# Fruit of my labor



## mikeinkaty (Feb 6, 2013)

I would like to thank eveyone on this board that has helped me through this undertaking. Noteably Goldsilverpro, Lazersteve, Butcher, Geo, and many others whose names I do not remember. This was something new for me and was very enlightening, if not profitable, and was very fun to do. My hat is off to those out there that are the Pro's. 

But, here are 73 two ounce bars of what I think is at least 999 silver. Using the silver test solution the tests behaved exactly like it did on an Englehard bar. I'm still have a ways to go yet but will have to acquire some more sterling first. As you probably know this was started with Sterling sliver that was disolved with nitric acid, then the silver was dropped with copper, then electrolysis was used to create the pure crystals which were melted and poured into these bars.

Again, thank you all.

Mikeinkaty


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## gold4mike (Feb 6, 2013)

That is a very nice looking pile of silver.

Thank you for sharing!!


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## resabed01 (Feb 6, 2013)

Job well done, those bars are beauty!

I'm curious, after refining all that sterling, did you discover other PMs?

I've got a couple of pounds of sterling myself I want to refine but I need to find a source of Nitric first.


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## etack (Feb 6, 2013)

resabed01 said:


> Job well done, those bars are beauty!
> 
> I'm curious, after refining all that sterling, did you discover other PMs?
> 
> I've got a couple of pounds of sterling myself I want to refine but I need to find a source of Nitric first.



Where are you located?

Eric


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## etack (Feb 6, 2013)

Those are nice looking. Great job.

I often wonder if it is worth the money and time to refine it that far. lots of refiners pay the same for .925 as .999Its all about the ASW in the end.


Eric


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## Smack (Feb 6, 2013)

Nicely done Mike.


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## mikeinkaty (Feb 6, 2013)

resabed01 said:


> Job well done, those bars are beauty!
> 
> I'm curious, after refining all that sterling, did you discover other PMs?
> 
> I've got a couple of pounds of sterling myself I want to refine but I need to find a source of Nitric first.



Yes, I did. I have no idea what but a couple of tests yielded two BB sized pieces of sliver colored metal that had a melting point higher than silver and they were harder than silver. I had more black mud earlier but didn't know what to do with it. The black mud rinsed through the muslin filters I used on my Buchner funnel but was trapped by coffee filters. When filtering the cemented mud I would sometime filter twice - once with muslin and again with coffee filters. . Fortuately I was able to separate it from the silver. That black stuff is now somewhere in my 5 waste buckets. I used coffee filters around my bars when doing electrolysis and got a lot of black mud caught there. I realize now that I should have kept all that stuff! Also, I always filtered my electrolyte solution through coffee filters before using it. That and using the cofffee filters around the bars in the cell kept the solution clean. Toward the end I started using 2 coffee filter around the bars in the cell.

Mike


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## resabed01 (Feb 6, 2013)

etack said:


> Where are you located?
> 
> Eric



I'm in Alberta Canada. The huge chemical plants in my back yard manufacture nitric by the rail tanker but try and find some for a small time refiner...forget it.


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## etack (Feb 6, 2013)

Sorry to here it if you were closer I would help you out. look for a nursery or farmer of some sort or any place that water needs to be adjusted PH up or down they use acids for this mostly nitric or sulfuric depending on what they are growing. A farmer growing fish in tanks will know were to get it. My freind I get it from grows spinach and micro greens in large hydroponic green houses. depending on his water needs he uses different types of acids. his water is low in sulfur and alkaline so he uses sulfuric acid to bring up the PH and add sulfur to his water for his micro greens.

Eric



resabed01 said:


> I'm in Alberta Canada. The huge chemical plants in my back yard manufacture nitric by the rail tanker but try and find some for a small time refiner...forget it.


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## butcher (Feb 6, 2013)

mikeinkaty, 
Thank you, for posting picture's of your beautiful bars of silver and showing us the fruits of your hard work.


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## tek4g63 (Feb 6, 2013)

Nice work!

Had to wipe the drool away before typing this message.


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## samuel-a (Feb 8, 2013)

Very impressive mikeinkaty 

Nicely done.


Your anode slimes will most likely contains some silver and traces of the other PM's such as Gold, Rhodium and Palladium. Well worth keeping seperatly and process when it accumulates.


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## Woodworker1997 (Feb 8, 2013)

Very nice bars!

Moderators, May I request a drooling emoticon! :lol: 

Derek.


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## mls26cwru (Feb 8, 2013)

that there is impressive... good job!


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## mikeinkaty (Feb 8, 2013)

I learned a lot on this project. My biggest problem is sorely obvious in the data below! Gotta select better input, for one. Was the experience worth the $ loss? He-- Yeah! Oh yeah, I squeezed 3 more bars out from the last drab of sterling today. Total 76 bars.

Mike


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## mikeinkaty (Feb 13, 2013)

Man I'm finding silver everywhere! Two of my waste 5 gallon buckets dropped about 1/8" of AgCL in the bottom. Squeezed 2 more ounces out of the 1 gallon jugs in the shop. I may end up with about 80 bars of 2 ozt .999 stuff. All this stuff I'm finding that I didn't catch the first go round will probably increase my recovery from the Sterling by about 6+ ounces over the initial amount dropped.

Lesson - Don't ever dispose of the waste solutions until they are thoroughly checked for content!

Mike


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