Can anyone identify what is in my crucible Occured after melting cement silver
- Thread starter Devildog
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Have you melted gold in that crucible?
No Sir. Just refined cement silver from sterling flatware, jewelry etc.
kurtak
Well-known member
You did not get all the acid washed out of your silver cement resulting in metal oxides going off into the glaze you see
If you don't get all the acid washed out of the cement what happens is as a result of the dissolve metal ions (metal salts) in the acid that is not fully washed out - then the heat (during melting) causes metal salts to calcine (reduce) to metals oxides that then go off in the glaze/flux
In this case the brick red/orange indicates copper
The blue (on left side rim near pour spout) is copper nitrate (salt) that did not calcine to copper oxide
Kut
If you don't get all the acid washed out of the cement what happens is as a result of the dissolve metal ions (metal salts) in the acid that is not fully washed out - then the heat (during melting) causes metal salts to calcine (reduce) to metals oxides that then go off in the glaze/flux
In this case the brick red/orange indicates copper
The blue (on left side rim near pour spout) is copper nitrate (salt) that did not calcine to copper oxide
Kut
Next time you rinse your cemented silver, take a sample of the rinse water and add a drop of ammonia. If you see the rinse water start to turn blue, that indicates that there is still copper present and more rinsing is required.
I always thought a blue solution when ammonia was added indicated Silver Chloride - then again I'm no expert on Silver treatment so feel free to slap me if I am wrong.
No, light blue to dark blue indicates copper or possibly cobalt.
Dave
Dave
Cheers- what colour is Silver Chloride?
Pretty much colorless.
Dave
Dave
Thank you so much for the education. I wonder would it help to do an hcl bath as I would do with gold? Or does that cause issues with silver?
Thank you my friend. I appreciate the education. I will apply this next time.
kurtak
Well-known member
NO !!!
Just wash it WELL with water
It may (or not) cause "some" of the ultra fine silver particles to convert to silver chloride
Silver & chlorides (of any kind) do not go well together --- unless you deliberately intend to go with the silver chloride process
Kurt
Hey Kurt!
Thank you for the education. I will gather the powder and do some more washes.
Thank you again.
Thank you so much my friend!!!
Naughtius Maximus
Member
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- Apr 26, 2023
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You made glaze!
A very good picture for the thematic group -nickname too .
Do you know the achievements of ancient Rome inin gold refining and mining ?
jurek
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2021
- Messages
- 1,257
Just enough to know they didn't refine to 99.9.
Thought silver chloride is a white precipitate and colorless would be silver nitrate in solution?
I read not long ago, think in this very forum maybe, that they added salt to turn the silver to chloride and get pure gold, ofcourse it probably wasn't 99.9 but still.
For the millennia Gold has been collected and refined there must have been many techniques that has been used.
Most of them discarded through times and the ones we use now is the newest and the ones that have proved usable.
The ability to purify the Gold has increased through times as well.
In the old times it took relatively much more effort to get the Gold pure.
