Please join our new sister site dedicated to discussion of gold, silver, platinum, copper and palladium bar, coin, jewelry collecting/investing/storing/selling/buying. It would be greatly appreciated if you joined and help add a few new topics for new people to engage in.

Bullion.Forum

Reply to thread

Help Support Gold Refining Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Message

I've found that adding salt to the water speeds things up considerably. You can tap off the silver after some minutes in stead of waiting some hours for the fork or spoon to finish.
Flattening the spoons helps but i 'see' the current go around to the far end and deplate that side too. It first turns black, creeping and darkening arcoss the surface and then turning white in the same way. Fascinating to watch.
I also don't have to turn the piece around anymore with the salt added.

Some yield numbers i got from this: 3060 grams of knives spoons and forks gave me 114 grams of silver. So 3.72% yield. And a lot if work for that bit of silver. But I'm going to make a necklace and some rings from it.

I recovered the silver from the black sludge by covering in HCl to convert to AgCl. which also cleaned it up, dissolving other base metal oxides.
Then I let it sit in the same cold HCl for a week with an occasional stirr every day. It became almost white with a purple tinge to it.

I used to convert to AgNO3 and cement on copper so I tried to avoid AgCl, but I was pointed to the sulphuric / iron method for silver chloride by some members and that turned out really great. A lot better and less messy than the lye sugar way, for me.. I like pH- better than pH+ anyway for some reason.
Rinsed and dried silver from plated cutlery, ready to melt for the silver cell:
[ATTACH=full]54320[/ATTACH]
The stripped cutlery:
[ATTACH=full]54321[/ATTACH]

Martijn.

<blockquote data-quote="Martijn" data-source="post: 341800" data-attributes="member: 42675">I&#039;ve found that adding salt to the water speeds things up considerably. You can tap off the silver after some minutes in stead of waiting some hours for the fork or spoon to finish. Flattening the spoons helps but i &#039;see&#039; the current go around to the far end and deplate that side too. It first turns black, creeping and darkening arcoss the surface and then turning white in the same way. Fascinating to watch. I also don&#039;t have to turn the piece around anymore with the salt added. Some yield numbers i got from this: 3060 grams of knives spoons and forks gave me 114 grams of silver. So 3.72% yield. And a lot if work for that bit of silver. But I&#039;m going to make a necklace and some rings from it. I recovered the silver from the black sludge by covering in HCl to convert to AgCl. which also cleaned it up, dissolving other base metal oxides. Then I let it sit in the same cold HCl for a week with an occasional stirr every day. It became almost white with a purple tinge to it.I used to convert to AgNO3 and cement on copper so I tried to avoid AgCl, but I was pointed to the sulphuric / iron method for silver chloride by some members and that turned out really great. A lot better and less messy than the lye sugar way, for me.. I like pH- better than pH+ anyway for some reason. Rinsed and dried silver from plated cutlery, ready to melt for the silver cell: [ATTACH=full]54320[/ATTACH]The stripped cutlery: [ATTACH=full]54321[/ATTACH]Martijn.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Martijn, post: 341800, member: 42675"] I've found that adding salt to the water speeds things up considerably. You can tap off the silver after some minutes in stead of waiting some hours for the fork or spoon to finish. Flattening the spoons helps but i 'see' the current go around to the far end and deplate that side too. It first turns black, creeping and darkening arcoss the surface and then turning white in the same way. Fascinating to watch. I also don't have to turn the piece around anymore with the salt added. Some yield numbers i got from this: 3060 grams of knives spoons and forks gave me 114 grams of silver. So 3.72% yield. And a lot if work for that bit of silver. But I'm going to make a necklace and some rings from it. I recovered the silver from the black sludge by covering in HCl to convert to AgCl. which also cleaned it up, dissolving other base metal oxides. Then I let it sit in the same cold HCl for a week with an occasional stirr every day. It became almost white with a purple tinge to it. I used to convert to AgNO3 and cement on copper so I tried to avoid AgCl, but I was pointed to the sulphuric / iron method for silver chloride by some members and that turned out really great. A lot better and less messy than the lye sugar way, for me.. I like pH- better than pH+ anyway for some reason. Rinsed and dried silver from plated cutlery, ready to melt for the silver cell: [ATTACH=full]54320[/ATTACH] The stripped cutlery: [ATTACH=full]54321[/ATTACH] Martijn. [/QUOTE]

Verification