# keyboard mylars



## dscrapper (Aug 3, 2017)

I have cleaned my mylars with hot boiling lye . what is my next step can I just smelt the silver or is it a second step


----------



## glorycloud (Aug 3, 2017)

You didn't attempt a search of the Forum for "mylars" it seems.
The box in the top right that shows: search... is very useful.

Give it a try. I searched on "mylars" and it showed many threads on the subject. 8)


----------



## jimdoc (Aug 3, 2017)

dscrapper said:


> I have cleaned my mylars with hot boiling lye . what is my next step can I just smelt the silver or is it a second step



Why would you do step #1 with hot boiling lye, without knowing what your next step is?
You should know all the steps of a process, and other processing options before you start.
And know the safety and waste disposal aspects.


----------



## rickbb (Aug 4, 2017)

dscrapper said:


> I have cleaned my mylars with hot boiling lye . what is my next step can I just smelt the silver or is it a second step



Depends, what do you have now? 

Hopefully you have 2 things;
1. A pile of shiny clear Mylar's with no ink left on them, and;
2. A pile of powder that looks like silver but is actually silk screen ink that contains silver. (It will also have small bits of Mylar as hot boiling lye will break down Mylar.)

If not then you need to start over, this time by doing some research.

*If* this is indeed what you have then the next step is to incinerate the powered ink that is contaminated with slivers of Mylar until all the ink and Mylar slivers are ash. 

Then you can melt it with a small amount of sodium carbonate as a flux to catch the ash. Pour into a mold and after cooling break off the gray/green flux with a small hammer. 

This should yield mostly pure silver, *IF* you did it right.


----------



## dscrapper (Sep 12, 2017)

rickbb said:


> dscrapper said:
> 
> 
> > I have cleaned my mylars with hot boiling lye . what is my next step can I just smelt the silver or is it a second step
> ...



why sodium carbonate as a flux to catch the ash ? I thought the borax did that .


----------

