Stainless Steel Silver Cell _smallsilvercell_

[element47.5]

Great photos as always, ka!

The crystals on the inside of the bowl look ideal. That they slide right off (which is what I would have expected) is just a bonus.

Very nice, all of it.

 

[mikeinkaty]

kadriver -

I just finished a cement run and it was the quickest drop yet. It was an 880 gram Sterling disolve. I put a 3" diameter copper pipe (about 10" long) that had a 1/8" wall thickness in the pot and man! it went to work. After 6 hrs it slowed down so I took it out and did a clean out. That cleanout recovered about as much mud as I expected, without actually weighing it. I decanted and filtered the mud and put all the fluid back into the cementing bucket and put the copper pipe back in. The copper pipe was pretty clean at that time.

About 30 minutes later I noticed it wasn't doing much and on looking at the pipe I saw a black oxide buildup. Figuring the Ph had gotten a little high (as amesametrita suggested) I put in 1 ml of nitric acid (there was a little more than 1 gallon of solution). I scraped off the oxide and put the pipe back in. After a few minutes I noticed the reaction had started up. The next day there was about 4 ozs more mud in the bottom and the copper pipe did not have any black build-up on it.

I'm holding this 4 ozs back to see if it behaves any differently that the first mud that came out.

Update next day - The last 4 ozs was only 2 because it was low density stuff and it only melted to 1.27 ounces and the bar was pretty dark colored (dark grey). All the other was high density and melted into nice shiny bars. I will melt this last one in with another bar for electrolysis.

Mike

 

[amesametrita]

I’m ready to learn and will appreciate your comment here:
http://goldrefiningforum.com/~goldrefi/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=16919

Regards!

 

[kadriver]

Mike, I'm pretty sure that the black build-up on the copper is not due to pH, but rather the platinum group metals cementing out.

I have seen it before - especially with older silver pieces. Older silver pieces tend to carry more of the platinum groups than the newer ones do.

I have a bunch of cell slimes saved up (because i did not know how to refine them yet).

After all these anode bars dissolve, then I'll add all the slimes together and refine them (the best I know how) to see what other metals are in those slimes.

This is great fun! Like a forensic seach for the truth using electrochemisrty - this forum is absolutely priceless!

kadriver

 

[mikeinkaty]

We aught to have a contest. Everyone take 100 grams of Gorham sterling table ware and 100 grams of mixed sterling jewlery and see who can extract the most value from each batch.

 

[kadriver]

I just left the shop with some new pictures.

I used a bamboo skewer to scrap the crystals from the inside of the stainless bowl.

It was so much fun that I decided to make a short video.

This silver cell is hands down the best I have ever seen.

The silver comes right off with no problem.

I will probably get a small plastic spatula to make the work go a little quicker.

It reminded me of scraping the ice off a car window - only much easier.

I consider this whole experiment a resounding success!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvjZ_EH-yDM[/youtube]

I put the anode basket back in place and turned it back on.

This cell is so much easier to operate and maintain - Thanks Palladium - my highest recommendation goes to you.

kadriver

 

[Palladium]

Very nice Kevin! Looks like they just slide right off. Did you use a new bowl or a used one. Mine had a brushed finish with some minor abrasions and not a polished one. Hummmm... Now that i think about it could that be why you are not getting as many amps through your cell as i was able to? A rough surface has more surface area than a smooth one. It reminds me of ice scraping also. It's got that rice crispy crunch. Great job brother !!!!

 

[kadriver]

The bowl was brand new bought at K-mart. The finish was smooth and polished looking.

The bottom of the bowl exterior was coated with a rubber material to give it friction to stay in place on the counter top.

I am at 170 grams per liter concentration, about half the concentration of your electrolyte.

I still have many silver anodes to run through the cell. I can't wait to get it all cleaned out and get a final tally.

kadriver

 

[Palladium]

Some pictures of the washed crystals would be nice. :mrgreen:

I have run crystals through the cell twice and you would be amazed at the 2nd go around. The crystals dried to be silver in nature but they also had this pale color to them like death i guess you would say. They were some of the prettiest bars i think i have ever had the privilege of pouring. They melted like butter!

 

[Palladium]

You know the funny part about this is it's actually a design that Harold and Chris had a discussion about a couple of years back. I can't take credit for the design, just it assembly. Their is very few things i have discovered on my own in this search for knowledge of gold refining. I owe all my knowledge to this forum and it's members. Hell i'm lucky i even made it this far. Don't reinvent the wheel, just roll with it.

 

[mikeinkaty]

The bowl was brand new bought at K-mart. The finish was smooth and polished looking.

The bottom of the bowl exterior was coated with a rubber material to give it friction to stay in place on the counter top.

I am at 170 grams per liter concentration, about half the concentration of your electrolyte.

I still have many silver anodes to run through the cell. I can't wait to get it all cleaned out and get a final tally.

kadriver

Wow, that a bunch of silver!

My crystals just sorta slide off the SS cathode. Just takes a light touch to get them off. But, most of my crystals form in the bottom of the glass tank. The crystals start running across the bottom (looking for the anode) and I get large piles under the anode. I move the anode occasionally to let it build up elsewhere.

Over the last 3 days I've harvested about 1kg weight of crystals. Probably about 500 grams yet to do on this batch of sterling;.

Mike

 

[kadriver]

You know the funny part about this is it's actually a design that Harold and Chris had a discussion about a couple of years back. I can't take credit for the design, just it assembly. Their is very few things i have discovered on my own in this search for knowledge of gold refining. I owe all my knowledge to this forum and it's members. Hell i'm lucky i even made it this far. Don't reinvent the wheel, just roll with it.

I agree, ALL my knowledge in refining has come from other members on this forum (and out of the literature).

But it was you who urged me to try the stainless bowl - remember, you said, "you'll throw rocks at the graphite cathodes".

I liked the glass cells, they worked great, but this design really does blow the glass and graphite out of the water.

But there is a plus for those glass cells that the stainless can't compare to; the size and shape of the crystals.

The glass cells made really neat sword-shaped crystals, and some nice fat crystal (see photo).

The stainless bowl makes nodular looking crystals that tend to be uniform and not very spectacular - but at a much faster rate.

This faster rate is the holy grail that I have been searching for - for a small guy like me, cashflow is king.

The faster I can make the silver crystal, the faster I get paid.

The stainless cell is at least twice as fast as the glass/graphite cells that I used to operate.

Thanks again.

kadriver

 

[Palladium]

I agree! Those crystals do look pretty from the glass cells, but production is the name of the cash game. Sad part about all this is..... I hate silver !!!!!!! I really do. I learned it because it's part of the process and i have it down pat. Only problem is i hate silver. Now gold..... Yeah, just my cup of tea there. I find it so much easier that silver to process if that makes sense? Not to mention the profit.

 

[kadriver]

I'm right there with you.

The silver takes so much longer with many more steps.

kadriver

 

[Palladium]

Two things you may or may not have noticed. With the spread out cathode area you are not having to knock down growing crystals and the crystals are like miniature ocean corals. It makes the cleaning so much better to me than bigger crystals. It"s like with the smaller crystals you don't have impurities trapped in the matrix like you seem to have with larger crystal formations. You can build a lot of silver on the surface area of that cell without worrying about a short. It makes for longer runs with bigger production yields between solution adjustments and less attention maintenance wise.

 

[mikeinkaty]

I've got a small SS bowl and a 2 oz bar. Think I'll try it. I have seen large crystals and have wondered how they did it. Could crystals be made large enough and sturdy enough to solder onto a silver button?

Mike

 

[kadriver]

Mike,

That big crystal in the photo above is very fragile. It holds together ok if it is handled gingerly.

But if it were knocked around a bit, it would eventually fall to pieces.

I just bought a bunch more sterling silver scrap, plus my wife has a line on a "room full of sterling silver" at one of her estate sales.

I told her to get me in the door before the sale starts and I'll give them %70 of spot just to get at that giant lot of sterling - it included two complete sterling flatware sets!

I have another stainless bowl, I may have to construct another silver cell to accomodate the influx of sterling feed stock.

What a way to make a living - I hope they don't mess it up some how.

kadriver

 

[mikeinkaty]

Something I may have learned tonight with my cell. I started a new bar and cranked the current up to 6 amps. After about 5 hours of that I noticed the usual long flimsy crystals growing everywhere. Since it was bed time and I knew it would go all night I cranked the current down to 2.5 amps. The next day when I collected the crystals they were bigger than any others I have made. I use a small funnel to get the crystals into bottles and these would not pass through the small end of the funnel. Never had that happen before.

I think that by cutting the current down that nodules then started growing all in the long flimsy crystals. The important things are that I got larger crystals and the total time was less than normal (running all at 3 amps).

Mike

 

[GOLDbuyerCA]

First, Good Photos, i use stainless steel myself, near same size bowls, , i run several, Your copper clips, might be higher resistance, over time, than you think.

i use a stainless steel to copper double screw connector. to get my connector resistance contacts as low as possible. i use carbon rods, with nickle hose clamp connectors.

i have advanced to pulse platting, , n i just get at it, it is all in solution, you can get it all out if you keep your chemistry active. Good Photos, i like your cell design, Cheers from Thomas / Vancouver BC.

 

[mikeinkaty]

First, Good Photos, i use stainless steel myself, near same size bowls, , i run several, Your copper clips, might be higher resistance, over time, than you think.

i use a stainless steel to copper double screw connector. to get my connector resistance contacts as low as possible. i use carbon rods, with nickle hose clamp connectors.

i have advanced to pulse platting, , n i just get at it, it is all in solution, you can get it all out if you keep your chemistry active. Good Photos, i like your cell design, Cheers from Thomas / Vancouver BC.

What is pulse plating?

In one of my cells I got a lot of plating of silver on the SS cathode. Sometimes it would be a sheet of 2 or 3 square inches that would slide right off the cathode. It was pure silver with no staining or discoloration what so ever. It only did that for 5 or 6 runs in the one cell. I have wondered if one or the other of my two rectifiers had popped a diode on one side - causing half-wave rectification. But at the same current the voltage is escentially the same in both cells so probably not.

Mike