# My First Attempt At Melting Cemented Silver



## Anonymous (Sep 13, 2012)

Hello forum members,

I would like to start off by saying if it wasn't for this forum, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing with precious metals recovery and I wouldn't have been able to do what I recently done. Much love to all of you.

After I joined the forum earlier this year I purchased some cemented silver (a month or so after joining here) off of eBay for less than the spot price of silver. I held onto it until last month sometime while I was still compiling supplies, equipment and such. Then I finally took a crack at melting.

I used a cast steel (or cast iron) conical mold with two cavities with 5oz each. After reading the forum, looking at the videos I've purchased from *LaserSteve* and buying the supplies I needed, I managed to make the molds below. They're not perfect at all, but it gave me a starting point of inspiration as to seasoning melting dishes, types of heat/fire to use, etc,.

I will eventually melt all of the pieces into one piece to make at least a 5oz silver mold.







one side of the pieces





the other side of the pieces





each piece that I weighed after cooling down





I laid them on a piece of paper towel with a cigarette lighter to show the size





This is the other side of the pieces.





What I used to pour the melted silver in.

The one piece above that weigh 30.9 grams was 31.1 grams until a piece of it broke off. I guess it didn't melt well enough. 

Through this forum I now have the confidence to at least melt silver (I still need practice though). I was trying just one 31.1 gram at a time and then I tried more to see the difference and the time it would take for the differences. I did however learn one thing though. Since all of my silver didn't pour out in a straight shot into the mold, do not heat the melting dish and melt the silver and pour it into the mold because it won't mold properly. It just drips in the mold into clumps and hardens immediately. Also, with the mold I used, in order to get silver to melt in it (if you try to use it as a melting dish) you will have to get that mold red hot, and that will take much fire and heat to accomplish.

I'm learning. I still have over 60+ lbs of keyboard mylars I'm going to process soon, but, I'm still reading Hoke's book and reading the posts on the forum.

Thank you all again for making me feel that I can accomplish what I set out to do from this forum.

Kevin


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## element47.5 (Sep 13, 2012)

I think you want to view samuel-a's video "silver casting" 

http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php? f=61&t=15406&p=156735&hilit=casting+silver#p156735

Are you:

Sooting the mold?
Preheating the mold? 
Keeping the mold under a reducing atmosphere? (eg; a reducing flame)

Add those steps if you can and IMO your results will be quite a bit better, IMO. 

Any particular reason why you selected a conical mold?


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## Anonymous (Sep 13, 2012)

element47.5 said:


> I think you want to view samuel-a's video "silver casting"
> 
> http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php? f=61&t=15406&p=156735&hilit=casting+silver#p156735
> 
> ...



I need to understand how to actually soot the mold. I put my mold on a hot plate and heated it up before pouring into it. But before I heated it up, I took a paper towel with a dab of vegetable oil to wipe the rust that was starting to form on it. Then I heated the mold. It still looks great as of now. I had it for about 6 months before I used it.

I used the conical mold because of it's shape I guess. I have silver rounds and bars, but nothing conical. I recently bought a domino graphite mold set that I plan to make a domino set out of silver, hopefully by next year. Why? I just want to make something really unique that I've never seen before.

As far as reducing the flame, I still need practice on that part and I still need to learn how to properly season the melting dish with borax because I still have dry spots on one of my melting dishes that I thought I coated it properly... but I didn't. Actually, I have small minute pieces of silver on it that didn't pour out. I'd guess it's about a a gram worth, if that. But I'm saving it anyway to remelt and hopefully the other left-behind pieces will melt away into the new batch.

I did see the video a few days ago that Samuel-a posted about melting the silver. I'll re-watch it again.

Thanks

Kevin


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## philddreamer (Sep 13, 2012)

Hi Kevin!
You soot the mold by applying the black soot that comes off an acetylene torch, thus blackening the mold. If you have a propane torch were the oxigen nob is left off, you can also blacken the mold. Propane's soot is not as "heavy" as acetylene, so you need to apply a bit longer. Also, you can use dirty oil from when you last changed the oil on your car. It has a lot of carbon.
And yes, you should watch samuel's video again.
Take care!
Phil


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## Anonymous (Sep 13, 2012)

Thanks for the tip *philddreamer*. Will do.

Kevin


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## etack (Sep 13, 2012)

one looks like a Hershey Kiss :lol: 

Eric


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## Anonymous (Sep 13, 2012)

etack said:


> one looks like a Hershey Kiss :lol:
> 
> Eric


You must be talking about the last one... the 83.4 grams. It sure does.

My goal is to make a perfectly shaped one filled to the top, then I'm going to buy a stamping set and stamp it.

Kevin


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## Palladium (Sep 13, 2012)

You can spray the mold with WD-40 also.


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## Oz (Sep 13, 2012)

I use acetylene soot, but I like the idea of WD-40 spray. I dislike the idea of used motor oil as it is dirty with fine metals from engine wear that could contaminate your silver.


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## Anonymous (Sep 13, 2012)

@ *Palladium*,
I do have some of that, but didn't use any . As a matter of fact, I bought a new can a month ago and never used it a all.

@ *Lou*,
I read here about the motor oil here (I think) and it sounds like it would work too, but I wanted clean, untouched melting. I know the oil could be filtered to work, but I know and understand what you're talking about. Too many small metal particles that can contaminate the pureness of any metal. I used brand new cooking oil that has never been in any pot or pan, that I know of. Even what we buy from the stores is sometimes recycled. Yep, even down to the cooking oil.

Kevin


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## saadat68 (Oct 23, 2018)

Hi
As you know graphite molds don't need soot because silver/gold melts don't stick to them.

But do we need soot graphite molds for silver melts to pervent oxygen absorption like iron molds?
I ask this because graphite is made from carbon!
Thanks


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