# Crystallized Silver?



## Bentfunky (Jun 28, 2020)

Was smelting some low quality ore that likely had a bit of gold and perhaps some silver. In past, I’ve had success using silver as a collector metal (primarily for gold) a few times in the past, so used silver again. Put in about an ounce. After smelting, got back about an extra gram of something mixed in with silver. 

Used borax and fluorspar as flux. After smelting, slag was green and blue.

However, after cooling and removing slag, silver didn’t look as I expected. It was pearl white with a pearly sheen and surface had a crystalline structure. Anyone ever see this before? See pic below.


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## Lino1406 (Jun 28, 2020)

To me it looks like silver-gold alloy


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## Bentfunky (Jun 28, 2020)

Lino1406 said:


> To me it looks like silver-gold alloy



Thank you @Lino1406! Must have been more than trace amounts of gold in the ore sample that I smelted. Will have to go back and take a closer look at source material.


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## jarlowski1 (Jun 28, 2020)

You can try and find someone with an XRF machine, as long as you mixed the molten metal really good it will give you an idea as to what is in your piece of metal.


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## Bentfunky (Jun 29, 2020)

jarlowski1 said:


> You can try and find someone with an XRF machine, as long as you mixed the molten metal really good it will give you an idea as to what is in your piece of metal.



Yeah, been looking for someone for a while. Tough, since I live on East Coast. I'm looking for an assayer. Probably best just to send some rock samples out for analysis.


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## jarlowski1 (Jun 29, 2020)

The best place to find someone local that has an XRF is at a scrap yard. You can call ahead of time to see if they have one. Sending the rocks out to get analyzed would most likely be the best thing you can do. The report will tell you what is in the sample and then you can calculate whether it is worth your time. Be careful when processing ore as there can be some nasty stuff mixed in it. I am no expert by any means when it comes to ore so someone else would be better to explain that. But again the analysis report will tell a better story on that too.


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## Bentfunky (Jun 29, 2020)

jarlowski1 said:


> The best place to find someone local that has an XRF is at a scrap yard. You can call ahead of time to see if they have one. Sending the rocks out to get analyzed would most likely be the best thing you can do. The report will tell you what is in the sample and then you can calculate whether it is worth your time. Be careful when processing ore as there can be some nasty stuff mixed in it. I am no expert by any means when it comes to ore so someone else would be better to explain that. But again the analysis report will tell a better story on that too.



Cool. Would have never thought yo check scrap yards. Makes sense.


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## jimdoc (Jun 29, 2020)

Ask if their XRF is programmed for precious metals. Some may not be.


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## jarlowski1 (Jun 29, 2020)

jimdoc said:


> Ask if their XRF is programmed for precious metals. Some may not be.



That is a good point. Although my friend thought his XRF was not programed to read PMs but it read my gold bar. Haven't personally tried it on PGMs though


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## galenrog (Jun 29, 2020)

Please be aware that many XRF machines at scrapyards will be set up for industrial metals and alloys. Precious metals may be absent from the device library, hence the machine will show its best guess.

My local scrapyard has one that shows gold and silver as copper. No, I do not know why, except that the machine was purpose built for industrial metals and alloys, not precious metals.

Time for more coffee.


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## Bentfunky (Jul 19, 2020)

Update: no XRF found. 

However, test panned area that ore come from. Lots of heavies. Visual inspection of concentrates revealed an insignificant amount of gold. Nothing else was readily apparent. 

Decided to stannus chloride test material. Took about 10 grams of concentrates and placed them in a small quantity of warm aqua regia for an hour. After neutralizing remaining nitric acid, tested a few drops of AR. Got a clear positive result for gold.

Used SMB to drop a small amout of gold from AR solution. If small sample is representative of concentrates, then should be at least a modest amount of gold in area. In addition to gold, got some dark precipitate that didn't readily melt under torch (no idea). Also, a good amount (relative to sample size) of silver chloride settled out of AR solution.


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## nickton (Aug 11, 2020)

Perhaps the dark precipitate is left over borax slag. Just a guess.


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