Spot on! Never fired, brand new, SiC crucible, no flux at all... just the stock glaze the crucible comes with:4metals said:Blue? I see a tan cream colored crust. To me, it looks like a slag of melted silver chloride. Silver chloride melts long before the silver but doesn't boil off the molten silver and when you pour your bar it ends up on top just as a slag would. I assume you used a clean crucible and no flux at all.
I think you didn't rinse the remaining silver nitrate out of the formate solution and converted it to chloride when rinsing with tap water. Whatever was retained in the silver metal crystals ended up looking like the tan slag.
But if that really is blue, I have no idea what it is.
Yggdrasil said:Hi!
Are you sure it is actual coloration or just reflections from crystalline boundries like multi crystalline silicone or as you say, Zinc has. To my eyes, on this picture, that is what strikes me.
cuchugold said:Nice pics. Did you follow the exact procedure initially posted by 4metals for the formate reduction or added/changed something?. With a graphite ingot mold, your bar appearance would be much better.
cuchugold said:I'm not really sure about the colors. Perhaps some Pd oxide or even Pt contamination?. 4metals or Lou will probably know better. It usually pays to scavenge with DMG in those Pd++ and Pt++ nitrate solutions, before reduction of silver. Very cool pics. Thanks for posting.
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