Dummies Guide to EASY silver bullion refining at home as a long term precious metal investment

reply to post by Moosemose


Destroying American currency in America yes.
Most of those laws only apply to destroying currency in the country of origin.
America covers this by not being allowed to ship American currency in large amounts over seas that way it can't be done there either.
If you acquire out of circulation foreign currency you should be safe.

Ok, ive amassed all the materials required since the posting of this thread. I have diligently followed the instructions provided and am reasonably confident that I am doing most everything correctly.When I get to the final stage of melting the powder down 2 things are happening to me.

1. I cant get 'smooth buttons' - all my pieces are coming out in rough rock like pieces.

2. I keep getting 'impurities' from burning on the potato, i.e the burnt carbon from the potato is being pushed around by the air of the blow torch and thus landing back on my silver creating impurities in the final pieces.

Any tips on how to make this process a better success?

I have also found that it can take a few attempts of straining the silver powder back and then putting a piece of copper back into the freshly strained solution to gather more silver back onto the copper. Actually I have been filtering more than once on every step to ensure a more pure final product, and to make sure I am getting as much of the silver recovered as possible.

Thanks for the how to guide though, so far I have had a blast and even made a few dollars purchasing some deals on silver.

reply to post by Moosemose


So what? Unless you are out bragging about doing this, who would know? It's not like anyone could tell wether you got said metal from a coin or from scrap metal right?

Originally posted by phishfriar47
Ok, ive amassed all the materials required since the posting of this thread. I have diligently followed the instructions provided and am reasonably confident that I am doing most everything correctly.When I get to the final stage of melting the powder down 2 things are happening to me.

1. I cant get 'smooth buttons' - all my pieces are coming out in rough rock like pieces.

The "roughness" is a good indicator that the silver is not being heated to a high enough temperature.
You need to continue heating the silver until it becomes completely liquified and the pressure of the flame causes it to easily wobble and move around like jello. At this point, surface tension will immediately pull all the silver together into a perfect circular/round shape.

Also, don't try to make the "buttons" too big as this will prevent even heat distribution as the silver melts, resulting in that "rough" look. Go for a max button size around 2 or 3 times as bid as an M&M.

2. I keep getting 'impurities' from burning on the potato, i.e the burnt carbon from the potato is being pushed around by the air of the blow torch and thus landing back on my silver creating impurities in the final pieces.

The carbon should remain on the surface of the silver and will not combine with it.
Hint: Once completely cooled, use a piece of "soapy steel wool" (used for pot cleaning in the kitchen) and give the silver a good scrub with it. This will easily remove all surface discolourations and bring up that nice "silvery" shine.

Ahh thank you, as of right now I have 2 pieces, one about the size of a quarter across and the other almost 2 ounces solid. The first one I thought was rough because of improperly following the instructions, but I guess I need to keep going a little longer.

Would it be ok to 'break' my big pieces to get them small enough to melt smoothly?

Thanks for the quick response, I am about to go work on my smaller piece now and see if I can break make that one smooth. It weighed about 8 grams

Ok, heres an update.

Unfortunately i was unable to break my large piece, so I started to heat it and hammer it into as flat of a disc as possible. Once it was flat I just simply took it and washed it with some warm soapy water and a steel wool and it turned out reasonably well.

The small piece I was able to make most of the way smooth by remelting it and again washed away all the discoloration and impurities from the potato.

Overall I would say this is a pretty neat little method to recovering silver out of anything other than Pre-65 US coins. I would advise leaving any coin that is prior to 1965 and is a US coin out of this. They are super easy to determine value on and no real reason to melt other than to try this little procedure out. I was mainly using Sterling flatware I picked up at a local antique store/flea mall. My reason for using those was to obtain the pure silver and to then make it into a more tradeable form, such as those buttons you are making.

Thanks for the tip and how to guide. I might try the gold one next, but im too afraid to lose even a minuscule amount of that, gold is too expensive to play around with until ive perfected the silver method first

Thanks again

My background;

I am one of those guys hoarding nickels and pre-82 pennies.

ive done similar processes to OP's, when refining the sterling plate off of flatware and working with jewelery.
after the copper cementing process, and remelting with any amount of flux. the silver still generally cant be called pure yet (.999) as its still actually only about (.980-.990) or something closely impure.


i have followed up with the reverse-electroplating process to regrow the pure silver
not my vid, but example- www.youtube.com...

i dont know if this step is necessary, but those who do it have no reason to not trust they then have .999 silver anyways.

1 question, how much nitric acid would i need to for refining a kilo of sterling silver or do i just have to make sure the silver is completely cover? Thanks for the info cant wait to have a go at it.

reply to post by Alchemst7


I am also in SD. Have you tried this process? Where did you buy your chemicals? The quotes I received were much higher.
San Diego Arby

reply to post by sdarby


Gallade Chemical, Inc.
425 North Andreasen Drive
Escondido, CA 92029

(760) 489-0798

Call to make sure of the % concentration

They have different grade of Nitric acid. varying in price They are down the street from me. That price was back in February. Im sure its gone up by now.

I was thinking of picking this up as a hobby. One question I would like to know, maybe its been asked and buried in the thread, would it be alright to leave the silver in its powder form for a long period of time?

I remember reading and taking notes when this thread was put up, but I can't remember if i've asked this question already lol.


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reply to post by strafgod


As far as ive heard its ok to store like that.....


testauricus, i have made a solution of water and nitric 50/50
I put some mixed metal out of my melting pot that was silver/tin/lead/gold
maybe a bit of platinium too....and copper
The whole melting pot dropped into the quench and the resutls are this mixed stuff i broke out of the pot after.....
I meant to sissolve the base metals and the silver and leave the gold out on the bottom.....
The solution dissolved a silver ring yesterday, and i put these mixed chunks in today and i am getting browm gas forming in the jar too....(i have a wet sock over the top....)
This is caused by what do you think?
I am not using any hydrochloric yet....i was planning on dropping out the silver after filtering.....
then melting any gold on bottom or refining with AR.....
is the browm gas normal with this process?

reply to post by stirling


OP,
Someone else asked this question, but I need more clarification. I can only find US junk silver @ 90%. You bought your half kilo for cheap cheap at 18$ US Dollars, and I have looked all over for where to buy foreign junk silver at less than 90% and can only find very expensive coins on Ebay, which I do not trust at all and won't buy anything from E bay...too many fakes out there on Ebay, especially from China. So where do I look to buy junk silver like you got for that kind of price?

Also, what else has silver in it (industry wise) that can be used? Something people don't know much about and are discarding?


Thanks a lot, love the post and look forward to trying. We home school so I see this as a fun science project as well.

This is a very cool and interesting thread, and I think I have some materials I can use to repeat this process and try it for myself, awesome, thank you for posting this.