Refining gold bench sweeps with sodium cynanide

I have a friend that just closed his jewelry repair shop. He has 33
year old floor mats that were in the shop, the refiners wont take
them. Any suggestions on how to refine the gold from these mats
would be greatly appreciated.

I have a friend that just closed his jewelry repair shop. He has
33 year old floor mats that were in the shop, the refiners wont
take them. Any suggestions on how to refine the gold from these
mats would be greatly appreciated. 

Burn the mats and send the ashes to the refiner.

Elliot Nesterman

Hoover and Strong still takes floor mats, carpeting etc. call them
and check. I know there are other’s as well that take floor mats,
etc. too. Look around before cyanide reclaimation which isn’t for the
inexperienced!..rer

1 Like

I would ask some other refiners. There are places that do this, I
believe. Try Stebgo Metals, Inc. in St. Paul, MN.

M’lou

Burn the mats and send the ashes to the refiner. 

I have to disagree. Burning these mats will create some horrible
fumes/smoke that is probably very toxic and at the least will stink
really badly.

Plus, if the matts are rubber or plastic/nylon there will be lots of
popping and fizzing and much of the values will be lost.

(And if they’re really old they might even be hemp, and you know we
can’t burn that!) :slight_smile:

If she’s going to send them to a refinery, she should just send the
whole mat.

There is a way to refine these, but I wouldn’t suggest cyanide,
though one could certainly use cyanide if one was set up to do so.

And as R. E.Rourke so correctly states, posting these extremely
dangerous methods on a public forum would be irresponsible.

Paf Dvorak

Find a different refiner, there are some who will refine things like
carpet and mats.

James Binnion
James Binnion Metal Arts

Call the folks a United Precious Metals 1-800-999-FINE I use to send
them carpet and the like with no problem. Been a few years but give
them a call. Frank

I had a floor mat no refiner would take. I took it to the back yard,
burnt it in a wheel barrel collected the ashes and sent it to the
refiner with my sweeps, no problem.

I lost a friend as a result of attempting to reclaim gold with
cyanide.

Randy had been using this process for several years, so was not
inexperienced. One evening, in his shop alone, there was an
accident, and the shop was filled with cyanide and nitric acid fumes.
He escaped by throwing a chair through the display window, and
crawling outside.

However, he was not unscathed. There was significant damage done to
his lungs, and was no longer able to breathe properly. This condition
continued to worsen over the next twenty years, until he couldn’t
keep enough oxygen in his lungs to survive. Of course, his continued
smoking hadn’t helped. He died in the Memphis Medical Center
intensive care unit of, essentially, suffocation. The emergency staff
were unable to revive him that one last time.

I worked with him the last several years, helping him do any and all
tasks in the shop that required even the least exertion. On a number
of occasions, I helped him to his cot in the back because he was too
exhausted to even sit at his bench,

Please take heed.

UPM is the choice I know people that have sent in old machines as
well carpet…

Andy The Tool Guy

Dont for get your chairs! Tim and I just refined one shop chair last
year.

We laid out a bunch of kraft paper turned the chair over and removed
the upholstery and foam seat.

We got about an ounce and a half of gold from it.

Have fun and make lots of jewelry.

Jo Haemer
timothywgreen.com

Cyanide is not the correct way to process bench sweeps. It is in the
mining industry only.

I’m a professional gold refiner that has been processing
polishing/bench sweeps for many years now in Canada. The correct
procedure is to incinerate slowly (while filtering the fumes) and
then process through AR. It is time consuming compared to karat gold,
but often worth it.

When it comes to polishing dusts, you have to have a trusted
refiner. Far for anyone in this business is. Since you do not know
the exact precious metals content, you have to rely solely on what
the refiner tells you.=B8

Let me know if I can be of any help…

Jean-Nicolas Allaire
NikOr.ca