# First bar



## dcurzon (Mar 14, 2011)

51g silver using copper cementation method. 






Cast into home made wooden mould. 





Not a smooth shiny finish as i would have preferred, more of a frosted finish. The missus seems to like it anyhow :/


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## goldenchild (Mar 14, 2011)

Nice bar. If you want to get a better finish you may have to put it through a cell or refine it again. Now about this mold  What kind of wood did you use? I've thought about making molds out of wood as it would be very easy to work with but never followed through. Also, in the picture of the mold is that all that damage that occured from your pour? If so it looks like the mold is good for several uses. Again, nice job and thanks for sharing 8)


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## dcurzon (Mar 14, 2011)

Hi Goldenchild
I just used regular 18mm plywood. 2 pieces - 1 to carve the shape out of, and this was then clamped on top of the other. Used drill and dremel to carve the shape.
The burn marks was me just running a flame across it briefly.

On pouring, the wood caught light (expected) and burnt the base sheet down maybe 1 mm in depth. I should have took an after pic. I reckon it'd be good for another bar maybe 2. I could perhaps have minimised the burn by tipping out quickly, i left in mould for around 1 minute before tipping out.
You can see in the pic i actually carved 2 moulds, but one was way too big! Maybe i'll fill that one one day... think the small mould came in at 45mm x 25mm and gave me a bar depth of 7mm. I can 'flip' the mould so the next time i use it, i'll be using the less charred parts.


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## HAuCl4 (Mar 14, 2011)

If you want better finish, just polish it with fine sandpaper and water, maybe brasso at the end. :lol:


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## goldenchild (Mar 14, 2011)

dcurzon said:


> Hi Goldenchild
> I just used regular 18mm plywood. 2 pieces - 1 to carve the shape out of, and this was then clamped on top of the other. Used drill and dremel to carve the shape.
> The burn marks was me just running a flame across it briefly.
> 
> ...



Very macgyverish. I like it. I didn't think that was all the damage that was done by the pour but I didnt want to put my foot in my mouth. It's happened more than once  I'm sure the second cavity will be filled in no time. Your bar looks to be about 1/3 to 1/2 its size already. Plus you're addicted now so no use fighting it :lol:


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## dcurzon (Mar 17, 2011)

HAuCl4 said:


> If you want better finish, just polish it with fine sandpaper and water, maybe brasso at the end. :lol:


















After a little time spent with some fine grade wet/dry paper... If it was bigger maybe i'd spent more time smoothing it out, but at 51.5gm or 1.655tOz there may be nothing left if i keep smoothing! I know it's small potatoes compared to some of the beautiful buttons folk are showing on here, but from little acorns etc...

@Goldenchild - yes, i have my next batch of sterling junk ready and should weigh in at more than twice this after refining hopefully. 

Here in the UK, silver prices are way higher than the US (vat, premium etc) and bars seem to carry even higher premium than coins. Figured the best way to feed my new silver addiction is to buy cheap sterling silver and refine it myself. I'm paying roughly 75 - 80% spot for the .925 sterling(inc delivery) so immediately i'm saving myself 25% on the spot price, plus 20% on the VAT, premium, and delivery... so around 40% minimum saving by doing it this way.

Plus (i learned last night) it winds my missus up if i sit next to her sanding down a piece of metal whilst she's trying to watch telly, added bonus!


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## RGJohn (Apr 14, 2011)

> Here in the UK, silver prices are way higher than the US (vat, premium etc) and bars seem to carry even higher premium than coins. Figured the best way to feed my new silver addiction is to buy cheap sterling silver and refine it myself. I'm paying roughly 75 - 80% spot for the .925 sterling(inc delivery) so immediately i'm saving myself 25% on the spot price, plus 20% on the VAT, premium, and delivery... so around 40% minimum saving by doing it this way.
> 
> Plus (i learned last night) it winds my missus up if i sit next to her sanding down a piece of metal whilst she's trying to watch telly, added bonus!


 My, my, isn't that delightful?   
On both counts.


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## element47 (Apr 14, 2011)

Your bar is nothing to be ashamed of! Nice work!


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## dcurzon (May 5, 2011)

thanks all. Well i polished it up much nicer with finer grade wet/dry paper and it looks much nicer now 

My Second bar was just full of fail. Not sure why. I changed my torch to MAPP rather than butane/propane. The weight was a bit more (roughly 67g), but i really struggled to maintain heat in the molten silver. 

The pour was dreadful. I used the same wood mould that i had previously used, that may have played a part also. The underside of the bar didnt take shape, with a deep dip in it (i say a dip, as if flipped over so bottom was on top, it was a deep dip, but when bottom is on bottom, how would you describe it? i have no idea how that even occurred!)

I was hoping to do a 5oz pour, but i'm not confident i can maintain enough heat. So for now, i'm going to melt up my powders into random blobs of circa 10-15g. This way, when i finally get a proper mould, i can put together the correct amount of silver to melt down for each pour.

I'm having problems finding moulds for 1oz/2oz silver loaves here in the UK. Have found some in the US but with shipping charges that are too high to be practical.


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## stihl88 (May 5, 2011)

That's not right, it should be running hotter.
It could be that your torch head is fowled, i clean mine about every 1/4 tank of Mapp Gas.
Theres a micro brass mesh in the torch head that gets full of impurities that i flush with 99% Alcohol and it runs hot as hell afterwards, you can hear the difference too.

My Mapp head struggles to do 100g of Silver, it takes about 20 minutes to get it to the right pouring consistency, i do mine in an open dish.
Perhaps a fire brick furnace will help here.

The only molds Ive found are from the US on Ebay also, I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and pay for shipping. Most of the Ebay molds are designed for Gold so get one that is twice the size of Gold for your Silver pours otherwise it will overflow.


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## dcurzon (May 5, 2011)

it was a brand new MAPP torch head, and a brand new bottle. Think the regulator may be screwy though as after approx 8 minutes on a constant flame, it would get a 'jerky' flame and i'd have to adjust it... I have the receipt so maybe i'll take it back and swap it out


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## goldenchild (May 5, 2011)

graphitesupplies.com


I think you are looking for this in particular
http://www.graphitesupplies.com/ser...got-Molds-cln-Single-Cavity-Silver/Categories


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## dcurzon (May 5, 2011)

goldenchild said:


> graphitesupplies.com
> 
> 
> I think you are looking for this in particular
> http://www.graphitesupplies.com/ser...got-Molds-cln-Single-Cavity-Silver/Categories



yes, i have been to their website and the item is exactly what i'm looking for, but not with $78 shipping, 5x the cost of the item


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## Anonymous (May 5, 2011)

dcurzon said:


> I know it's small potatoes compared to some of the beautiful buttons folk are showing on here, but from little acorns etc...


I've been recovering/refining gold for a total of almost 8 years,and I have never made a silver button worthy of taking a picture of.You just started not too long ago,and you already made that button.My hats off to you partner.That is impressive from where I am standing.


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## lazersteve (May 5, 2011)

I make all of my molds out of hard graphite. I design them with about a 15 degree taper to the long sides so that I can pour various sized bars all in the same mold and they all turn out the same length and width, but vary in thickness.

Of course, each size of mold has a minimum amount of metal that is required to fill the bottom of the mold before it makes a consistent bar shape.

Steve


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## dcurzon (May 6, 2011)

mic said:


> dcurzon said:
> 
> 
> > I know it's small potatoes compared to some of the beautiful buttons folk are showing on here, but from little acorns etc...
> ...



thanks for the compliment! Buts its all from stuff i've learnt here and Hokes. I'm slowly collating my feed stock to try my hand at the yellow - picked up 4 pc's last week, have a couple of hundred memory sticks (but some are good and slowly being sold as memory) and some 9ct jewellery, but not going to move onto gold until i have more feedstock. Rest assured i'll be re-reading everything here again when that time comes!

In the meantime, i'll keep striving to improve on what i'm currently doing 


Lasersteve - i haven't really got the tooling for making a nicely finished graphite mould, guess i'll pick up a 5oz (Au)mould which should fit up to roughly 2.4oz Ag


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## dcurzon (May 6, 2011)

so i did a bit more experimenting, think i'm getting the hang of the mapp now, melted and poured 2.6ozt ok, and didnt take long to do either. I think the addition of a fire brick helped immensely (this one is a vermiculite firebrick, approx 1" thick slab). 

Still got the inverse dip in the middle. Tried again, and paid more attention to what was happening in the middle, and after pouring, smoke or steam(?) was coming through the middle like a little volcano. I think maybe my wooden mould was releasing its smoke (or steam) at the hottest point, which was pushing through the silver as it was still molten. This also caused cracking from the middle outwards.

no more wooden mould for me, will invest in a graphite mould before i do anything else.


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## Harold_V (May 6, 2011)

dcurzon said:


> I think maybe my wooden mould was releasing its smoke (or steam) at the hottest point, which was pushing through the silver as it was still molten. This also caused cracking from the middle outwards.


Read more about silver. It is known to absorb nine times its volume in oxygen, which it gives up as it solidifies. That often manifests itself as a series of spires protruding from the surface of the ingot. You can limit that effect by keeping a covering of carbon on the molten silver.

Harold


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## dcurzon (May 6, 2011)

Harold_V said:


> dcurzon said:
> 
> 
> > I think maybe my wooden mould was releasing its smoke (or steam) at the hottest point, which was pushing through the silver as it was still molten. This also caused cracking from the middle outwards.
> ...



hi Harold
You're right, and i had read that previously and it hadnt even crossed my mind. Not sure if that was the case here, as it wasn't emanating from the surface but from beneath the pour itself, however i'm definitely not going to rule it out as a possibility. thanks for the reminder and i'll try covering next time to see what happens.


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## Harold_V (May 7, 2011)

dcurzon said:


> Harold_V said:
> 
> 
> > as it wasn't emanating from the surface but from beneath the pour itself


Gotcha! It could very well be just gassing---carbon dioxide from too much carbon. I saw that on rare occasion when casting gold---

One of the greatest challenges I had was pouring good looking ingots. It's not easy, and I was not successful reliably. 

Interestingly, the best looking ingots I poured were nice little ½ ounce gold. I hit the combination of length, width and depth perfectly, it seems. They always turned out beautifully. 

Harold


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