Anyone use a melting furance?
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You'll need to give a little more information to get good advice. Are you talking about the little electric type, propane or gas fired, etc? How large a furnace are you looking for, like how much do you intend to melt at a time? Do you want to melt gold, silver, other?
Dave
Dave
I saw a vevor electric with 1kg and 3kg crucible. I have 12-14k little pieces. Want to pour a bar. Will it still be 12 to 14k. Ir is it easy to separate the gold. The refining places seem like a waste of time. Their website say the do personal orders. But when you talk them they aren't invested in the business, they just want large quantities from company's and businesses. I figure I have lots of time to learn. I don't mind making mistakes and losing money. That's how you learn. Thought a couple hundred buck fir an electric setup was a good starting point and once I get a feel for it and learn more can invest more into a better system.
One thing to be careful with the small resistance heat furnaces is capacity. They rate the crucibles for 1 kg of pure gold, which is half a kilo of silver and a little more than half a kilo of mixed karat. So capacity, and the fact that they don't last very long and the crucibles are pricey would steer me towards a propane furnace. A furnace that holds a #2 bilge crucible will be good for smaller melts and serve you well as you scale up to refining. They are also quite reasonably priced and if you want to get into refining and what you refine is jewelry related, remember if you use inquartation, which we highly recommend, you need crucible capacity to inquart.
Never heard of inquartation. Thanks for the advice will research those units. Not is a rush. Want something for the new year. I would do small batches. Dont want the bars bigger then 10 ounces. Kinda have the option to do 1 or 10 ounce pieces roughly. 100 ounce or 1 kilo bars I don't want that much in one bar. I don't mind if it stays 12k-14k but would like to learn how to separate. I just don't get how it all pours out and doesn't stick to the inside of the pot. Like, if you pour a glass of cream, the glass will be empty be still lined with cream. Sorry if that is a bad example. Just a young guy learning.
After you have melted the scrap it has no markings anymore and can not be sold as is.
Many forum members started with very little to no experience. A few have went on to become large scale and some stayed small scale. And a few decided it wasn't for them and moved on. So if you need to learn here is the place to do it. Welcome to GRF.
Th
Thank. I think it is a good skill set to have. Even making copper bars would be nice. I can see copper going way up in time. And silver I always knew would take a big jump. Alot easier for silver and copper to double, but $6000 an ounce for gold I can't see. But no expert. When your melting it does it need a certain temp is too hot no good?
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melting and pouring copper bars are where i got started. it was pretty fun and was something my son and i enjoyed - melting pounds of scrap copper into bars. you'll find that when you take those bars to the recycling center, they will not pay you full price, as they "do not know what's in it." and they're right. there could be all kinds of impurities in it. granted, they have an xrf, but they would rather play dumb, and pretend they don't. they run a for-profit business.
i would suggest the same goes for the idea of your 12k and 14k bars. on one hand, anyone willing to buy them will need proof that they are what you say they are. and anyone with the $$$ to buy an xrf will pretend there isn't as much value, as theren really is. but then again, you may have been swindled and what you thought was 12k or 14k, really wasn't. either way, the message is the same. your value really has nowhere to go but DOWN. especially if it was marked.
this is why a lot of folks are making crystallized silver in electrolytic cells. it's being more and more referred to as 'prepper-cash'. is has to be near-pure silver, or it will not crystalize in such obvious pure silver form. as soon as it's melted into a bar, you've lost the obvious purity, because you just have a nice, silver-colored shiny bar. it could have a center of copper, or could be something else entirely. who knows? but if it's crystal silver, it's pretty obvious.
bars look nice, but i'd recommend that everyone does a bit of thinking before you choose to de-value your stash. at least, until you can prove what you have, by having an xrf or refining your stock into something easily identifable like prepper-cash. and no, one of those hand-stamped bars won't do it for someone with cash looking to buy. would you believe it, if someone tried to sell you a random bar with those markings? if so, i've got a bunch of 18k to sell you.
good luck, and happy refining.
i would suggest the same goes for the idea of your 12k and 14k bars. on one hand, anyone willing to buy them will need proof that they are what you say they are. and anyone with the $$$ to buy an xrf will pretend there isn't as much value, as theren really is. but then again, you may have been swindled and what you thought was 12k or 14k, really wasn't. either way, the message is the same. your value really has nowhere to go but DOWN. especially if it was marked.
this is why a lot of folks are making crystallized silver in electrolytic cells. it's being more and more referred to as 'prepper-cash'. is has to be near-pure silver, or it will not crystalize in such obvious pure silver form. as soon as it's melted into a bar, you've lost the obvious purity, because you just have a nice, silver-colored shiny bar. it could have a center of copper, or could be something else entirely. who knows? but if it's crystal silver, it's pretty obvious.
bars look nice, but i'd recommend that everyone does a bit of thinking before you choose to de-value your stash. at least, until you can prove what you have, by having an xrf or refining your stock into something easily identifable like prepper-cash. and no, one of those hand-stamped bars won't do it for someone with cash looking to buy. would you believe it, if someone tried to sell you a random bar with those markings? if so, i've got a bunch of 18k to sell you.
good luck, and happy refining.
As Yggdrasil said, once melted into a bar, the markings are lost and the value is decreased. You can increase the value by purifying it and then sell it to a refiner who will pay you a percentage of the value minus their cost to confirm purity and purify to their standards. You will be able to recover the silver (often an alloy of 12k and 14k).
If you are determined to "make a bar" before you start refining, I would separate the like karat scrap and melt the lots individually, stamping the resultant bar for your own reference. You will not purify or the refine gold at this stage. You are simply melting jewelry into indeterminate pieces of metal.
If you want to start refining, you can add silver to save the gold as 6K inquarted gold. The calculations are not complicated but a mistake can cost time and reagents later.
You do not need a furnace to melt karat scrap. An appropriate propane torch will work if the melt dish is insulated. A MAPP or propane/MAPP with oxygen is quicker. If you have an oxy/acetylene torch, don't bother with propane.
Just my .02
SRM
If you are determined to "make a bar" before you start refining, I would separate the like karat scrap and melt the lots individually, stamping the resultant bar for your own reference. You will not purify or the refine gold at this stage. You are simply melting jewelry into indeterminate pieces of metal.
If you want to start refining, you can add silver to save the gold as 6K inquarted gold. The calculations are not complicated but a mistake can cost time and reagents later.
You do not need a furnace to melt karat scrap. An appropriate propane torch will work if the melt dish is insulated. A MAPP or propane/MAPP with oxygen is quicker. If you have an oxy/acetylene torch, don't bother with propane.
Just my .02
SRM
My hobby of Hydrometallurgy started when I was 10 years old In Northern Rhodesia. My first melting furnace is now called " Flowerpot Furnace" It uses Charcoal and a bellows ( Hair dryer fan) The Local Indigenous people have used this furnace to melt Iron, since the Iron Age. It is easy and Cheap, Cheap!
