Hello! Some direction?

[Erathsmus]

Hey everyone,

I’m a hobbyist with blacksmithing/forging, and electronics. I also go out mining in BLM land and poke around rock hunting with some clubs. This forum has quite a wealth of information which I’ve pulled some great resources from recently.

Since I’m not doing this for money, I really just enjoy doing things, I’m interested in learning more about what to do with raw ore regardless of it being valuable.

I’ve looked through the resources provided via Wisdom, Hoke, and several library threads as well as moderator signatures. I’ve also checked out the backyard chemist, and have some books on processing e waste.

If anyone could kindly point me in the direction of what to do with raw ore beyond assaying, such as how to process Iron in a single person quantity after I’ve identified it, as well as various non precious material types, that would be appreciated! I find the prospect and hunt very satisfying, and love working with a material that I’ve found myself. Be it lapidary, forging or electronics.

Basically, I feel like I’ve gathered ample resources on assays, but not so much on processing non precious material from ore

 

[Yggdrasil]

Hey everyone,

I’m a hobbyist with blacksmithing/forging, and electronics. I also go out mining in BLM land and poke around rock hunting with some clubs. This forum has quite a wealth of information which I’ve pulled some great resources from recently.

Since I’m not doing this for money, I really just enjoy doing things, I’m interested in learning more about what to do with raw ore regardless of it being valuable.

I’ve looked through the resources provided via Wisdom, Hoke, and several library threads as well as moderator signatures. I’ve also checked out the backyard chemist, and have some books on processing e waste.

If anyone could kindly point me in the direction of what to do with raw ore beyond assaying, such as how to process Iron in a single person quantity after I’ve identified it, as well as various non precious material types, that would be appreciated! I find the prospect and hunt very satisfying, and love working with a material that I’ve found myself. Be it lapidary, forging or electronics.

Basically, I feel like I’ve gathered ample resources on assays, but not so much on processing non precious material from ore

Welcome to us.
This is not a mining forum although we have a few members who mine and process ores.
So a bit of patience may be needed.

 

[goldshark]

There are a great many videos on Utube, which cover converting various stages of iron.Probably the easiest form to start with is Magnetite. It could be obtained from virtually any where, simply by dragging a magnet in a stream bed. As this is a GRF, I won't go into the many facets of converting non PMs, into their various forms of refinement. Perhaps some study in geology, metallurgy, and milling of ores is in your future. They are not available here, but a lot of info can be found with a Google search on all subjects mentioned.

 

[Erathsmus]

There are a great many videos on Utube, which cover converting various stages of iron.Probably the easiest form to start with is Magnetite. It could be obtained from virtually any where, simply by dragging a magnet in a stream bed. As this is a GRF, I won't go into the many facets of converting non PMs, into their various forms of refinement. Perhaps some study in geology, metallurgy, and milling of ores is in your future. They are not available here, but a lot of info can be found with a Google search on all subjects mentioned.

Definitely been scraping as much info as I could. That’s how I ended up on here after all! Despite this being a gold refining forum, I’ve probably found more resources around here than most places on related topics…at least from the assaying side certainly.

I’ve watched tons of content and attempted the things I’ve watched, but honestly there is not a whole lot out there for a one man show who is *mining their own non precious bearing ore*

One valuable thing I just learned here, that no video taught me was using borax to lean out the upper layer of waste material. I found no YouTube or other google-able resource that mentioned such a thing with garage scale iron processing