500 of gold out of it plus time and chemicals (using gold price unless my math is wrong} is a pretty expensive hobby...I go down and pan for gold and do much better with little investment, always interesting to see though the scrap recovery and chemical piece

[@dave_in_florida]

Nitric acid 10gal cost about $600

[@joesmith-es1zy]

You're also getting a lot of copper out of it.

[@briancarter3704]

@@dave_in_florida I dont remember prices being that high, wow

[@sreetips]

The value of the nitric hasn’t increased. The dollars used to price the nitric have decreased.

[@lutomson3496]

@@joesmith-es1zy $500? a little yes I do always enjoy his videos

[@LikeSomeDude]

Just fascinating! ACE CONTENT! Thank for putting so much time into making this great content!

[@jmharrison3]

Wow that is super cool, a great talent and knowledge to have being able to do what you do, looks like a lot of fun, and your patience is rewarded nicely, but still a lot of work for just a little bit of gold.

[@sreetips]

Agree - getting pure gold - from any source, is never quick and easy.

[@niagarajoe4402]

I was thinking to myself early on in the video…why isn’t he using a dripper to add the acid? Than you do it lol…so awesome!

[@chrisjones-fp5vd]

You can use a spaghetti strainer to separate the foils from the pins once they are freed. Could have saved yourself several gallons of HNO3. I know that stuffs pricey.

[@bensoncheung2801]

Big brain solution right here.

[@seaofredkc]

I was gonna say the same, why he doesn't pour off the waste copper solution through a fine mesh strainer to catch any foils kind of blows my mind! Especially since he is so GD tuhro and precise on everything that he does. But hey, nobody's perfect and to each his own right?

[@mewmewdesigns895]

With a distillation setup to clean the acid he could save himself acid as well. Just reuse the same acid over and over only having to replace what is lost through the fuming and the little bit lost in other parts of the process.

[@themyceliumnetwork]

@@bensoncheung2801 try the above idea, let us know your findings.

[@chrisjones-fp5vd]

@@mewmewdesigns895 the acid is oxidized to nitrate upon reacting with the metal, giving off hydrogen gas. In order to reclaim the nitric acid, the nitrate salts need to be isolated and then reprotonated with sulfuric acid and distilled.

[@koyima]

This is what the Alchemists imagined they would be able to do

[@buckstarchaser2376]

Did you ever find out what the precipitate was? I suspect that it was tin, as some sort of pre-tinned solder cups in the pins. Tin does all the behaviors you noticed there in Nitric. Also, when you precipitate copper with your angle-iron, and the iron is sitting in the precipitated copper, it will make a battery and probably put a bunch of rust powder in your copper. You can also just melt all those pins into metal plates, and then electroplate the copper onto stainless steel or copper for rather pure copper, and the impurities will end up on the bottom for further refinement. The electrolyte to use here is copper sulfate and a little sulfuric acid. If you want to get most of your nitric back after a run like this, you can cement out all the lower-reactivity metals with a piece of copper, and then put it in a distillation apparatus. Put some sulfuric acid to take the nitric's place, and distil off the nitric. Then, recover the sulfuric and copper with a similar cell to the copper/copper cell described above, but instead of the copper starting electrode, use a platinum-plated electrode to plate out the copper onto a copper wire. The copper should come out rather pure, and the sulfuric acid should remain to be used again, though you will eventually need to re-distil the sulfuric once it gets overly contaminated with metals more reactive than copper.

[@rajgill7576]

You probably could have gotten that for $500 if you just bid and waited out the auction. A lot of these auctions don't get many people interested

[@THE_RAMALAMADINGDONG]

So true even a year later !!! I got a Brand new PS5 bundle for my daughter's boyfriend for Christmas about a month ago on auction for 300$ !!! There was only 1-2 people besides myself bidding!!

[@sreetips]

I paid full price, seller gets full price. I get the stuff I need to make the video. My viewers get to see how much gold is in this type of scrap - everybody wins!

[@sukmeeballz8327]

Im a beginner refiner and jewlers student - im learni g to refine in order to keep my gold high karat purity...and collect and refine what i can so to have some good quality gold to work with and make jewlery !

[@MrRammsteinforlife]

Just looked at the Oz to g conversion of what the seller estimated, and they were pretty close to spot on between the nugget and what was remaining in the beaker.

[@BrendaBodwin]

😯, I wish you had kept a few out. I would have loved to buy 2 of those from you. Not for the gold. For a gift for an awesome old lady. Well, at least we got another interesting and informative video. 👍🏻

[@goldcloud442]

Great job and wonderful video. I am a chemist and I do not think I would've done any better than you did. You also have very nice setup and equipment. Another thing I learned is that these gold plated scraps are way over priced on eBay! They are not for gold recovery, maybe for science experiments.

[@sreetips]

Thank you. The seller knew the composition of the pins and I knew that I could dissolve the copper and get the gold, even though this was probably not the most efficient way to do it.

[@user-is5zb7cq5w]

كيفك @@sreetips