Backyard Scrapping
Refining Info
General Information About Cost & Fee's To Have Your Metal
Refined, Re-Poured Etc..



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Repouring Your Metal (no refining)

To re-pour your metal using molds I have on hand, contact me with what you have and what
you want poured. If you want a special mold, you will have to supply it, and send it with
your metal that is to be re-poured. I will pour Gold, gold alloys, Silver, silver alloys,
and Copper only. I do not work with PGM's.

Shipping both ways is to be covered by you. That's all there is to it, if you would like
to have some stuff re-poured, just contact me to make arrangements.




Basic Information About Refining Your Material
All refining that I do is on a split basis. I do not
do "Fee" refining. Splits are based on material types.

First let me say, I would be happy to do refining for you. The terms are, number 1 that you
are comfortable with me doing it, and being that we probably do not really know each other at
all, about the only thing I can do is give you some information to check out about me.

I have had my Rock & Gem web site on the net sense 1999; I also had a rock gem & jewelry shop
in Hayesville NC from 1989 thru 2004 and a jewelry store in Young Harris GA for several years.
Both of which are closed now, but I still operate my web site if you would like to check it
out the address is www.djgems.net, I have also been a seller on eBay since Apr., 1999 and have
100% positive feedback there, my eBay user name is djgems if you want to check that out as well.
But most of all, and last but not least YOU have to decide to trust me or not with your
material before we do any type of business.


Refining is a tricky business, and no matter what something is marked, what you think it is, or
where it came from, you do not know what it will yield until the process is done. An example of
this is, I once had approx., 500 grams of scrap .925 (sterling silver) jewelry that I refined.
All was marked either .925 or sterling, in a perfect world this should have yielded 462.5 grams
of pure silver, as what I started with was 92.5% pure. This lot only yielded less than 400 grams,
which is a loss of about 2 troy ounces of silver. There is always a small loss, anywhere from 2%
to 5% when refining simply because home refiners like me do not have the super expensive
equipment that large commercial refineries have. But this does not account for a loss of 2 ounces.
Why there was such a loss from what I thought I would get is... obviously even though it was
marked .925, some of it was not. Just because something is "Marked" .925, Sterling, 14K, 10K, or
anything else, THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT IS WHAT IT TRULY IS!! Anyone can buy a
jewelers stamp and mark it what ever they want however they want!!


Silver Refining & Fee's





This leads us to general materials that most of my customers want refined. Silver Contacts, for
example range in purity anywhere from 10% to as much as 99% pure silver, some are just heavy
plating on tungsten, which is twice as dense as silver and can give false expectations of your
yield. Without an assay there is no way I can predict what your material is going to yield, I can
make an "educated guess" but that’s about all. There for you have to trust that I will be honest
and fair with you. Here are the Silver items I will take for refining and the splits.

The cost to refine your silver will depend on the type of material being refined, and are listed below.


1.) Silver Contacts, but ONLY the contact. All contacts must already be removed from what ever
they were attached to. Do Not send contacts that have just been cut off the arms or that have any
other base metal on them except for solder.

Fee's for silver contacts is as follows:
All Plated Tungsten Contacts, 50/50 split, 50% to you 50% to me.
Alloy Contacts 60/40 split, 60% to you 40% to me.
All other alloy electrical materials 60/40 split, 60% to you 40% to me.
Other plated electrical materials must be approved by me before you ship.
Plated electrical material split starts at 25/75, 25% to you 75% to me.


2.) Sterling Silver, be it scrap, scrap jewelry, flatware, etc., but be sure it is sterling silver and not
"Silver Plate"!
Sterling silver material, 70/30 split, 70% to you 30% to me.


3.) Silver Coins, but remember anything that falls below 70% pure will incur additional fees. Some
coins contain as little as 10% silver and are probably best left as is, as the recovery cost will be to high.
Silver Coins .700 fine, 70/30 split, 70% to you 30% to me.
Silver Coins below .700 fine will add a 1/2 percent to my end for every percent below .700 fine.


4.) Sliver Filters & Dust. This can be silver that "You" have stripped or removed from silver plated
items by sanding, salt water stripping, or any other means of plating removal you have done. This
also includes bench grindings etc..
Number 4 items will have to be inspected by me to determine the split, but most are 70/30 to 60/40 splits.


As far as plated materials go, such as silverware, plates, platters, etc., I DO NOT
take plated materials for refining, you must remove the plating and send only that as stated in
section number (4). There are some great videos on YouTube showing how to do this, and it can
be done very inexpensively, it just takes time!

Once the refining process has been completed, you can choose a couple ways to have your metal
returned to you.
  1. You can simply have it returned as is in the recovered powder form, this is best if
you intend to melt it to make your own bars or other objects as it lessens the losses due to vaporization.
Every time it is melted a slight bid is lost.

  2. I will melt your powder and pour a single bar from it, any additional bars you want
me to pour will add a $2.50 charge per bar.

  3. In shot form, please note if you choose shot, it will be small globs, and globules,
not the pretty round shot you see from jewelry suppliers & large refinery’s, as I just do what’s
called a water bucket pour. But it is considered “Shot” none the less.

Last but not least shipping/insurance both ways comes out of your end of the recovery, or if you want
all of your end of the silver returned you will need to pay for return shipping.


NOTE: Any materials that fall below the base split fees above will incur an additional 1/2 % to me for
for each % below normal split rates.



Gold Refining





To start with I have no set fee for Gold Refining except computer scrap, because there are to many
different types and and processes when it comes to refining gold. I will start with what I accept:

1.) Gold jewelry and jewelry scrap, bench sweeps, dental gold, natural placer gold, gold coins, etc..
pricing will be determined according to type and quantity to be refined, but starts at 25% of the recovery.

2.) COMPUTER SCRAP, this is probably the most requested material that I am asked to refine, and
the most COMPLICATED!!! I am going to be as brief as possible here, but this cannot be explained
in just a few words, so please bare with me! Also computer scrap is a flat 30% fee, no matter the quantity.

I only take material that is ready to process, or what I call "prepared material". I am the refiner, my
customers, "YOU" are the scrapper(s), meaning "YOU" send me material that is ready to be refined.
The following is what I will accept.

Ceramic Processors, cpu's are processed as they are, they are pretty much self prepared, there for
they can be sent as is. I DO NOT accept green, brown, tan, fiber processors, but I will accept the
pin foils from them as described in the pins section below.



Trimmed fingers from Ram, Slot Cards, Wifi Cards, and other type fingers are also considered prepared,
as they have been cut off the cards and are ready for acid. Do not send the entire board for me to do the
trimming. See the pic's below.





NOTE: There are some boards that look like they have gold fingers, most often these are from the back of
newer flat Screen TV's or computer monitors. THESE ARE NOT FINGERS, they are just flash plated and have
very little gold on them. I do not accept them, please see the pic below.



Now we will talk about the IC chips. I accept clean ash considerate, I do not accept complete chips. By clean
ash considerate I mean chips that have been reduced to ash by either burning or the wet ash process, and
crushed. Then the ash needs to be sifted so the larger metals have been removed. Next run a strong magnet
through the ash to remove as much magnetic's as possible. Then it needs to be washed with water so that only
the heavies remain. In other words the basic recovery and prep has been done, and the material is now ready
for me to do a final acid washing and prepare the material for refining. There are many video's showing how to
do this.

Many do not understand that simply because they have removed an item from a board, that the recovery has been
done and that it is ready to be refined, that is simply not the case. There is far more involved then just knocking a
chip off a board. So if your ash is ready to go to the acid washing process to remove copper and other remaining
base metals, then it is "prepared material" and I will accept it. If it has only been burned, and no further prep has
been done then it is not acceptable.

The only chips I will accept other then ceramic cpu's are the "Gold Corner BGA Chips" and ONLY the chip tops.
If you decide to send these chips un-processed as described above, the split will be 50/50, if I do it all. If you send
the ash as concentrate as discribed above, the fee will be normal. The pic below shows how I will accept BGA
chips. Also I do not accept the bottoms, there is simply not enough gold in them to warrant the chase.



On to computer pins. I will accept your recovered "Pin Foils" and or filters from the foils.
I NO LONGER TAKE PINS, full plate or not. If you put your pins through the AP process I will refine your filters
& foils, it is simply not cost or time effective for me to "Recover" the foils and then refine them. Remember, my
job is refining, your job is recovery! Also please remember if you are going to send you recovered foils for me
to refine, try to send at least the foils from 1 or more pounds of pins. Foils recovered from a couple hundred
grams of pins is only going to yield a small amount of gold, so wait until you have the foils from at least a pound
pins to make it worth doing, remember shipping is not free!

My job is to do the more dangerous chemical work your job is to get the material ready for me to work on.

Explanation of the fees I charge. The cost of acids, filters, and other materials to do the job come out of my
share of the recovered metals. I have done a lot of research on fee's and I believe mine are very fair. My share
of the refine covers my costs for materials, but in NO WAY covers my time, some refines can take days, or even weeks!
But I do it for the metal, not the money! We as scrappers already know, especially when it comes to scrapping computers
that hours and hours are involved in this process, and if you expect to get paid for the time you put into it, you
should consider another hobby, as we will never get paid for our time!

I hope this has helped to explain what my part is as the refiner, and what your part is as the scrapper. If you have
any other questions please feel free to ask. Also, please contact me before sending any material. Also remember
shipping and insurance to and from is paid by the customer, the return shipping can be deducted for your end of
the split if you like.

I hope you understand that because of time restraints I can only accept prepared material for refining, there is
simply not enough time in the day for me to do it all. I can accept what ever prepped material you have, but
anything that is not prepped and ready for the refining process I just don't have the time to do.

Thanks for taking the time to read the lengthy explanation, but after all we are talking about
"Your Metal And Money Here", so I want you to completely understand exactly what is going on,
and what this process entails before you commit to doing it!



Watch the video to understand more about the
types of material I accept for refining. Also please note
in this video I say I take pins, please disreguard that, I
no longer take pins, but I will take the pin foils. Thanks!
Computer Scrap Revised


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