scavenging electronics

[HopefulChild]

I've been trying to scavenge for the silver and gold inside old electronics but obviously don't know,when I look at the pins and other parts,which is which.
And I know some of these parts are also made up of more than one thins as well.
So I was wondering what type of scanning instrument(or detector)would be useful for this type of work.
Any info would be greatly appreciated.

[devros]

I thought about this also, but the scale that you would have to do it at is too large. The pins on the processors are gold. The only way to really make money doing it is like the huge companys that do it. They will melt down say 10,000 units at a time, it's the only way to make the money, just to do a couple wont be worth the time.

[Vlad]

Are pins on the cpu's solid gold? Or is it plated on?

[devros]

Plated, that's why they have to have the gold melted, and there isn't as much on there as you would think there is.

[HopefulChild]

I was thinking that there would be some sort of device that you could point at a particular piece and the instrument could tell you how much gold/silver a piece had.Getting those pins out is probably another science.

[DIGGER27]

Some info here:

http://www.finishing.com/295/05.shtml

[HopefulChild]

Thanks for the info Digger...much appreciated.

[DIGGER27]

In the words of Elmer Fudd....

"You are vewy, vewy welcome!"