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BlackCrownMint

BlackCrownMint

New member
Joined
Jan 24, 2022
Messages
3
Location
Northern California
Hey there,
Me and brother have began smelting down gold and silver plated items to get that refined metals. Its been a bunch of trial and error but we have been making some good strides and upping our percentage yields. We consistently produce 75% plus pure gold and silver. We are looking for help from all you "fine" people (pun intended 😉) to get our final product to that beautiful 999. plus range. Right now this is a hobby but we would like to take it to the next level at some point. We look forward to any help we can get from more skilled metal heads.

Thanks a ton
Bryce & Chris
BC Mint
 
Welcome to the forum.

What are you smelting and with what kind of flux. Do you sparge or not.

As far as my limited knowledge say. You will not get 999 by smelting.
For that you need proper refining.

Edit to add.
Just noted you said silver and gold plated.
There is almost no silver and gold in plated items.
You need to deplate the somehow.
 
Last edited:
We need MUCH MORE information in order to help you

Right now we know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about your current method/ process

You NEED to post DETAILS about your current method/process in order to point you in the right direction to getting better results

Kurt
 
kurtak said:
We need MUCH MORE information in order to help you

Right now we know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about your current method/ process

You NEED to post DETAILS about your current method/process in order to point you in the right direction to getting better results

Kurt
Click to expand...
Kurt SMH those caps lol, just ask for more info, so dramatic lol...

*Typically we cornflake our scrap silver, or silverware and flat ware first.

*1st burn with flux
Its a 2:1 Flux to silver shot ratio
Flux is:
35% Borax
35% The standard Baking Soda
30% Silica Sand from Harbor Freight

Depending on the size of the cone button, we will either repeat the process and add some lead to help burn any copper away if we see free green flame

For example, we started with 150g of silver shot, added 300g of flux. Once we coned it and broke the slag away we were legy with a 78g button. Given that i currently use scrap silver, I anticipate only yielding around 10% of the total weight. So we assume we have a silver and lead button and that need need to cupell it down to around 20gs to reach a high-ish purity

That's been our standard process so far. Recently we been using zinc to pool the silver and scrapping it off the top and then fluxing it using the same process listed above. We use a 10:1 ratio for the zinc method. Then we re-fire and flux to clean it up.
 
More mixing, more oxygen. Look up top blown rotary converter. Mintek has a cute one.

I haven't had a chance to finish my second iteration. But basically, it's a crucible inside a refractory shell that is rotated while an oxygen propane burner heats the melt pool itself. The oxygen is jetted so that it impinges directly on the surface of the melt. The oxides are then dissolved by the flux.
 
BlackCrownMint said:
Kurt SMH those caps lol, just ask for more info, so dramatic lol...

*Typically we cornflake our scrap silver, or silverware and flat ware first.

*1st burn with flux
Its a 2:1 Flux to silver shot ratio
Flux is:
35% Borax
35% The standard Baking Soda
30% Silica Sand from Harbor Freight

Depending on the size of the cone button, we will either repeat the process and add some lead to help burn any copper away if we see free green flame

For example, we started with 150g of silver shot, added 300g of flux. Once we coned it and broke the slag away we were legy with a 78g button. Given that i currently use scrap silver, I anticipate only yielding around 10% of the total weight. So we assume we have a silver and lead button and that need need to cupell it down to around 20gs to reach a high-ish purity

That's been our standard process so far. Recently we been using zinc to pool the silver and scrapping it off the top and then fluxing it using the same process listed above. We use a 10:1 ratio for the zinc method. Then we re-fire and flux to clean it up.
Click to expand...
You have still not told us anything regarding the scrap you are smelting.
Initially you say gold and silver plated scrap, if this is true, you are using the wrong process.
At best there will be 1% or less PM on those.
Better leach with something that either takes the plating or loosens the plating and then refine.

Example of guesstimating:
You smelt 1kg/2.2 lbs of said scrap. You now have an alloyed ingot of 990grams of Base metal and 2-10 grams of PM.
Then due to the effect of the fluxes you have redused the BMs to 750g.
If and only if, your process is perfect you have no loss to slag and such, you now have increased the PM content to at best appr 1.5%.
Then do it again including oxygen sparging and perfect process. Maybe you will end up with 250g ingot with 2-10g of PM.
And so on.
In the end you will need to either sell or refine.

So please some more detail on feed stock--- pictures maybe.
Details on how you prepare and process.
Fluxes, oxygen access and stirring during smelting, what kind of furnace and so on.
When this is revealed maybe the pros will chime in.

Don't get your hopes too high, even for me, this seems to be way off creating a profit.
 
I agree. I won't touch plated goods and neither will any PM refinery that I have talked to.

Sreetip has refined a number of silver plated lots and usually recovers about 0.5% silver at best. This means that, if he were to start out with 1000 grams of plated silver, he would have 5 grams of silver at the end - and that would not be 999 fine. Even if it were, at today's spot price, that comes out to less than $4.

He has also run batches of gold plated jewelry and, if I recall correctly, spent more on chemicals than the value of the gold recovered.

His procedures/techniques are not necessarily the best, and he is somewhat wasteful of chemicals, but it still gives a good idea of how little PM content is available.

In general, plated material is best sent to a copper refinery - where the PM content is recovered as an incidental byproduct. I seem to recall that Hoke came to the same conclusion almost a century ago.
 
According to what it is. Gold wise i run plated materials all the time at my refinery.
Matter of fact i'm running some now. While some people say it's not worth the time, i make insane profits off of it. One mans garbage is another mans treasure.
 
I am just finishing up on 20+pounds that cost me 10 minutes helping out a friend. I also got over a pound of sterling tossed in because, as he put, “it’s just not worth the trouble”. I admit I work more as a hobby, but I hate to loose money.
 

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