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Solid copper bus bars

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eaglewings35

Well-known member
Joined
May 27, 2010
Messages
205
Hey folks, I'm looking for 2 or possibly 4 solid copper bus bars (approx 18" to 24" long), or sheets that are
thick enough to cement silver in a 5 gallon bucket. I am hoping for C101 or C110 copper.
Thanks
 
I tried to find some "bus Bar",the only things locally that seemed to fit the bill where the lightening conductors on large buildings.
Not a thing people want to part with.
Lots of tanks and piping so had to start casting my own.
It takes longer to melt an pour than silver and you loos some to oxidation.
But it is copper some free some £3 a kilo and cleans right up so no problem with a little loss.
Why do you want a particular grade of copper?cemented silver is impure any way and will need to be run through a cell in any case.
 
https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=busbars+copper&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjLoMPyg83RAhVM32MKHWxBAosQ_AUICSgC&biw=1600&bih=767

Call scrap metal yards. They know what buss bar is. Try to find scrap copper buss bar that is not plated with silver or tin. Just bare copper. Holes or no holes.
 
If you still have old school scrap yard that will let you look around and sell you bits you are lucky ducks.
We have one old yard called Woods in Crediton who douse a lot of milliliter kit but no real scrap metal,the rest just buy.
They will not even entertain resale.
Just to get on the yard they insist you produce I.D. a Bill no more than one month old ,full hard hat/ Boot and high viz.
and are about as friendly as members of the Vogon Construction fleet.
 
justinhcase said:
...Just to get on the yard they insist you produce I.D. a Bill no more than one month old ,full hard hat/ Boot and high viz.
and are about as friendly as members of the Vogon Construction fleet.

........seriously? ....I think I have gotten approved for a car loan with less information... I guess that was like 6 years ago, but, seriously? That is beyond ridiculous! There are a couple yards here that let me go check what they have and buy it for their sale point. Although, I do know them, as my father-in-law is a scrapper and I've had to help him a lot, so they know me quite well now. The big city escrap yard (the only one) won't even entertain the idea of selling anything, they take it to another locale, strip it all down and sell it to a major buyer.

I have yet to go to the small-town recycle center that's here in my new village, but, they are only open once every other Saturday or so. Whenever they run their "Free electronics drop off" event.. I eventually will go talk to them to see what they do with it. ...probably tear down and sell it.
 
Well our "dump" was put out to tender ,The firm payed £5milion upfront for the contract and that is every year.A bit corrupt I think as the city would make a good profit and stimulate employment if they kept it in house so to speak.
Not half a nats reproductive tackle gets out.
They do have a resale section for furniture and fish tanks but no electronics of any description.
The scrap metal yards that pay had a very bad time.
Rather a lot of copper theft nationally,mostly Romanian and Polish gangs.
So the government tightened up.https://www.gov.uk/government/news/scrap-metal-laws-to-stop-metal-theft-come-into-force
 
Well, I was reminded by Lazer Steve that I really don't want to use Copper to cement out the silver. He is correct, as copper will actually alloy with silver, where iron can be washed out using HCl, and hot water rinsed. I'm gonna keep doing the iron. It will produce a cleaner silver, and it is as easy as the copper. But, thanks for all the feedback and suggestions !! You guys on here are the best. I really enjoy reading all the posts on here. Y'all make this exciting and alot of fun !!!
 
The problem I can see with iron is that it will cement copper too so you still get an alloy. So unless you have really pure silver nitrate then I don't see how iron could ever be better than copper.
I haven't tested cementing with Iron so I don't know how well iron works in real life.

I usually use stripped copper wire, buss bars when I find it in the equipment I scrap or silver plated brass. For the silver plated brass there will be some copper contamination at the end from the zinc cementing copper, but when the surface is depleted of zinc the cementing stops. My silver goes through a silver cell anyhow.

A lot of my silver is smaller contact points which are part copper and part silver. I then use an excess of contact points, just adding more to my first batch so I'm using them for the first cementing until I have undissolved contact points and cemented silver as solids and no silver in solution. This liquid can be decanted off. If I time it well I can raise the silver content in solution to such a degree that I'm able to use it as electrolyte in my silver cell.

Göran
 
Yeah, I think iron wouldn't be ideal for cementing from a copper nitrate/silver nitrate solution. And, I don't know if I would clean the silver cement with HCl either. You would inadvertently make some silver chloride and cause some more issues.
 
I have seen the statement of HCl and silver should create a thin surface of silver chloride popping up lately. I'm not so sure it is true but I have to make some tests to see if so is the case unless someone can point to a credible source.

Göran
 
I thought every one ran two sedimentation's as standard,Copper and iron.
zinc if you could afford it and needed an impurity readily removed from your P.G.M.'s and gold.
I am lucky if I make 8-10p a gram on silver so copper it is.
Copper is the main impurity on 50/50 coin alloys and most sterling.As it is already present why add an other element,this is one place where diversity is not a good thing.
I have made the mistake of digesting some steel in with my silver ,I think some knife shanks where strengthened with steel,produced a very murky green liquor that was almost impossible to rinse well.
I think I ended up putting the lot back into solution.
Like wise why I keep chlorides away from my silver if at all possible.even if the reaction with elemental silver is minimal.
You can never wash all the silver left in solution out.Waste liquor that seems void of value still produces a plume of silver chloride when added to the waste barrel.
Even glass that has been washed and looks clean and dry will produce notable AgCl
 
g_axelsson said:
I have seen the statement of HCl and silver should create a thin surface of silver chloride popping up lately. I'm not so sure it is true but I have to make some tests to see if so is the case unless someone can point to a credible source.

Göran

I was referring to this post by kadriver
http://goldrefiningforum.com/~goldrefi/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=8589

where the silver he washes with HCl changed color some when he crumbled a chunk of it.

I have converted AgCl with HCl and zinc, and was worried I was kind of shooting myself in the foot, especially if I overshot the HCl needed. With small additions though, the zinc eventually dissolved, and the silver stayed in its elemental form. I encountered no left over silver chloride in that process.

Per usual, I am open to correction and would like to know of any credible literature to read on the matter if anyone has any suggestions. ...I remember GSP mentioning a book that contained over 100 AgCl conversion methods, but I cannot find that post. I would love to find out what book that is..

edit to fix link
 
Also I have been thinking about your suggestion that Iron makes a good sacrificial percipient for silver.
If you use iron instead of copper to cement out your silver.
You will precipitate just about every thing in solution and end up right back where you started.
Just in a finely divided elemental form of all metals which will be more readily digested by acid's and some oxides as they form so easaly.
I can not see any real advantage..
 
Guys, the OP didn't ask about cementing from a stock pot. He asked about cementing silver. While I agree with the process of cementing a stock pot with copper first to cement primarily precious metals, then iron to drop all the other garbage, if he's just trying to cement silver from a relatively clean solution, those issues are moot.

Dave
 
Well if you want to produce silver from a clean silver nitrate solution and are concerned about metalic impuritys.
Why not use reduction of silver nitrate with ammonia and glucose as the reducing agent.
I have also read about the use of formaldehyde which is meant to produce nice ball shaped nodules of very pure Ag. My attempts at this reduction has no been successful.
No metalic impurity's at all?
 
justinhcaase,

One place I worked used sodium hydroxide and formaldehyde to reduce AgCl to metal. Like with the Karo syrup method, they first converted the AgCl to silver oxide with the NaOH - I would assume about 20-22g of NaOH per troy oz of silver would be needed. Then they added the formaldehyde, All additions were made with good agitation. They had a big round tank with a Lightnin' prop mixer on it.
 
Also do bear in mind that you can take up Silver Chloride in eco goldex or any cyanide based leach. You can even convert it to Silver Oxide and take it up in that form too.
 
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