# Washing Cemented Silver and Casting Anode Bars



## kadriver (Oct 10, 2011)

Here is a video I did on processing cemented silver - including washing the silver.

Please review it and give me any feedback if there are mistakes.

This process produces some really nice bars - almost as good as the silver cell.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94Z2cNjixrY

Thanks for looking


----------



## samuel-a (Oct 10, 2011)

That is a very nice video kadriver .

lol

I feel like... as if you almost pulled the rug from under my feet ( :mrgreen: ) as i'm now (and in the past few weeks) filming, editing and writing a full tutorial of my own regarding cementing, melting and refining of this metal.

I have only few things i'm doing differently and i'll describe them in full when i'm done. 8) 


Anyways... great vid.


----------



## glondor (Oct 11, 2011)

Thanks for the post Kadriver. It was just in time for me. I just cleaned up 10 oz in Nitric and your tutorial will move me forward nicely  !


----------



## Alentia (Oct 11, 2011)

Thank you, Kadriver!

I have a question. I used the same method, but with copper pipe. I have got cement silver and grey mud, this is from diluted HNO3 solution. What is the mud? Waste? Cement is nice and white. My understanding I have to separate nice white pieces of cement from "gray dirt", is it correct?


----------



## goldsilverpro (Oct 11, 2011)

Alentia said:


> Thank you, Kadriver!
> 
> I have a question. I used the same method, but with copper pipe. I have got cement silver and grey mud, this is from diluted HNO3 solution. What is the mud? Waste? Cement is nice and white. My understanding I have to separate nice white pieces of cement from "gray dirt", is it correct?



How dilute was the nitric? All of the cemented silver I have ever seen (literally, tons) was gray. As far as I know, the reason it is called "cement silver" is because it looks like wet cement, when first mixed (that's almost exactly what it looks like to me). Occasionally, you might see some more solid, lighter colored chunks mixed in the gray. If the copper tubing was clean, if the only PM in the solution was silver, and if the solution was filtered before adding the copper, I would think that it all is silver, except for maybe a few slivers of copper that may have fallen off the tubing. That is, unless there is something weird about this solution that I don't know about.


----------



## MysticColby (Oct 11, 2011)

you make me want to start vacuum filtering... gravity filtering takes minutes! after that video, I can see what a big difference that is.


----------



## Platdigger (Oct 11, 2011)

Very nice Video Kadriver!


----------



## Alentia (Oct 11, 2011)

goldsilverpro said:


> How dilute was the nitric? All of the cemented silver I have ever seen (literally, tons) was gray. As far as I know, the reason it is called "cement silver" is because it looks like wet cement, when first mixed (that's almost exactly what it looks like to me). Occasionally, you might see some more solid, lighter colored chunks mixed in the gray. If the copper tubing was clean, if the only PM in the solution was silver, and if the solution was filtered before adding the copper, I would think that it all is silver, except for maybe a few slivers of copper that may have fallen off the tubing. That is, unless there is something weird about this solution that I don't know about.



Nitric was original strength (70%). The solution was from gold treatment. I have diluted it by half with water.There was bunch of copper as most of the gold was 10K. Solution was filtered after it left gold treatment, it was nice clear blue colored. I have nice clumps of silver cement which are light grey color and stick together. I have dark grey mud, similar to grey silver chloride (scam) left after treating gold with AR. But for some reason it looks more like dirt. It is impossible for it to be silver chloride, as there was no precipitant other then copper tube. Or could it?

Is there a way to test the mud? I have already filtered light silver cement clumps and "dark grey mud" separately.


----------



## kadriver (Oct 12, 2011)

I have about 15 to 20 troy ounces of silver crystals in my silver cell.

The anode bars are almost gone, so tomorrow I will make 999 fine silver bars.

I plan to record the whole process on video, then post for all to see.

Thank you for all your comments.

kadriver


----------



## kadriver (Oct 12, 2011)

Alentia:

Some times if the silver nitrate solution has very little nitric acid left, I will get a very very fine silver powder that looks like grey mud.

When dried, it is the consistancy of talcum powder.

It sounds like that is what you have.

Take a small scoop of the mud, dry it out, then melt it to see if you get a bead of silver. If it turns to ash, then it might be something other than cemented silver.

But, if it turns to a bead of metal then this is what I would do next:

Once the bead of metal (if it turns out to be metal) has been made, put it into a test tube and add about 1ml concentrated nitric acid with a dropper.

Then add 1ml of DISTILLED water.

Hold it over a small flame to heat it a little until the metal dissolves.

When it starts dissolveing, I can tell right away if it could be silver or not by the way it looks when heated.

Once dissolved, add about 10 ml more distilled water.

Then place a length of solid copper wire into the test tube with the liquid.

If it is silver it will cement silver almost immediately.

I have been doing this test all night, tonight on pieces of jewelry that were not marked or the silver content of each piece was not certain.

To me, this is the ultimate test to see if what I have is silver or not.

Again, this is what I would do in the case you described above.

Hope this is helpful to you.

kadriver


----------



## Harold_V (Oct 12, 2011)

kadriver said:


> I have been doing this test all night, tonight on pieces of jewelry that were not marked or the silver content of each piece was not certain.


You really need to investigate Schwerter's solution. You can make determinations in seconds as to an object being silver, or not. That can be quite important when you're facing a large volume of pieces that require testing.

Harold


----------



## Acid_Bath76 (Oct 12, 2011)

great video!


----------



## notch (Oct 12, 2011)

Harold_V said:


> kadriver said:
> 
> 
> > I have been doing this test all night, tonight on pieces of jewelry that were not marked or the silver content of each piece was not certain.
> ...



Silver testing

Potassium Dichromate

When dissolved in an approximately 35% nitric acid solution it is called Schwerter's solution and is used to test for the presence of various metals, notably for determination of silver purity. Pure silver will turn the solution bright red, sterling silver will turn it dark red, low grade coin silver (0.800 fine) will turn brown (largely due to the presence of copper which turns the solution brown) and even green for 0.500 silver.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Potassium_dichromate


----------



## kadriver (Oct 12, 2011)

I have never used this Schwerter's solution. I think I may have some silver testing solution in one of my gold test kits.

I have included a picture of the test solution.

This must be the Schwerter's solution refered to in this post.

I can't believe all the silver I have processed and sold over the last few years and never bothered to learn how to use this test solution.

It amazes me at how easily we humans can be blocked off from even the simplest of solutions (no pun) to some of lifes problems.

Just goes to show how important it is to seek the input from those who have more knowlege than we do, even in the simplest matters!

Thanks Harold - you may have even pointed this out to me in earlier posts.

Now, all I have to do is learn how to use it - I will work on that tonight in my shop.

kadriver


----------



## Alentia (Oct 12, 2011)

Thank you, Kadriver!

I took different approach and it seems easier one. 

I have washed off little bit of mud from one of the filters and dissolved it in HNO3. I have got AgNO3 and dirt. Filtered and dropped bits of salt. AgCl has formed. It looks like dirt or other substances in the mud. Rather than trying to melt dirt with silver, I will re-dissolve, filter and use clean wire to precipitate again.

Schwerter's solution is the best for Silver Testing. Drop it, leave for few minutes and look for other colors other than red. This is the best silver oxidizer and will detect copper in "green" (if a lot) and zinc in "yellow". The brighter the red the better, brownish is the mix of "red" and "green" when brown it may point to 925 and below based on darkness. If green is clear visible it is usually means copper content is higher than silver content or equal.

I strongly would not recommend using off the shelf silver testing solution. Make you own with Potassium Dichromate.


----------



## MysticColby (Oct 12, 2011)

wait, can you add "silver test solution' to silver nitrate to test the purity of the silver you just dissolved? from reading how it works, it sounds like you should be able to do that... how much? 1 drop concentrated + 1 drop silver test solution?
silver test solution goes bad over time. would Potassium Dichromate in water (without nitric) also go bad over time? (you could have a part A and part B for silver test so it's always fresh)
any idea what concentration of Potassium Dichromate is in silver test solution?


----------

