I feel like it's a waste....

My name is Rachel & it's really nice to finally meet all of you,

First & foremost, I am not a noob, I am definitely guilty of lurking & on that premise I ask my first question...

I have been a member for years. All of you and the thousands of posts I have read have first taught me to refine gold...Of which I failed miserably! The next thousand and about a yr later I refined & melted my first 99.5+ nugget!! I cannot explain how my heart soared with that success! Finally! So many yrs of reading & research & not giving up & I achieved the long saught after and deserved product! I thank all of you for providing an avenue to accurately learn & obtain my goals!

Not a month went by and I was obsessed with the sisters. I have since refined roughly 17oz of palladium & 9oz of platinum (rhodium, iridium, rhuthenium etc. are waiting in my stockpot for another day). The place I sell it to was so amazed! Their RXF machines showed 99.8 purity, it was a first for them & also myself!...Again I thank you guys! It's unbelievable the wisdom on this forum! "Go Forth" and the answers you seek shall be there...Or something of the sort

I am now refining gold, platinum group metals, tin, zinc (which I mainly re-use in my Pt , Pd refining) and copper(which I also use in solution & sell all extra). My question is this... What do I make of all the silver plate? As of right now it gets coagulated into whatever base metal it is attached too.

I feel like this is a huge waste as I have so much silver plate just waiting for Midas to touch it. I understand the cost analysis, aka we make no $$ on silver plate, I have also read about growing crystalline silver. There is such little information out there (&I have searched!). From an artistic point of view, they are quite beautiful. I would just like to find a way to take advantage of this beautiful metal other than the base it's attached too.

Any and all type of suggestions are welcome. If there is anyone out there that salvages this precious metal in any way, please spread your wealth of knowledge for I am a sponge & your knowledge is not lost but (lol) refined.

So sorry I've been lurking for so long! Let's just chalk it up to I've been busy reading & learning

Rachel

As far as I know there is no safe way to strip the plate economically or safely that I could recommend to anyone.
As to growing crystals in a cell there is at least one old thread which discusses this but I’m afraid I can’t remeber the member involved but if you search I’m sure you will find it.

Silver stripping cell with sodium sulphite (Na2SO3) electrolyte. Na2SO3 can be prepared from SMB and NaOH. I have tried it and it looks VERY promising. Downside: sulphite is oxidised to sulphate by O2 from the air.
link with my experiment:
https://youtu.be/aAh8El8K74A

I used to do silver plating with 95% sulfuric acid (98%) and 5% nitric acid (~69%) at 80 °C but it's extremely dangerous solution. The solution is acid, oxidative and dehydrating :evil:

I would recommend you to inquart your gold with the silver plated items, that way you recover the silver and don't have to deal this solution.

goldandsilver123 said:

I used to do silver plating with 95% sulfuric acid (98%) and 5% nitric acid (~69%) at 80 °C but it's extremely dangerous solution. The solution is acid, oxidative and dehydrating :evil:

I would recommend you to inquart your gold with the silver plated items, that way you recover the silver and don't have to deal this solution.

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Yes, that's why I didn't offer it!

Owltech said:

goldandsilver123 said:

I used to do silver plating with 95% sulfuric acid (98%) and 5% nitric acid (~69%) at 80 °C but it's extremely dangerous solution. The solution is acid, oxidative and dehydrating :evil:

I would recommend you to inquart your gold with the silver plated items, that way you recover the silver and don't have to deal this solution.

Click to expand...

Yes, that's why I didn't offer it!

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I was offered a lot of material to strip and this method was the only way to do it, it’s not a clever mix, and I turned it down and it’s the reason I didn’t post it.

nickvc said:

As far as I know there is no safe way to strip the plate economically or safely that I could recommend to anyone.

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All though I have never tried it I have wondered about it

What about cyanide stripping of silver plated items - as in the same process as cyanide stripping of gold plated items - & then running an electro "winning" cell to recover the silver

Kurt

kurtak said:

nickvc said:

As far as I know there is no safe way to strip the plate economically or safely that I could recommend to anyone.

Click to expand...

All though I have never tried it I have wondered about it

What about cyanide stripping of silver plated items - as in the same process as cyanide stripping of gold plated items - & then running an electro "winning" cell to recover the silver

Kurt

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I think it says for itself when people are suggesting cyanide as a safe alternative hehehe

The good thing about this process is that copper is not attacked.

There is another post with this procedure on the forum, it's an old one I think.

Na2SO3 electrolyte is a safe alternative

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1134/S107036321105001X

Thanks for all of your replies!
Way back when I first started experimenting & I did not feel comfortable using the more dangerous chemicals, I built something like a silver cell & silver plated a bunch of pennies for my nieces & nephews.

I can’t remember how I did it, it was years ago...I will have to go through my notebooks to see. I do remember it was a sodium & something solution. I might be crazy but I think it was something like vinegar.

I do remember that I used silver-plated flatware to plate the pennies. I don’t remember if I used old(copper) pennies or newer ones. Maybe I could use something like this to heavily plate onto lead (1st option) or copper, inquart & then cupellate? It would have to be plated on thickly to be worth it.

I have a bunch of employees out w/ the flu so I’ve been working doubles & then some! Soon as I get a minute I’ll go through all my notebooks

Thanks again!
Rachel

I understand the feeling, but the waste is the time you are investing to recover a small amount of silver. The only reason plated gold is economical to go after is because it's 1300 an ounce. That's what, 80x the value of the silver?

Time is the most valuable resource.

The best use for silver plated ware is still as an addition to low grade electronic boards to get the copper content high enough for it to collect well.

Amazing isn't it? Call yourself a girl's name and you can make two posts with so many holes in them that it's like swiss cheese yet people will fall all over you to be helpful.

Read the language guys, read the ACTUAL words and forget the forum name and then tell me you would take this seriously if the user was called Dave.

See now. Your response is why I’ve never asked one question, EVER. In all the years I needed the confidence of success. All the years, all the hours reading & learning & I’m not nearly done. In the end I stopped needing to ask people like you that judge & dig a hole ahead of time. That is just in case u want to throw someone in it.

You use no big words, say nothing of fact but what YOU DO is attack the fact that I’m a girl? I don’t need your input, I’ve given birth to 3 babies; one of which was 7 months ago. I have no lies or hidden devices.

People like you hide behind their nasty tweets. (Miss, let’s leave your address off the forum—Lou).

People like you whoever you are hurt this forum. People like you are the reason I never asked anything. You are an embarrassment & should be removed.
Rach

Really?

Rachello said:

attack the fact that I’m a girl?

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Just a friendly warning - you probably should not share your real name here - I am no stalker, but you look much too nice in your facebook profile to be inviting some random internet creeps to look at it

-Artūrs

kurtak said:

nickvc said:

As far as I know there is no safe way to strip the plate economically or safely that I could recommend to anyone.

Click to expand...

All though I have never tried it I have wondered about it

What about cyanide stripping of silver plated items - as in the same process as cyanide stripping of gold plated items - & then running an electro "winning" cell to recover the silver

Kurt

Click to expand...

A couple old plating books I have mention using cyanide as an electrolyte to strip silver plate as well as gold plate. One is by Watt, the other is alluding me at the moment..

And, I believe one may mention just using it (CN) as a regular etching agent. (probably not with much success, since the copper would be fighting going into solution too, and any zinc in the base metals [i.e. german silver core silver plate stuff, or brass] would be cementing value as well)

It seems though, that the majority of them suggest using the piranha mix for it ( I believe this is solely because sulfuric at that strength isnt too keen on copper)

No matter how you look at it, its just not the best type of scrap to work with. At all.

Rachel, I don't often defend Jon, but in this case I think you've misinterpreted his comments.

I did not read anything in his post that attacked the fact that you were a girl. Jon, among others, has been a proponent of gathering sufficient information from those asking questions to provide valid answers. As I read his post, he was commenting about other members offering suggestions before learning more about the material you're dealing with. Asking about silver plate is common here because many people are looking for the same answers. You got a few more replies than some others have in the past, and I saw Jon's post as chiding some of the other members, not you.

As to his comments about holes in your process, I'm guessing he's referring to your second post about building a silver cell using silver plated items to plate pennies, perhaps using vinegar. Silver cells are standard equipment for most refiners who deal with silver, and they are discussed in great detail here, but not like what you described.

We recently had a thread about avoiding confrontations on the forum. My advice is that if you find another member's post offensive and in violation of forum rules, you should report it to the moderators, then walk away and let us do our job.

There are some threads about using a water cell to deplate silver. I haven't had the opportunity to try it yet, but you might find something helpful. Some people use difficult to recover silver in cementation or their stock pots.

As Topher said, it's just not the best scrap to work with.

Dave

If your silver is plated over copper it would be a viable option for a copper sulfate cell or a chloride cell. Silver chloride and silver sulfate took quite a bit of learning for me, actually I am still learning. The water cell Dave mentions is also an option and while I have been deplating using one, I still have to try to recover the silver from the slime's. There is a lot of information been posted on thread about the water cell that will help.

& the last 2 pics