# .999?



## Woolf (Jan 15, 2011)

after refining 925 silver with the cementing process i finally have my .999 bar... i refined 135 grams for a test and recieved 115 grams... shouldnt i have recieved 124.88-125 grams?

also my bar has black stuff on the outside is this from my crucible? some areas are really bright silver and others have black on them if i rub this long enough on my jeans it tends to shine but takes a long time...


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## lazersteve (Jan 15, 2011)

Sounds like you did not get all of the copper nitrate out of the cemented silver. 

You will need to run the bar through a silver cell to get the bar to 999+.


Steve


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## Woolf (Jan 16, 2011)

heres what i did... 
put 1ML 70%nitric/water 50/50 per gram i had in beaker.. 
then i left it alone till fully dissolved...
filtered
put copper inside
filtered/rinsed until no more color in water
dry/melt
left inside of crucible until solid...

am i missing something?


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## Harold_V (Jan 16, 2011)

Woolf said:


> heres what i did...
> put 1ML 70%nitric/water 50/50 per gram i had in beaker..
> then i left it alone till fully dissolved...
> filtered
> ...


The only thing I see wrong is leaving the metal to solidify in the crucible. That's OK if you intend to break the crucible, and have no intentions of using it again, but if you try to melt silver than has solidified in a crucible, chances are very good that you'll break the crucible when it is heated again. Silver contracts upon solidifying, and expands when it is reheated. That ruptures the crucible.

I'm at a loss to understand why you expected to achieve a level of purity of 3 n's by cementation. You are expecting too much from the process at hand. If you bother to read about it on the forum, you'll come to understand that silver that is recovered by cementation with copper is generally contaminated with copper. if you're lucky, you'll achieve a level of purity around 99%---but anything higher is clearly not likely. If you want 3n's silver, you're going to have to either part electrolytically, or process silver chloride. It's much easier to part electrolytically, where you can also recover trace values of gold and platinum group metals. 

Harold


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## Woolf (Jan 16, 2011)

hmmm so all the silver im cementing is 99% at best?


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## nickvc (Jan 16, 2011)

Woolf said:


> hmmm so all the silver im cementing is 99% at best?



Yep....
I'd advise you to follow Harolds advice and refine it in a cell which has been widely dicussed recently on the forum, full details are available including a DVD from Lasersteves site if you want a step by step guide.


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## Woolf (Jan 16, 2011)

hmmm i dont have a cell and steve only sells some parts to it i hear...


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## metatp (Jan 16, 2011)

Woolf,

A cell is pretty easy when you follow the set up in LaserSteve's DVD. It is also fun to watch the crystal grow. I just finished processing a batch of 17 ozt. You can get everything you need pretty easily. LaserSteve even sells a cathode that works well.

Regards,
Tom


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## lazersteve (Jan 16, 2011)

Woolf said:


> hmmm i dont have a cell and steve only sells some parts to it i hear...



I can provide all of the parts, but I don't list them on my website pricing page. If you want all of the parts let me know and I'll price it all out for you.

Steve


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## Woolf (Jan 18, 2011)

> I can provide all of the parts, but I don't list them on my website pricing page. If you want all of the parts let me know and I'll price it all out for you.
> 
> Steve



do i need seperate cells for gold/silver? can i purchase the chemicals needed at publix?


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## lazersteve (Jan 18, 2011)

Yes to the first question and no to the second.

Steve


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## Woolf (Jan 18, 2011)

where would i purchase the chemicals needed? or better yet what are the chemicals needed?

also i have a lot of chemicals in a jar that were used in refining... how would i dispose of these chemicals?


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## lazersteve (Jan 18, 2011)

The most important chemicals for the electrolytes would likely be sulfuric acid (95%+) for gold and nitric acid (70%) for silver. All of the others are talked about all over the forum and are used in the standard processing.

You can get the sulfuric acid at hardware stores sold as an acid drain opener.

You can use silver nitrate crystals instead of nitric acid if you don't want to mess with nitric. Otherwise you'll have to buy some nitric and have it shipped unless you live in a big city that sells it locally at a chemical or mining supply supply house.

Steve


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## Woolf (Jan 18, 2011)

i already have nitric 70% and these cells will remove only the precious metals? will it be in powder form? will it be pure? could you also help me with a proper way to dispose of my other chemicals that were already used in refining? like whats the best way to dispose of them?


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## lazersteve (Jan 19, 2011)

All of your questions have been answered many times over here.

Please use the search function : waste disposal, sulfuric cell, and silver cell and when you are done, you'll be ready to process your material.

Steve


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## Woolf (Jan 20, 2011)

ok i searched some forums and watched your video on it... how would i hold an entire necklace inside of this tub? what would happen if i placed a solid item inside the acid not only plated? i did not see these answers on forums


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## Oz (Jan 20, 2011)

Woolf,

Lazersteve has a full-time plus day job, has a refining business processing customers raw material, 2 other businesses I know of, also runs a website (mainly for this forum’s benefit) that provides materials and supplies at near his cost, and produces DVDs on refining for an absurdly low price given their quality and content. Oh, did I mention he teaches refining on this forum for free?

Frankly I do not know how he does it all and still manages to maintain a family life with his wife and children. 

This will sound hard but someone has to say it, I am not as polite as Steve and tend to be rather direct. You need to take a greater responsibility for your own education by reading what is already on this forum instead of expecting Steve to do the work for you. You are just pounding him with question after question.

I recently commented in a thread complimenting a gentleman on his third post here after being a member here for a half year. The reason for my compliment is that he just read, never asking a question, and posted a picture showing his first gold button that I would wager is 95% pure or better. 

All of the main members enjoy helping others learn refining but you have been inundating Steve with questions. Please invest more of your own time reading instead of just asking for someone else’s time. 

I agree that Steve is a fabulous resource. Perhaps you should buy some of his DVDs that explain what it is you wish to learn. Then if you have a few questions, at least you have supported the man to some degree. 

I know this may seem as though I am jumping you a bit. But ask yourself how many hours you personally would spend teaching others to refine with no benefit to yourself.


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## Woolf (Jan 20, 2011)

Oz said:


> Woolf,
> 
> Lazersteve has a full-time plus day job, has a refining business processing customers raw material, 2 other businesses I know of, also runs a website (mainly for this forum’s benefit) that provides materials and supplies at near his cost, and produces DVDs on refining for an absurdly low price given their quality and content. Oh, did I mention he teaches refining on this forum for free?
> 
> ...




first of all i have purchased some of his DVDs.. and im asking questions about items i MAY purchase from him in the future... if you intend to sell items it is polite to answer some of your customers questions.. or am i wrong??? i also own and run a tow truck business which is 24/7 from homestead to miami dade florida... i also run a bar here in cutler bay and have to fly to PA from time to time to help out with another bar i manage... and im picking up a hobby to keep myself saine... i have searched these forums for answers... how ever a lot of posts are out dated and pictures and links are no longer working... and i dont have time to sit here for hours at a time searching posts that dont seem to be very helpful... and the posts i do read dont answer all of my questions... sorry for being a customer that wants to be perfectly clear on how the products he intends to buy will fully work to the needs i intend to use them for....


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## lazersteve (Jan 21, 2011)

Woolf,

There's nothing wrong with wanting to get things right.

There is something wrong with not telling the people you want help from when you find a broken link. If you do find a broken link or picture, please let someone know so we can fix them. In the long run it benefits everyone.

As for the free time issue. You don't have the time to tell us specifically what's wrong with the information we have provided you, but you want us to make time to repeat what has already been said here numerous times over. That doesn't seem like a cooperative attitude to me. We have to work together for you to learn. To put it in the words of one of my old high school girl friends: 'I can't open your head and pour it in'.

I provided you with detailed search criteria to answer all of your questions in great detail and I'm 100% sure that all of the links are not faulty.

I'm going to go one step further and post links to the search results for the criteria I gave you above:

Silver cell

Sulfuric Cell Posts by Lazersteve

Waste Disposal

If you don't have time to read what's already been typed into the forum and I don't have time to type it all again, then you're never going to learn this. You wouldn't go to college and tell the teacher you don't want to read the material from the book, but instead you want him to write in on the chalk board.

I'm trying to help you the only way I know how, and that is through leading you to the information that has already been entered into the forum. If you find link or image errors in the information then let me know and I'll fix it if at all possible.

I'm willing to help anyone who is willing to help themselves, regardless if they buy anything from my web store or not. When I provide a member information he/she is not obligated to purchase from me. Likewise when a member purchases from me, I am not obligated to respond to their posts. 

I choose to respond to your posts, because I want to help you learn. Now it is up to you to want to learn. The path to learning will require that you read a lot of posts.

Steve

PS: Reading the Guided Tour Link will answer a lot of your basic questions also. Stick with it and it will all start to soak in.


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## metatp (Jan 21, 2011)

Steve,

You are a patient man. I don't know how you deal with people that just want to take and take and take without doing their part that makes this forum so great. It is so sad that we now live in this "entitlement attitude world". It is all about "me" and "my" wants.

Thank you,
Tom


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## jimdoc (Jan 21, 2011)

If somebody doesn't have the time to study how to do refining right,I can't see how they have the time to refine at all.Studying and doing your homework,so that you know all the safety concerns is very important.
Some people were meant to just be a middleman,and buy and sell gold
without even trying to refine it themselves.

The best is seeing "lurkers" show up after studying and doing all their homework and showing that they have graduated the forum with gold
to show for it,in their first post.Emmjae is the latest,but there were a few others,that prove it can be done.Everything is here,and in Hoke's book to get anybody started in refining.

If someone needs to ask a question every time they run into a problem,I think that is only an accident waiting to happen.Or at least add complications,or loss of gold by not understanding the basics before jumping in,not knowing the next step.Or even having stannous to know where their gold is.

There are so many people that get here to find that refining is too hard,too dangerous,or whatever reason they bail out.How is anybody supposed to know who is serious enough to keep with it,until they show some initiative and prove that they have been studying.For the experts to answer questions over and over for someone that may quit tomorrow doesn't seem right to me.I didn't refine anything until I was here for a few months.Steve's videos gave me the confidence and guide me through with no problems.

Steve and others here have so much patience that if they were doctors they would be millionaires.Oh yeah that would be "patients",but their patience and willingness to help others make them one in a million.And we have a few of those here.We have about 15,000 members here with a few one in a million type people here,what are the odds of that?

The experts here are what makes this forum so great,I think they deserve a break from the questions that could easily be researched with the search button or by reading Hoke's and other books that can be downloaded.

Jim


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## Harold_V (Jan 22, 2011)

*Your comments have not gone unnoticed, Jim, and, for them, I thank you.*

I, for one, am becoming weary from those that insist they be spoon fed, yet refuse to follow the most simple of instructions, preferring, instead, to do what they want to do, not what works. When it goes south and they finally come to terms with the fact that they don't know what they're doing, they then expect someone to bail them out. Given the opportunity, I'd see to it that people like that would enjoy a short stay on this forum. They are doing nothing more than muddying the water for those that wish to learn.

One thing is very important for readers to understand. 

None of us here on this forum owe you anything. We are here for reasons of our own choosing---some (like myself) with no hope of making a profit, nor with that objective in mind. We are here to help those that need help in pursuing a quest to learn to refine precious metals. They are expected to do their share of the work----with guidance from those of us that have experience. If they think that, somehow, they are entitled to special treatment, that they need not read, nor follow instructions that are provided, they will come to understand that they are not welcome here. I'll personally see to it that they do not enjoy their visits. There is one new member that is on thin ice with me now. Had he run his stupid mouth publicly, I would have banned him immediately. He chose, instead, to insult me by PM. That accomplished one thing, and one thing only. He wore out his welcome. Now all I need is a reason to ban him. It's only time, and he'll be gone. Wise people do not bite the hand that feeds them. 

Henceforth I am going to be far more critical of those to which I try to provide help. If any of these criteria are not met, they need not apply. I refuse to try to help anyone that is unwilling to do their fair share of trying to learn. 

Hoke's book must be read before asking questions. Otherwise, the questions that are asked are most likely not worth asking. Reading Hoke acquaints the novice with the fundamentals of refining, and does it in clear, concise English. I see no reason for me to recite that which is already in print. 

I am not interested in trying to help anyone that has no clue about testing procedures. So long as someone else answers such questions, the individual responsible will continue to be clueless. I have no interest in becoming an enabler. I will point you to the water. It is you that must drink. 

I will henceforth refuse to discuss refining on any level with ANYONE that does not have stannous chloride at their disposal, and a means to insure that it works. Why should I? They can't tell me the things that are required to make informed decisions, so why should I waste my valuable time guessing? All that does is make me look foolish when I'm wrong.

Read Hoke, folks, and read Hoke until what she tells you makes sense. Learn to test. Invest a few bucks in a spot plate and the necessary chemicals to make testing and standard solutions. It's the same as buying a ticket to a performance. Can't get in without one, and, without them, you can't know where you are, or what you are accomplishing. 

I will no longer humor anyone that asks for my assistance. They will do exactly as they are told, in the precise way they are told to do the exercise. Otherwise, when the results are not in keeping with what is expected, I have no clue what has transpired. I have far better things to do with my time than to humor an individual that has no clue and insists on pursuing some hare brained idea. 

Harold


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## Woolf (Jan 22, 2011)

the best thing about forums is that people can choose to reply or not to reply... my post was not directed to any of the admins or MODs i was not forcing anyone to reply to this post... i have taken the time to read things and to watch dvds accidents happen when you are in the momment for your first time with no one to watch over you... i make a mistake here and there because im learning... i go back to this forum to try and reread how to solve my problems if i cant find a link that says exactly the errors i have made i ask a question to try and find someone that made the same errors... no where in my post does it say MOD or ADMINS hurry and answer.... it is not easy to read something for 5 minutes and have someone bang on your office door just to forget what you previously read.... thanks to steves DVDs ive had better chances of learning and understanding inbetween phone calls and chaos at the office... i find refining to be very enjoyable it gives me time to myself and its not a RUSH RUSH hobby i can sit back and watch how things happen..


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## jimdoc (Jan 22, 2011)

You just need to chill out a bit.Don't worry about making excuses for anything,just chill out a bit.Have you read Hoke's book?Have you read any of the forum handbooks?Printed them out to read when you get a chance?

Accidents happen for many reasons,not just "when you are in the moment for your first time with no one to watch over you".Accidents in this hobby can be fatal,to you and others around you.You need to understand everything you are doing before you do it.

So please stop explaining about your busy life disturbing you while you are trying to learn refining.That happens to everybody,deal with it.


Jim


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## Woolf (Jan 22, 2011)

i have read a lot and did research... i spent months reading different ways others refine.. i didnt find this forum on purpose it was found while researching... ive bought DVDs off ebay and other websites and even from steve... but when everything is actually in front of you it is different... and when dvds and different books are telling you different things... its not exactly easy to know right froim wrong... like i said it is just a hobby and i find it to be really fun.. and enjoyable when i post something on here there is NO NEED for anyone to answer if they dont want... if how ever you do reply with a good answer.. theres a chance i may reply with another question... or i may figure it out and continue


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## butcher (Jan 22, 2011)

woolf, even if I could answer all the questions, someone came up with, I would not be helping him by doing that. where I can help him is to make him ask questions, lead him to the place that he can find answers, then keep him interested and wanting to know more.

you already have the spark of wanting to know the answer.
you already have been given the best possible source to find those answers you seek.

so do you need more help in what questions to ask?
sorry if I answered all of your questions you would not learn, yes you will get that question answered, but you would also miss a world of information that you would gain from searching and studying yourself, which would also lead to more questions.

please do not wear out your welcome by trying to get others to do the work for you, that will not help them or you, keep asking questions, but find the answers already given, and you will find better answers at that, as each question can have several answers, and finding the answer will answer questions you would never dream of.

I hope you will do your homework so that you too will help to answer questions, helping others,
you have HOKE's book and the forum, here to help, but do not expect Hoke or the forum to lead you blindly, uncover your eyes and get to studying. you will find it very rewarding, for me that is one main aspect of this hobby is learning.


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## Harold_V (Jan 23, 2011)

Woolf said:


> the best thing about forums is that people can choose to reply or not to reply


You've missed the point. If you scream wolf (no pun intended) enough times, your scream goes unnoticed. You ask questions that have answers that you should already know, and you would, had you approached refining in a methodical fashion. You do that by learning how things are done before you try to do them. It appears you haven't done that, then when things go south you expect everyone but you to provide answers. 

No one was more busy than I was when I learned to refine. I was running a one man machine shop carrying defense contracts with critical delivery dates---that during the Viet Nam war. I also had NO ONE to turn to for help in learning. I managed to master the process by READING----lots and lots of reading. If I can do it, you can do it. It's all in print---especially here on the forum. 

Want to quit chasing your tail? Stop listening to moronic suggestion you get from the internet. Every dog in town fancies himself a gold refiner and is all too quick to sell you information that would be overpriced if it was free. A good example is the stupid notion the e scrap can be processed strictly by AR. Does it work? Sure it does! Does it have issues? Damned straight---more than you can understand. But then you'd know that if you knew how to refine. 

Start reading Hoke and stop playing with this stuff until you understand what the hell you're doing. I don't have time to babysit people (nor do others that have the knowledge)---especially people that think they have answers when they don't understand the question. No need to explain how busy you are. We're all busy. Too busy to screw around with issues such as this. 

Harold


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## w0lvez (Jan 23, 2011)

It's hard to get .999 silver with the presence of copper. It would be easier if get rid of the copper first.


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