# Making Silver Shot - need advice



## kadriver (Dec 16, 2011)

I would like to make some silver shot.

I have tried in the past, but it turns out like flakes, similar to inquarted gold.

I have read that to make shot, the water should be warm or hot. I have never tried using hot water.

I use a large 3 gallon stainless steel soup pot. It is about 15 inches tall and about 12 inches across (approximately).

Any input or guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you - kadriver


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## niteliteone (Dec 17, 2011)

Hi kadriver,
I have never tried making any shot but this was on the forum a few days ago.

It deals with making shot.
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=12263

Hope this helps
Tom C.


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## Harold_V (Dec 17, 2011)

Do NOT use hot water. That's total BS. The colder, the better. I used to ice my water when I poured shot, assuming there was much quantity to be poured. With hot water, the chance of a volume of steam developing around the hot metal is all too real. When that happens, molten metal hits the bottom of the container, and can fuse to the container, as well as to itself. Use cold water, and keep it in motion if you can. I used a small pump simply to keep the water moving when I poured shot. It sat in the bottom of my container, off to one side. It helped tremendously. 

When you pour over the lip of a melting vessel, you won't enjoy success in pouring shot. As much as it may not make sense, drill a hole, or a series of holes (1/8") in the bottom of a crucible or a melting dish, which then meters the molten metal. Shot is the result. Keep the dish close to the water surface. I used to have mine about ten inches above, but 4metals recommends it be even closer. Ten inches worked, but being closer may be even better. Dunno---never tried. 

Melt your metal in a different dish/crucible, then pour the molten metal to the metering dish. Play a second torch on the metering dish to keep it hot enough to prevent solidification of the introduced molten gold/silver. 

Harold


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## kadriver (Dec 17, 2011)

Ice cold water - the colder the better.

Drill holes in a melt dish - I have a small melt dish (about 2 1/2 inches) and a drill press.

I will put 3/16 inch holes in the bottom of it. About 5 or 6 of them.

I'll rig up a dish holder and clamp it to a support and suspend the drilled dish about 8 to 10 inches above the surface of the cold water.

Then put a second torch on the dish to keep it hot while I pour the metal from another dish.

I got it all mapped out in my head. Now I will give a it a go.

Thanks Harold - kadriver


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## kadriver (Dec 17, 2011)

I don't have a pump to move the water, I am only pouring about 6 or 8 troy ounces. 

I will give the cold water a good stir before i begin to pour.


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## philddreamer (Dec 17, 2011)

Kad, you want or need the shot to be that big? 

Just curious.

Phil


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## kadriver (Dec 17, 2011)

niteliteone:

I read through that post you recommended. It was right on - thank you.

4metals said to make the holes 1/8 inch - I will do this.

I like the metal support set right on the top of the water tank.

i will look for a small submersible pump to keep the water moving.

Phil, I want the shot to be about the size of a BB.

Great stuff!

kadriver


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## niteliteone (Dec 18, 2011)

kadriver said:


> niteliteone:
> 
> I read through that post you recommended. It was right on - thank you.
> 
> kadriver



8)  8)


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## Harold_V (Dec 18, 2011)

kadriver said:


> I will put 3/16 inch holes in the bottom of it. About 5 or 6 of them.


Too large, as you likely know. I used 1/8" and 4metals also recommends that size. 

When you drill a melting dish, remember that you're drilling something that's brittle and abrasive. Start with a sharp drill. Slow the drill to the slowest speed, and back up the dish with something that conforms to the bottom and prevents breakage. A rubber pad would be good, or even a sheet of urethane, if you happen to have some at your disposal. Don't horse the drill, but do keep enough pressure on it to keep it cutting. If it rubs much, it will be instantly dulled because of the abrasive nature of the material.

Luck!

Harold


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## goldenchild (Dec 18, 2011)

Putting water in your dish will help drill holes greatly. Because the holes you will make are so small it's sometimes hard for the bit to clean itself out. The waste stays in the hole and will quickly dull your bit in addition to making no progress. With the water in the crucible the current that's created will easily remove the waste and get you through the crucible with ease. The drill never has to be put to the max and very little pressure has to be applied. You won't even have to back the drill out. One clean drill all the way through. 

If you plan on making multiple holes drill them until they are close to the other side but not all the way through(also using water). When all the wells can hold water you can then drill them all the way through. I learned this when trying to drill the high temp fused silica crucibles. Without water I couldn't get through them. With the normal ceramic or clay crucibles it will be like a hot knife through butter. That or, if you have the right equipment you can get something like this http://www.riogrande.com/Product/Memco-InductoVac-Graphite-Casting-Crucible-104-ozt/704200?pos=23


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## kadriver (Dec 19, 2011)

Excellent - thank you.

Will a small melt dish be suitable for this project?

I could drill just 4 holes and pour the metal slowly, keeping a flame on it as I pour.

Should the melt dish with the holes be glazed with borax to prevent the molten silver from sticking to it?

I liked the setup 4metals uses to make shot. But he has a deep crucible instead of a melt dish.

kadriver


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## Harold_V (Dec 20, 2011)

kadriver said:


> Will a small melt dish be suitable for this project?


Yes. A large dish is not a requirement, although I used the largest one available. I melted gold in quantity, but several small batches, never a huge volume at once. 



> I could drill just 4 holes and pour the metal slowly, keeping a flame on it as I pour.


If it matters to you, I melted up to about ten ounces at a time. I poured to a dish that had only one 1/8" hole, and enjoyed success. Multiple holes are not required. Five ounces of gold will go through a single hole in a couple seconds. No harm in using more, just not necessary. 



> Should the melt dish with the holes be glazed with borax to prevent the molten silver from sticking to it?


If you choose to use the wet process for drilling the holes, you'll be well off to do a couple things to avoid losing the dish. Moisture is the enemy of these melting dishes. They're not the same as the thick type that have a flat bottom. If you drill wet, rinse the dish well afterwards, to eliminate any free clay material, then dry the dish slowly. I'd recommend it be placed in a warm area, but not subjected to heat that could cause water to boil. When the dish is dry, it should then be heated on a burner, slowly, to drive out residual moisture. When the dish temperature has risen above the boiling point of water, it should then be heated to a dull red condition, at which time a light covering of borax should be sprinkled on the dish. Reheat the dish until the borax has formed a clear covering. Repeat if there are barren areas, but apply only enough to cover the dish. Excess borax will report in the shot otherwise. 



> I liked the setup 4metals uses to make shot. But he has a deep crucible instead of a melt dish.


It's an excellent setup, but not necessary unless you intend to pour a large amount of molten metal. You'd be far better served to start small, then expand as you see fit. You may never be able to justify the crucible, plus in order for its use, it has to be brought to the melting point of the poured metal, otherwise you risk freezing of the metal in the crucible. Keep in mind, too, that a torch can't be used in a deep cavity, so you'd be unable to keep heat where it matters when using a crucible. A melting dish allows for heating. 

Luck!

Harold


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## kadriver (Dec 20, 2011)

Thanks for the excellent guidance Harold.


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## MysticColby (Feb 1, 2012)

I like this plan to make silver shot, and I plan to try it soon. I wanted to get it right the first try, so I asked myself this question: How many 1/8" holes to drill?
I was thinking of having just 1 hole as I'm not going to be doing hundreds of oz at a time (maybe 50 oz at most = 1700 g)
I did some research for how much water will flow through a hole (liquid metal should be similar) and came to the conclusion that one 1/8" hole will dispense about 3.5 ml/sec = 36.75 g/sec. With 1700 g, that would be 46 seconds. Too long. I think 3 or 4 holes would be better a time frame.
Does this sound about right?


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## goldenchild (Feb 1, 2012)

Here is me shooting 11 ounces (one hole). My recommendation... Melt smaller batches. Can you do 1700 grams at once? Sure. You will need alot of heat though. And about 6 holes I suppose.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-WJZpxAqvI&feature=channel_video_title[/youtube]


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## eeTHr (Feb 1, 2012)

Remember that gold is 19 times heavier than water.



Harold_V said:


> If it matters to you, I melted up to about ten ounces at a time. I poured to a dish that had only one 1/8" hole, and enjoyed success. Multiple holes are not required. Five ounces of gold will go through a single hole in a couple seconds. No harm in using more, just not necessary.


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## MysticColby (Feb 1, 2012)

goldenchild said:


> Here is me shooting 11 ounces (one hole). My recommendation... Melt smaller batches. Can you do 1700 grams at once? Sure. You will need alot of heat though. And about 6 holes I suppose.



I use a propane foundry and graphite crucible to do my melts (not an open dish). It doesn't take much longer to melt more. After the 15 minutes of heating the foundry up to temperature, it takes about 4-8 minutes to melt just about any quantity of silver that will fit.

Neat video. I'm looking to make more spherical shot, but the practice seems to be very similar (I think the only difference is the height of the dish with the hole).
Is there a downside to too many holes? I guess not, now that I think about it. maybe it compromises the dish, but I guess it'd probably be fine with 6 or so. At first, I thought there shouldn't be so many so there would be a pool of metal in the dish instead of a funnel.


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## kadriver (Feb 1, 2012)

Excellent video - those look more like flakes than shot.

I think 4metals recommends the dish with the hole be as close to the water as possible.

I have not done this yet.

kadriver


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## goldenchild (Feb 2, 2012)

You guys are correct. If you shoot right above the water you will get the more spherical shot you are talking about. I have done it this way too. About an inch over the water. There is a picture somewhere on the forum of what I came up with.


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## goldsilverpro (Feb 2, 2012)

I worked for a company that made many 1000s of oz of silver shot. They had an elevated gas crucible furnace, on a stand (with a hole in it) with steps, with about a #70 (maybe, a #90) crucible in it, and they melted 1000 oz bars. The bottom refractory of the furnace had a hole through it in which the crucible nestled. I don't know if the crucible was luted in, but it probably was. The hole in the bottom of the steel furnace shell wasn't very large - maybe 1" larger than the hole pattern. The crucible had about 6 small holes in the bottom at the center. A silver dollar would probably cover all 6.

The stainless shot container was about 36" tall on casters and it was rolled underneath the crucible. The bottom of the crucible was about 6" (a pure guess!) from the water, or a little less, if I remember right. A large stainless colander type bowl, held by several long stainless wires was used to catch the shot and make it easy to remove it from the container. Water was pumped from a 350 gallon water reservoir into an angled inlet at the bottom of the shot container. An overflow outlet near the top of the container allowed the water to drain back into the reservoir.

The main reason for this post is to discuss the size of the holes drilled in the bottom of the crucible. When I saw the setup, the first question I asked was the hole size. I am positive I was told they used a numbered drill bit somewhere in the #50s and I am almost sure I was told #56. The expert consensus on the forum is that the holes should be 1/8", which is 0.125" (between #30 and #31). A #50 bit is 0.07" and a #60 bit is .04". A #56 bit is 0.0465". In all cases, these bits are much smaller than 1/8" and the 1000 oz of silver still drained through in a matter of, I would guess, 10-15 minutes. I'm not suggesting that 1/8" won't work fine. I'm just showing that it's not carved in stone. The smaller holes would seemingly produce a smaller shot, and I'm sure it was geared to what their particular customers wanted.


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## MysticColby (Feb 2, 2012)

From those numbers, they must of been smaller holes
I would expect smaller holes to produce smaller, more spherical shot

Hehe, one science thought I just had:
you can take a copper tube, drop a neodymium magnet down the middle, and it will take much longer to fall through it than outside it (like 10+ seconds to fall 3 feet)
The opposite is also supposed to work: take a powerful magnet tube, drop copper through it, and it will fall slowly
copper isn't the only thing to work: any electrically conductive, non-magnet metal will work - the more conductive, the better
I see no reason molten silver wouldn't work 
What I'm picturing is a 5 foot, maybe 6" diameter, tube of neodymium magnets (not sure how they'd be arranged) with water pipe cooling on the outside, where the molten silver is poured in the top, it takes 20+ seconds to fall, cooling into droplets, then lands in water bucket to cool the rest of the way.


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## MysticColby (Feb 6, 2012)

So I gave it a try to make silver shot
large melting dish, 1/8" holes drilled in it (I chose to make 7 holes and arranged them like the DragonBalls ^_^), suspended about 1" above a bucket of water with metal bowl at bottom. Heated dish to melting temp (in furnace on top of crucible), poured metal, it went down easily. But the shot didn't turn out like spheres, or corn flakes. more like squished droplets. Each piece was about the weight I was expecting, but they were all somewhere close to 3/8" diameter and 1/16" thick. I had only melted 100 g of silver to try this the first time, so that might have something to do with it...


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## FrugalRefiner (Feb 6, 2012)

Two thoughts I'd like to add.

Goldencloud, your video shows you using a plastic 5 gallon bucket for your water.

MysticColby, you said you have your dish 1" above the bucket of water.

This could be a bad combination. Having a fragile red hot dish that close to the water with red hot silver flowing through it could result in water splashing up onto the dish which could shatter dumping its load in one large blob that might not cool enough before it melts through the bottom of the bucket.

Just thinking safety.

Dave


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## goldenchild (Feb 6, 2012)

Try 2 inches above the water if you're not comfortable with 1 inch. I had a 1 gallon glass jar at the bottom of the bucket and the water was freezing cold. I figured with the depth of the bucket and the amount of metal being melted it would be fine. I turned out ok.


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## MysticColby (Feb 6, 2012)

1" went better than I would of thought it would before I started working with molten metals.
The metal slips into the water with hardly a splash
I used a 5 gal bucket full nearly to the brim with cold water, placed 2 thin pieces of wood across, placed a piece of K23 fire brick across the pieces of wood (brick was approx 4.5 x 3 x 3/4 with a 2" hole drilled through the middle), then placed dish on top of that so the holes lined up. I did several cold runs before lighting the furnace to get practice and be sure it was stable.

Silver is (as far as I'm aware) the most heat and electrically conductive element. At first, I was shocked how quickly it cools off, especially in water. I'm sure it's possible a big blob would stay semi molten until it reached the bottom of a 5 gal bucket, fusing to the plastic (some corn flaking I've done indicated that would of happened), which is why some sort of metal pan on the bottom is recommended.

After I did some more reading, I found that the small volume and number of holes possibly contributed to the flatter shaped shot. Apparently it is better to have a pool of metal in the dish rather than a funnel. Well, this dish will now be for my larger batches and I'll have to make a smaller one for small batches.


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## MysticColby (Feb 6, 2012)

An idea occurred: can you make shot by pouring the silver onto an inclined piece of wood that ends in a bucket of water? The metal hits the wood, goes downhill, cooling on the outside, rolling into a ball.
I've spilled small amounts of silver before, and it has always formed small spheres.


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## goldsilverpro (Feb 6, 2012)

I once whittled a wooden prop with a hole drilled in it, mounted it on threaded rod, chucked that into a drill, put the prop under the water not too deep, and poured the molten silver or gold directly into the prop. Made beautiful small shot.


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## goldenchild (Feb 7, 2012)

The wood idea is how I used to make shot. I would put a piece of wood at a slight angle above a large SS bowl filled with water. When the metal was molten I would pour making nice spherical shot. Only good for very small batches though as the bowl was small. A larger setup of course could be used.


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## goldsilverpro (Feb 7, 2012)

goldenchild said:


> The wood idea is how I used to make shot. I would put a piece of wood at a slight angle above a large SS bowl filled with water. When the metal was molten I would pour making nice spherical shot. Only good for very small batches though as the bowl was small. A larger setup of course could be used.



Your method is fairly common and is mentioned in many books. The difference is that they put the piece of wood (a 2x4, e.g.) at an angle so it is underneath the water about 2" deep. When shotting, I prefer the SS container to be at least 24" tall.


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