Deplorable, larger precious metals refinery knocking the small time refiners!

Deplorable, larger precious metals refinery knocking the small time refiners!

Why would a large refinery concern themselves with hobby refiners?

Since the precious metals market took a downturn, larger refineries have found it difficult to hedge against the plummeting prices, and even more difficult to continue a profitable business.

Smaller refiners, hobby refiners and other entities are making it more and more difficult for larger refineries to source for material.

And many other reasons.

I find it particularly offensive to read a post by someone representing this organization, and who does not also post their name. It's drive by posting in my opinion, and deplorable.

I would strongly suggest that the person who authored this post, check out the Gold Refining Forum https://goldrefiningforum.com. This is an amazing place where professional refiners, industry leaders, hobby refiners and those who are just learning come to exchange information, safety procedures, refining processes and more. In fact, it is most likely the single most important repository of refining information on the internet. If you wish to learn how to refine precious metals as a hobbyist, I would strongly suggest visiting the site, reading the posts, following the safety procedures and interacting with some of the industries most knowledgeable chemists, process engineers, metallurgists, miners and refiners both those who work for refineries, and their owners.

I myself was a hobby refiner. I educated myself, I own literally 10s of thousands of dollars in books on the subject and related subjects. I taught myself chemistry, metallurgy and processes used to recover and refine precious metals. I now own and operate a small but profitable precious metals refinery. Often, I process the more difficult material that larger refineries will not, and I do because I can be far more dynamic, I can customize my processes with little or no expense involved.

Larger scale refiners invest, often, millions in specific process lines that are able to process many different types of materials, however not as efficiently as a process built and implemented for specific types of materials. This often results in losses of values, in precious metals, that for a small scale refiner such as myself is not acceptable.

In larger refineries, there are people who are employed to work specific parts of a process, who many times do not have the education regardless if it's college or self sought, to understand exactly what they are doing. This results in a lower extraction and payout. Allow me to give a few examples.

I have represented clients materials at refineries in the past. Watching the smelting process, knowing and understanding the proper procedures I am many times shocked at how the operator smelts material. Incorrectly smelting results in loss of values. This happens when the smelting is done at too high a temperature, and some of the precious metals are vaporized. The customer will never be paid on these values as they go up the exhaust and end up in filters which are reclaimed at a later time. The precious metal values recovered from these filters are never paid to any customer but instead considered a gimme.

In order to get a proper assay, a smelt or melting of the material being assayed must be homogeneously melted. Meaning that all metals should be melted so that the metal has a single, uniform color. If a pin sample is taken while there are still darker spots in the molten metal, you will not get a proper assay, yet I have seen processors attempt to take pin samples many times when the metal was still not ready, nor properly melted. And I have seen this personally at some of the largest refineries in the United States.

Also, metal always ends up in the slag, the refineries also consider this a gimmie. Specially when proper smelting techniques are not used, when too much of one flux ingredient or not enough of another are used. When the molten metal and slag are not poured correctly or in a timely fashion. The slag is saved by the refinery, and processed at a later time where the values are never paid to any customer but instead retained as a gimmie.

The list goes on and on. To be frank, nobody should ever trust any refinery to do the best job nor look out for the best interests of the customer. Some do, but the sad truth is that most do not. You must ask for a full accountability, you must represent your material and watch each step of the way and understand what to look for. You must ask for the slag from your melt back, and should check it carefully for metal beads that are caught in the slag.

But to say that all hobby refiners are a certain way, or to say people should not be hobby refining is absolutely ludicrous. Like I said, I started out as a hobby refiner, and evolved my business model to what it is today. I purchased the correct equipment, I learned the proper procedures, I asked a lot of questions and I very successfully learned this trade. I have built much of the equipment I use myself, and have sold some to other refiners as well. I created my own processes, some so novel that larger refineries cannot use them yet my yields are far better than the larger refineries. I conduct myself in a very honest way, remelting slag to recover and values trapped, processing crucibles where values do go into the walls of the crucibles, using fume scrubbing and testing for values. In each step of the process maximizing the amount of precious metal values recovered. Large operations almost never do any of this, and seldom even if asked.

If you look for colleges that offer degrees in metallurgy, you will soon discover that most of these degrees are no longer offered. Worse, the ones that are do not offer hands on experience nor practical applications of the information. Learning and educating yourself is important regardless if you are attending a college with the intent to obtain a degree in metallurgy, or you are a hobby refiner. Often, chemistry professors will tell you for example, that an Aqua Regia solution is made up of 1 part Nitric Acid and 3 parts Hydrochloric Acid. This is not true, nor the best way to dissolve gold into solution. Aqua Regia is any solution that is comprised of Hydrochloric and Nitric Acid. Where the Nitric Acid acts as the oxidizer, you should only be adding so much as is needed or required to dissolve gold into solution. In this way you do not waste Nitric Acid, nor cause more NOx gas than is absolutely necessary. Hobby refiners know this, where many times larger refineries that hire strict chemists continue to make Aqua Regia solutions using the 1:3 solution.

Considering that Specialty Metals has negative ratings, and complaints filed against them, it's surprising that they would post this type of information on their own website.

Check your own house before you start pointing fingers at hobby refiners who are just simply trying to make an extra dollar or in some cases support their family or even other cases such as mine, grow a viable, honest business from very humble beginnings.

Since I started, I have gone back to college to obtain degrees in the field of my chosen profession. I can state this with the utmost clarity and certainty. I have learned very little that I didn't already learn from books, familiarity tests and practical applied knowledge, actually working with material. And I have learned far more that I was never exposed to while obtaining degrees in this field.

In my opinion, this post should be immediately retracted, and an apology posted. I do not take kindly to people who obviously have very little knowledge about what hobby refining truly is, and who are only trying to make one sector of people look bad in order to elevate themselves. This is never a good business practice. And instead of knocking the small guy for trying so hard to do something very few people would even attempt, you might serve your purpose, and business far better by supporting them in whatever way you can. Often, it's the small guy who has the material you seem to be so desperately looking for.