# My First Silver Loaves



## metatp (Jul 9, 2009)

Here is my first 9 ingots. I got better at melting after a bunch of bad practice loaves. Each one is a tad greater than 1 Toz. There is still a small amount of borax on the side of some, but I wanted to show the picture.

Thanks Harold, nitronick, oz, peter i, and GSP. Thank you lazersteve for the great videos.


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## Noxx (Jul 10, 2009)

Nice !


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## patnor1011 (Jul 10, 2009)

what is the source of those sweeties?...


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## Platdigger (Jul 10, 2009)

Great job HTPatch!

You da Man....... 8) 

I had been following your postings on this, trying to remember what type of torch you ended up using......
again, Great Job!
Randy


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## Oz (Jul 10, 2009)

I am impressed with this being your first try! You did a good job of not getting the sputtered surface often seen from oxygen off gassing from the silver as it cools.

By all means please describe your procedure for casting these in detail.

Well done!


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## peter i (Jul 10, 2009)

Great!

The look really nice!

The funny thing about noble metal bars is, that you get in contact with your inner Scrooge McDuck. There is a weird joy to just handling them, building small structures and stacking them... even juggling them (the do however get usightly scratches from dropping them, and mark the floor :mrgreen: )


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## goldsilverpro (Jul 10, 2009)

If the borax isn't stuck down in a hole or a crease, it can easily be removed (shattered) by gently tapping it with about a 6" piece of 3/8" steel rod or the back of a stainless teaspoon and then rubbing the area gently with your finger. Hold it under running water while doing this or your dry finger will scratch it, especially with gold.


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## metatp (Jul 10, 2009)

Thanks all for your kind words.

If you don't know, these loaves were made from 80% silver epoxy from about 20 years ago. The epoxy was washed in Toluene, but that did not remove all of the resin. There was also a small amount of tin epoxy (less than 1%) accidental mixed in.

I first tested different approaches to refining. This include combinations of incineration or not, soak in HCL or not, etc. Bottom line is that incineration was necessary and I did soak in HCL to remove the small amount of tin. 

Before I started, I was concerned about a fast violent reaction of the powder with the nitric acid. With help from this forum, my cocerns were well founded. Instead of digging into how to control the reaction, I just thought adding the powder slow enough would work fine. Boy, was I wrong. The reaction was much to fast. I then took GSPs advice to control the process, and it went much better. 

Since this was high temperature epoxy, there was still residue from the epoxy that fell to the bottom of solution when dissolved in nitric acid. I tried many different amounts of nitric acid before I settled on a 1.2ml nitric or so to 1g silver compound. My batches were about 150g of silver on average. When the silver was all dissolved, I added a chuck (10-20g) of silver that was already melted until the reaction basically stopped. I removed the leftover silver that did not dissolve and filtered the silver nitrate. When I cemented the silver, I combined the silver nitrate into a large container. When I added the copper to drop the silver, it was slower, but I just let it sit longer. I used copper piping, because I did not any copper buss to use.

I then slowly filter the silver ans washed it over and over until the solution through the filter was crystal clear. I them rinsed a few more times for good measure.

For melting, I took about 32-33 grams of silver cement and placed it in a hot borax prepared melting dish I bought from Steve. I use Mapp in a benzomatic TS8000 torch to melt. I tried propane, but it didn't work well. I also think the TS8000 nozzle is a bit wide for melting the silver powder easily. As I melted, I basically followed Steve's video for making a gold ingot using a graphite mold. The first couple Itried were really bad. I had trouble pouring the ingot. After about four tries, I got better.

Oz, I did see the oxygen bubbling off on the first ones, so I guess the sample you see are not my first try. I still see some even now. What is the secret to reducing this (other than remelting and trying again)? I noticed the Steve waved his torch over the ingot while in the mold for a second of two. I tried that, and the quality seemed a little beter. I also dropped the ingot in a five gallon buck of water only seconds after pouring. I will have to look at this a little closer.

Peter i, I know what you mean. When I read your comments to my wife, she laughed. She laughed, because I was enjoying handling them (much better than a jar of gray powder), I did stack them into different structures, and yes, I even juggled them. Though I did not drop them on the floor yet. She thinks we are all weird now. I estimate that I will have about 75 of these when I am done, enless I get a bigger mold (which I probably will).


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## lazersteve (Jul 10, 2009)

Patch,

My wife also plays with the large gold, silver, and platinum buttons and ingots when I finish them. She's worse than me though, she actually places them on her neck line and imagines she has a necklace or charm made of solid precious metal. :roll: Needless to say I quickly snatch the nugget and start rolling it around in my hand myself before she confiscates it.

Tell your wife that I said to wait and see some of your future gold and platinum ingots and see if she is still calling *us* the weird ones then!  It's never ceases to amaze me how my wife reacts to platinum metal to this day.

Great ingots buy the way, you have done an excellent job on them. For the record, pure Silver is my least favorite metal to melt due to it's finicky nature around oxygen.

Steve


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## grainsofgold (Aug 26, 2009)

My wife also plays with the large gold, silver, and platinum buttons and ingots when I finish them. She's worse than me though, she actually places them on her neck line and imagines she has a necklace or charm made of solid precious metal. Needless to say I quickly snatch the nugget and start rolling it around in my hand myself before she confiscates it.
When it comes Holiday time get ahold of me and I can make her something with a lot of shiny stones in it called diamonds. 

Once she has this she will have no need to play with buttons or ingots- :lol:


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## metatp (Aug 27, 2009)

My wife is not as expense. Opal are good enough for her.


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## ALPHABiT (Aug 31, 2009)

My friends...
Mine likes just the "yellow"...
Not so interested in Silver, but much more loves to see and take gold on her hands.
I think it's genetic ^^


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## jimdoc (Sep 1, 2009)

Try telling her its platinum instead of silver, see what she says then.


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## Juan Manuel Arcos Frank (Sep 1, 2009)

Women do love gold...particularly when they do not have to pay for it.
Manuel


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## butcher (Sep 5, 2009)

Juan, they love taking it away from you. :lol:


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