# Replacing Organic Materials With Precious Metals



## Cody Reeder (Sep 14, 2011)

here in Utah there is a story of petrified wood found in sandstone that was made of silver instead of quarts.(unfortunately it was all melted down) I want to try and recreate this on a smaller scale, say with a flower.

so far I have put a flower inside a beaker and added a hot solution used to silver mirrors, without the sugar. my hypothesis was that the sugars and other organics would reduce the silver to metal like the sugar does when making mirrors. I also tried this with a leaf (less delicate than the flower). I also tried burring the flower with sand to help hold its shape as I cooked the solution.

both times the flower ended up a goopy brown-black mess and the leaf turned brown. I dried and burnt the leaf what was left was a silver ash that kinda resembled the original leaf.

next I am going to try burying the flower in ground glass, soak it in silver nitrate solution over night, rinse out excess solution, and then put it in my furnace. I am thinking that the remaining carbon will burn out, the silver will reduce to metal,and the glass will hold the shape and when cool will be able to be examined. 

If any one can provide some help it would be appreciated


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## Geo (Sep 14, 2011)

a flower would be hard as it has no woody grain its more of a pulpy texture. you may have more luck with a fern. i know this isn't what you are looking for but silversmiths of yesteryear would sculpt a pattern in bee's wax and cast it in clay that was like muddy water. after the clay would set up and harden it would be fired at this time the wax would be consumed leaving a cavity that would be poured full of silver. this is how antique filigree was created.


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## Cody Reeder (Sep 14, 2011)

Geo said:


> a flower would be hard as it has no woody grain its more of a pulpy texture. you may have more luck with a fern. i know this isn't what you are looking for but silversmiths of yesteryear would sculpt a pattern in bee's wax and cast it in clay that was like muddy water. after the clay would set up and harden it would be fired at this time the wax would be consumed leaving a cavity that would be poured full of silver. this is how antique filigree was created.



yes flowers are rather Pulpy, I might just do it with leaves instead of flowers it would still look cool right 

as for the casting in clay, I have done this quite a bit and it works pretty well (I will attach a photo of one of my projects).

I was hoping to have something that is very close to the original, perhaps even with a cell structure still intact, like petrified wood.


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## Cody Reeder (Sep 14, 2011)

does any one know how it might have happened in nature? if so could I possibly recreate it on a small scale, perhaps with a pressure chamber?

like what chemicals at what temputure and pressure?


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## dtectr (Sep 14, 2011)

What happened in nature took place over thousands, if not millions, of years, under unimaginable pressure & with the complete absence of oxygen.

An acceptable facsimile, based on your current discussion, would be to sprue the object you desire to cast, as long as it is carbon-based (leaf, bug, pinecone, etc.), coat it first, with a brush or by dipping, with a dilute solution of Joy dish detergent and water, allow to dry.Then coat with prepared casting investment, not allowing it to dry before placing it in a flask which is then filled to within 1/2" of the top with the same batch of casting investment,making sure that the pattern is well covered. Process it under vacuum in a bell jar, if available, 6 -12"Hg - this will swell up & likely boil over a little. This is fine - it is eliminating excessive air in the investment. It will drop back down after the it is processed.

An alternative, though not as effective, would be to use a vibrating table, or powerful handheld vibrator placed against the flask. This is less desirable, as the pattern is subjected to stresses which may cause it to separate from the sprue, if the joint is not secure.

Remove the vacuum, top off the flask, striking it off so its absolutely level. ALL these steps must be performed while the investment is still workable, so have your equipment at hand & your procedures well in mind before you begin.

Allow flask to set up slightly - if your sprued pattern/mold didn't have a sprue button included, carefully cut one now with a sharp spoon. Allow to harden over night, then follow burn-out procedure carefully, with the sprue side of the flask facing down.. This involves a long slow heat, with temperature step-ups periodically. You want to finish drying the mold,initially, but rapid heating will cause the trapped moisture to explode, ruining your mold. Finally, you'll be baking the cristobalite investment. Eventually, you will want to heat until all carbon has been consumed, including ash.

If burn-out is completed properly, the carbon from your pattern will have been converted entirely to CO2, and the sprue will have a burnt white/grey appearance. There should be no visible residue - oxygen played over the opening will glow orange if some residue is still unconsumed. The best detail is achieved with a vacuum-assist system, though some have claimed to achieve good success with steam casting.

Though I haven't tried it, I always suspected that a self-cleaning oven (this use only) would work for burn-out, as it heats to high enough temperatures to convert cooked-on foods, even melted plastic, to a fine white ash. If this were to be used, the flask will have to be raised to casting temperature again, as the safety locks on the range will not allow it to be opened until interior temps drop to safe levels.


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## Cody Reeder (Sep 14, 2011)

dtectr said:


> What happened in nature took place over thousands, if not millions, of years, under unimaginable pressure & with the complete absence of oxygen.
> 
> An acceptable facsimile, based on your current discussion, would be to sprue the object you desire to cast, as long as it is carbon-based (leaf, bug, pinecone, etc.), coat it first, with a brush or by dipping, with a dilute solution of Joy dish detergent and water, allow to dry.Then coat with prepared casting investment, not allowing it to dry before placing it in a flask which is then filled to within 1/2" of the top with the same batch of casting investment,making sure that the pattern is well covered. Process it under vacuum in a bell jar, if available, 6 -12"Hg - this will swell up & likely boil over a little. This is fine - it is eliminating excessive air in the investment. It will drop back down after the it is processed.
> 
> ...



A bit much for a week end project then, :lol: still I wonder if I could speed things up...

I have never tried the dish detergent or the vaccume before, thanksfor the tips


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## goldsilverpro (Sep 14, 2011)

The problem with normal drying is that they lose their shape. I have heard that one of the drying methods used by those who gold and silver plate flowers is to carefully pack them in cornmeal and then use a microwave. I have no idea as to the time or power setting. After drying, they coat them with a conductive paint, lacquer, etc., usually containing copper or, sometimes, silver - same stuff they use when plating baby shoes. When dry, they plate a heavy layer of acid copper and follow up with nickel plating and, finally, gold or silver plating. One guy I knew, way back, gold plated beetles in this manner and mounted them on key chains for a VW dealership. Usually, the companies that do these things keep their drying methods secret.

Lots of companies do this. Here's the 1st one listed on Google:
http://www.theforeverrose.com/


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## Geo (Sep 14, 2011)

goldsilverpro said:


> The problem with normal drying is that they lose their shape. I have heard that one of the drying methods used by those who gold and silver plate flowers is to carefully pack them in cornmeal and then use a microwave. I have no idea as to the time or power setting. After drying, they coat them with a conductive paint, lacquer, etc., usually containing copper or, sometimes, silver - same stuff they use when plating baby shoes. When dry, they plate a heavy layer of acid copper and follow up with nickel plating and, finally, gold or silver plating. One guy I knew, way back, gold plated beetles in this manner and mounted them on key chains for a VW dealership. Usually, the companies that do these things keep their drying methods secret.
> 
> Lots of companies do this. Here's the 1st one listed on Google:
> http://www.theforeverrose.com/


amazing stuff. thanks for the link.


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## Cody Reeder (Sep 14, 2011)

goldsilverpro said:


> The problem with normal drying is that they lose their shape. I have heard that one of the drying methods used by those who gold and silver plate flowers is to carefully pack them in cornmeal and then use a microwave. I have no idea as to the time or power setting. After drying, they coat them with a conductive paint, lacquer, etc., usually containing copper or, sometimes, silver - same stuff they use when plating baby shoes. When dry, they plate a heavy layer of acid copper and follow up with nickel plating and, finally, gold or silver plating. One guy I knew, way back, gold plated beetles in this manner and mounted them on key chains for a VW dealership. Usually, the companies that do these things keep their drying methods secret.
> 
> Lots of companies do this. Here's the 1st one listed on Google:
> http://www.theforeverrose.com/



I totally want to do that!


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## goldsilverpro (Sep 14, 2011)

I just read on another forum that, instead of drying the flowers, someone was just sealing them with an epoxy resin. They don't explain what the "cold copper solution" is but I would guess it could be what's used for thru-hole plating on circuit boards. I'm thinking that Shipley used to be the main company supplying that copper solution to the PCB industry.

http://www.finishing.com/61/27.shtml


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## qst42know (Oct 2, 2011)

There are other ways. Are you near a taxidermist that freeze dries specimens?

Or you could go "all in" and a buy a machine. The first one on the list is for drying bridal bouquets.

http://www.freezedryco.com/equipment/index.html


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## Reno Chris (Oct 2, 2011)

The slow replacement methods you are looking at would take thousands of years, just like the natural occurrences. However there is an alternative.

There is an easy method of quickly replacing organic materials with precious metals. A friend of mine took a scorpion and turned it into gold last summer. The thing looks very cool and all the details of the scorpion's exterior were preserved. The method has been around for at least a thousand years and was independently discovered and used by Indians in south America as well as the ancient Egyptians. Its called lost wax casting, and actually can be done very simply (after all it was done by ancient Indians in south America as well as the ancient Egyptians - and what high technology did they have?). This is what detectr was describing in his post. A wax sprue is attached to the item, and it is sunk into a flask full of a special casting plaster. The plaster dries and is hardened over time, and then the flask is put into an oven where the organics are burned out. This leaves a void the shape of your organic object and a sprue to the surface. Molten metal is poured down the sprue and it hardens in the void forming an exact duplicate of the original organic item in gold (silver or brass or whatever metal you choose). The sprue is then cut off. 

The basic process is as described above, but there are more details. Look on the internet for information on lost wax casting and steam casting.


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## shpfrm14 (Oct 14, 2011)

New here, but had to jump in when subject of silver repacement in woody fiber came up. Last year I was firing a cast iron wood cook stove to get the oven up to 350 degrees. I had red hot coals in fire box with good draft. I added elm that I had cut from around a pond. After cooking and stove had cooled, noticed hard lumps of a whitish rocky looking stuff on grates. To hard and large to fall thru. Removed them and put them outside in a can. The chunks turned greyish to a violet color. Had the chimney clean in the spring, chimney cleaner sayed, that the inside of the chimney was coated by a shiny substance. He stated he had never seen this before. seems the tree wicked some sort of salt.


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