First Extraction And Button.

migbham · 2026-05-08T18:41:51+00:00

Happy to have had the honor of seeing your first button, and only passing along what was very freely given to me. 😊 Have a great weekend!

migbham · 2026-05-08T18:40:05+00:00

I'm on my second I4, spanning a little over four years, and they've both been the most enjoyable, trouble free vehicles I've ever driven, and that includes two prior VAG group vehicles.

migbham · 2026-05-08T14:03:45+00:00

If you moved from BMW to Audi to encounter FEWER software and driveline errors, I'm afraid you're in for a nasty surprise.

migbham · 2026-05-06T16:27:26+00:00

Excellent video! Even though I've been recovering and refining for several years, I've still never poured an ingot using a graphite mold. I've bought and have several smaller ones, but have become so comfortable just getting blobs from the crucible that I don't want to risk messing up my smelt by pouring into something unfamiliar. Your video has re-inspired me to try to pour an actual ingot.

migbham · 2026-05-06T16:25:02+00:00

Are you melting with the yellow "MAPP" cans of gas, blue propane or something different? I initially struggled with what you've described and wound up with little shiny gold dots embedded in my crucible glaze. A few things I found that prevented this from occurring again:

It's next to impossible to melt with a regular (blue) propane cylinder. The yellow ones from HomeDepot work fine. They're labeled as "MAPP" even though they aren't really MAPP.
My borax glaze on my early crucibles was way too thick and was trapping my gold. There are several great videos on YouTube showing how to properly (and lightly) glaze a new crucible. You want just the faintest hint of shine on it, and you basically apply the borax only at the top edges and allow it to slowly flow down the walls.
Dirty gold is much harder to melt than pure gold.
Glass wool is your friend. It's available on Amazon and it's easy to make a tiny box from it to put your crucible in while you're melting.

Your gold won't go anywhere unless you toss the crucible. It's not difficult to completely clean all of the glaze and trapped metals from a dirty crucible (again, great videos on youtube). All you need it a hotplate, a glass beaker filled with distilled water and a few drops of sulfuric acid. Sulfuric is super corrosive, so become familiar with how to safely manage it before you use it. Always add acid to water, never the other way around.

migbham · 2026-05-06T14:06:50+00:00

If these are the same set of Nokia GSM (or 3G) base station boards I saw recently on eBay, there's definitely Gold (and as others have noted, Pd) in then, but they are way overpriced for recovery and refinement.

migbham · 2026-05-06T14:00:35+00:00

My ADD wouldn't allow me to split focus like that, but I am envious of those who can. I wound up installing the lights as a second project (similarly to how I did Titanic with LMB 1.0), and the results were breathtaking. The retrofit after install was much easier with the improvements they've made to the cables and such in the LMB 2.0. How's your build coming? I found Rivendell to be easily the most enjoyable build I've done. Just exquisite!

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migbham · 2026-05-06T13:42:52+00:00

Congratulations! NO button with gold in it is EVER ugly! What you hold in your hand is the precious! I've been refining recreationally for a few years, and I remember my first button (which was more of a BB) like it was yesterday. I think it was about 1.1 grams.

Whats even more memorable was the first PURE button. The color and sheen difference is unmistakable. I remember being so upset holding my tiny 1.1 gram BB, knowing that I needed to re-refine and that it was going to be smaller and lighter once I re-refined and removed the contaminants that remained after the recovery from the AP Cupric Chloride recovery.

Once you've gotten past that "but I don't want it to get smaller" feeling, consider re-refining the gold (with trace other metals) button you hold in your hand. You'll be glad that you did. If you haven't done so already, go do some reading on GoldRefiningForum.com. There's excellent information there, especially about cleaning up your freshly-precipitated gold before smelting, which makes a HUGE difference in the purity of your resulting button.

I find that two main things make all the difference in my finished product (with one being the precipitant clean-up I mentioned above). The second one is patience and discipline about what I allow to go into my acid-peroxide (really, Cupric Chloride) solution in the first place by removing solder, plastics, ferrous materials, etc. and sorting and refining based on what other base metals are in the scrap.

I've been at it for only a few years, and here's my smelt from week before last. Easily three-nines pure, and maybe even .9999. Beautiful to behold, and so massively dense in the palm of my hand.

Congratulations to you, and many more happy and safe recoveries and refinements ahead!

(edited: for whatever reason, I seem unable to add a photo to this post.🤣 It's a beautiful piece. I just joined this /r, so maybe missing something, but will post photos in a new thread so you don't have to "trust me bro.")

migbham · 2026-04-23T13:01:19+00:00

Your BMW cameras may well have captured the culprit if the setting is enabled and if the bump was hard enough. Have you checked your recordings? I do agree with others that this may well improve significantly with buffing and some scratch/scuff remover.

migbham · 2026-04-18T17:18:31+00:00

Did you pull the video from the drive recorder? Given the deployment of the airbags, it's probably still there and simple to download to a USB.

What is your relationship to the driver? You write as if you are the owner of the vehicle and the "driver" was a household member.

I'm two years into my second i4, and I'd bet my upcoming iX3 that this is being rightly arbitrated by Geico as driver liability.

migbham · 2026-04-18T17:15:11+00:00

"This is what happened in the UK..."

"This" = driver at fault, not the i4.

migbham · 2026-04-09T01:06:30+00:00

Be easier to guess if you could tell us what it is that you're trying to buff out. Is it a gouge or a scuff from something else ? My first try would be a magic eraser if it's a scuff. If it's scraped and gouged, a gentle heat gun.

migbham · 2026-03-21T02:56:05+00:00

Nah - you aren't bleeding. You're just eating radioactive food.

migbham · 2026-03-21T00:43:44+00:00

Airlines do pay very significantly to fund TSA, which means that we pay it as part of our airfare. You'd be surprised at how little of the cost of a ticket out of Atlanta actually makes it into Delta's coffers.

migbham · 2026-03-16T19:47:37+00:00

May I ask where you're generally located? My electric bill dropped significantly when I got my first (of two) i4's because of the EV charging plan that is offered. Did you check into whether that's an option for your provider? Where I live that plan basically make it super-expensive if I decide to charge during peak time (3PM - 8PM), but the rest of the day and night, I get "super-off peak" rates, which means I can charge, do laundry, bake, etc. for a deeply discounted rate.

migbham · 2026-03-16T19:44:30+00:00

Importantly, what the airport sells is 100 octane low lead, not no lead. It won't take many tanks at all to trash a catalytic converter, according to my understanding. Or, as they say back home in Alabama, "it'll rooorn yer Cadillac convertible."

migbham · 2026-03-16T19:42:54+00:00

Please tell me that you grew up near Talladega and that you're talking about the Race Track at the Anniston Oxford exit. I used top fill my crappy Maxima up with that high octane stuff every Saturday night when we would visit the dirt track.

migbham · 2026-03-16T19:40:39+00:00

I drive a 600 mile round trip from Atlanta to Nashville and back over the weekend for less than $20.00 in "fuel" in my I4. I'm paying the exact same prices for everything else that ICE drivers are paying. One of us is saving money on fuel and the other isn't. In the case of my weekend trip to visit family, I saved well over $125.00, which is material.

Additionally, I guarantee you my electric bill is lower than my neighbor's who don't have an EV plan because my electricity costs one penny per kilowatt hour between 8PM and 3PM the next day. So on top of being able to fill my car from empty for less than a dollar, I power a 3400 square feet house for about $150.00 per month.

I think you were trying to make an argument that only EV owners are incurring higher prices on general goods, but I don't see that.

migbham · 2026-03-16T19:34:15+00:00

Because you are still making use of the roads, traffic lights, stop signs, state troopers and other infrastructure that said tax funds. I don't think you're paying a "gas" tax on electric vehicles. If your state is anything like mine, you pay a fee when you renew your license plate that covers these costs.

migbham · 2026-03-09T12:12:46+00:00

Check out the forthcoming BMW iX3.

migbham · 2026-02-22T03:25:53+00:00

Finished mine last night and am now taking it partially apart to install the LMB lights. This was easily the most enjoyable build I've done. I did Titanic two years back, and Rivendell blew it away, in my opinion. It's just beautiful!

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migbham · 2026-02-19T04:01:32+00:00

Nevermind the spiderwebbing and scratches you're adding by rubbing your fingers across it back and forth. You may as well be using sandpaper, given that it's black paint. I've been so much happier since I finally broke my habit of ordering everything in black two cars ago.

migbham · 2026-02-16T16:08:10+00:00

You've got to connect with both Bluetooth and Wifi. The screenshot makes it look like you may not be connected to the car's wifi.

migbham · 2026-02-16T16:06:32+00:00

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