Refining scrap

[watchesandwhisky]

Refining scrap yourself , has anyone done this? I'm just wondering at what point the expenses of start up costs are viable..

 

2Kg , 5KG, 10KG??

Edited June 19, 2014 by madhatter

[HawkHybrid]

choose scrap silver carefully, I've been told by baird and co. that they refuse to

melt 50% old coins but will consider old sterling coins. they have yet to get back

to me on pricing.

 

HH

[watchesandwhisky]

Sorry just to clarify, i mean buying in the chemicals and all equipment and doing it myself, did see someone offering the service on ebay but was too expensive. 

[ChrisSilver]

I think TheBullionBoy used to do that in his living room he said. But advised against it, because of the chemicals and it's much cheaper to go to a refinery.

[a_a]

Yeah but how cool would it be to cast your own bars? I'd love to give it a go if I find enough well-priced scrap sterling

[ChrisSilver]

Yeah but how cool would it be to cast your own bars? I'd love to give it a go if I find enough well-priced scrap sterling

 

Yea it would be pretty awesome. Would also be awesome to get a die cut and press silver rounds from blanks. I might do that in the future then produce my own rounds.

[smokestack]

I remember the pawn star guys having some silver rounds made up with the faher on them.

[watchesandwhisky]

id really like to give it a go, but not if i can sell my scrap for more as it sits when i come to sell, there must be a point where the cost of all chemicals and equipment is less than the profit realized from refining the scrap to .999

 

No idea where though lol.

[Dave]

Looked into it a few years back, big cost in getting bars to 999 , and assay costs, very little trust in market for bars not assayed , or not coming from established company's

[Carpe Diem]

Looked into it a few years back, big cost in getting bars to 999 , and assay costs, very little trust in market for bars not assayed , or not coming from established company's

 

I agree I think trust is a major factor here and people would prefer to buy a few bags of pre 1947 coins with George's boat race on it than a block of silver that's not from a reputable dealer, in my opinion.

[Carpe Diem]

I think TheBullionBoy used to do that in his living room he said. But advised against it, because of the chemicals and it's much cheaper to go to a refinery.

 

blimey, doing that in his living room?

 

my mrs won't even allow me to eat me plate of spaghetti bolognese in front of the telly for fear of splashing sauce on the carpet!!!

[Danny-boy]

my mrs won't even allow me to eat me plate of spaghetti bolognese in front of the telly for fear of splashing sauce on the carpet!!!

You need to show her your pimp hand!!!

[StackemHigh]

Some local silversmithing shops have melting pots of smelters that can be used for a small fee.

 

Again you will get the quality but no assay marks.

[watchesandwhisky]

If I did it I think I would have to pay to get them assay stamped, it would add about £35 per KG to my costs.

Edited June 23, 2014 by madhatter

[HighlandTiger]

Someone is refining scrap silver on ebay. It might be of interest to some people.

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Scrap-Silver-Refining-Service-Simplified-see-full-instructions-/360968430026?pt=UK_Coins_Bullion_Bars_SM&var=630313059323&hash=item540b6521ca

 

 

same people on facebook

 

https://www.facebook.com/RJAndATaylor

Edited June 27, 2014 by Highland Tiger

[Fluttershy]

I`m hoping to get into this myself on a slightly larger scale too.

I`v had fairly good results so far with amounts up to 50g, the refiling side isn`t too much of a problem here with a fully stocked Lab anyway, and the melting of it isn`t as hard as I thought it would be either.

sorry I didn`t take any pictures of my experimental bars (all remelted into shot again how) but if I make some more I`ll take some pics

but I will add that i`m not doing this for Profit reasons, its just a hobby really so no idea about having it assayed or anything, it`s just a bit of fun playing with my favorite metal.

 

I find the surface tension of the molten metal is a bit of a pain for more delicate thiner work, but the little 7g heart shapped buttons i made worked out ok though

[woody65]

How about a picture of the buttons you made?

[Fluttershy]

sorry they`re all back in the pot again when I wanted to try a 50g bar with my initials in it, and from there they went in shot, and some of those got tarnished and cleaned a few days ago testing a new silver cleaner.

so at the moment I only have shot (recycled many times), and hopefully a good Oz+ of silver powder dropping out of silver nitrate soln as well making my working total about 100g. it`s not much, but i do have more Junk silver on the way thanks to madhatter

 

I`m pretty sure I`ll hit a casting wall at about 100g though, as it`s a lot of metal to get hot at the same time being such a good conductor of heat and my blowtorch probably won`t be up to it.

 

I`d be happy to post pictures of the whole process when I get more junk silver, i just dont know how to get them on here in a post, the only pictures I have put on here are in the gallery because there is a category for them.

 

 

edited to add: sorry, i just saw there`s a non PM category in the gallery (still a bit new to this) 

Edited July 30, 2014 by Fluttershy

[HelpingHands]

There's an 'image' icon above in the reply box to the left of this one <>.

[SilverPirate]

Why smelt? it is in a recognizable shape all ready, or sell and buy a bar that is readily recognized. The charges it would cost you to sell might be smaller than the smelting costs anyway.

[Danny-boy]

Why smelt? it is in a recognizable shape all ready, or sell and buy a bar that is readily recognized. The charges it would cost you to sell might be smaller than the smelting costs anyway.

But a lot less fun!!!!

[StackemHigh]

It's all about the adventure!

[Fluttershy]

There's an 'image' icon above in the reply box to the left of this one <>.

 

Thanks, i saw that one but it asks for a URL and all my pictures are on my HDD, i don`t really want to post pictures on the internet in General, but inside here is fine.

 

Why smelt? it is in a recognizable shape all ready, or sell and buy a bar that is readily recognized. The charges it would cost you to sell might be smaller than the smelting costs anyway.

 

for me, it`s all about the challenge and having a bit of fun with pure silver I refined myself, if I could get hold of some good silver bearing ore, I`d be having a go at that as well

 

Today I had some junk silver (50%) coins arrive, so after a quick clean (de sulphering), I put about 150g of the worst ones into nitric acid to start the process of refining off.

all was going well but the color seemed a little bit strange not a lovely blue color but more a blue/green I knew right away it was nickel and sure enough after i looked it up, these coins are 50% cupro nickel and 50% copper.

Now that in itself isn`t too much of a problem as nickel is more reactive than copper and will stay in solution when I displace the silver metal back out.

the bit that i don`t like is that nickel salts are carcinogenic, so it means being more careful than usual and advising Anyone Not to do this yourself!

stick with Sterling, it`s safer (better yeild too!)

 

I`ll still post pictures of this when I`v completed all steps.

Edited July 31, 2014 by Fluttershy

[Fluttershy]

as promised: http://thesilverforum.com/topic/1287-junk-silver-to-pure-silver/

[LawrenceChard]

On 19/06/2014 at 22:52, HawkHybrid said:

choose scrap silver carefully, I've been told by baird and co. that they refuse to

melt 50% old coins but will consider old sterling coins. they have yet to get back

to me on pricing.

 

HH

Are you still waiting for them to get back to you? 🙂