Question: Silver chips and scrap??
- Thread starter rossm10
- Start date
Gemsetterchris
Elite Cafe Member
You would be better off sending it in to be refined properly...which is what would happen to your ingots anyway.
Thierry Duguet
Elite Cafe Member
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2007
- Messages
- 359
Considering the cost of the essay you better have a lot of silver
George Fox
New Member
This is my first post!:
The answer is yes, you can melt it down, and certain impurities will rise to the surface and some will burn off. The consternation will be if there are other things hanging around that have a high melting temp in the melt. They get caught up in your melt and contaminate it.
A question is: what would you want to with your ingot? If you want to roll it out or make something of it, I would not recommend it. It will likely crack and cause more than a few problems.
If you want an ingot and think it is cool (like I sometimes do with scrap gold) and wave it around until you have enough to refine... go for it!
I do send my scrap silver as is, un melted, un pasteurized to the refiner.
The answer is yes, you can melt it down, and certain impurities will rise to the surface and some will burn off. The consternation will be if there are other things hanging around that have a high melting temp in the melt. They get caught up in your melt and contaminate it.
A question is: what would you want to with your ingot? If you want to roll it out or make something of it, I would not recommend it. It will likely crack and cause more than a few problems.
If you want an ingot and think it is cool (like I sometimes do with scrap gold) and wave it around until you have enough to refine... go for it!
I do send my scrap silver as is, un melted, un pasteurized to the refiner.
Roger B
Elite Cafe Member
If you are not afraid of working with acids and take all precautions you could try refining the silver yourself rather than just melting it up - that way you will have pure silver with which to make fresh sterling. It is better if the scrap is clean but if otherwise contaminated remember to run a magnet through the lemel first and a light flame will burn off paper before attempting to refine. There are books and youtube videos on the subject.
Steve L S
Member
George Fox, thanks for that. I have some silver practise plates that are mounting up and was planning one day soon to melt them and cast them in a petrobond sand mould as skinny as I can make and still flow and then roll it out to make new practise plates. However from your experience you are saying it won't work because it will be too brittle to roll out?
regards Steve
ps How's Margaret Fell?
Gemsetterchris
Elite Cafe Member
It`ll be abit hit or miss (more miss I expect) wether you`ll end up with a nice new practice plate after alot of effort, to be honest you would be better off buying fresh & just keep collecting till you have enough worth sending for scrap ( a few lb`s worth).
Good idea but not really practical.
Good idea but not really practical.
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silverchip
~ Elite 1000 Member ~
Just save it up and cash it in when you retire!!!! I have a 55 gal drum for chips,sweeps and buffer dust. At one time I used to sweep my bench daily when I was doing contract engraving. Ended up with a old cookie tin with 10 lbs, of chips!!!!
I routinely collect all the scrap pieces of gold when I am working with it, being careful not to put other metals such as copper or other blends of metals into the box. When I have a good bit collected I blow out any dust and use a magnet to remove any steel that gets into the pile. I melt it into a blob or ball, scrape the surface of that clean, hammer it flat down to about .030" thickness, cut strips that width with scissors and run it through the draw plate back into wire form. Been doing that for many years.
good lord ! i sure hope the riogrande stuff is pasteurized ! ijust bought 9' or so of 14 ga. wire.
dlilazteca
~ Elite 1000 Member ~
I have not done it, but ive seen it done, there are several steps in cleaning the silver, like I said never done it, but its pretty easy to do. Magnets, acids, fire, and some steps involving the heating of glass in the fire while burning impurities, was told there is something in the Mexican soda bottles made from glass that helps get rid of impurities. Might make sense to those that know the steps. But its definitely doable, not my thing but if it is you can do it.
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