Thanks for letting me in the forum! I am melting here!

[BullionKing999]

Hi everyone, I have a small melting shop here in Upstate NY, and I came across this forum after searching how to melt precious metals. A customer of mine sent me a bunch of dental and wants to melt his dental material; and with the PGMs this thing is not dissolving fully. I am sure there is some sort of flux that's needed here, and I was told to melt with copper, but I am afraid if I melt with copper his purity will go down and weight will go up and I have the explaining to do there. Any advice on the flux would help, I have until next week to work with this and get him bullions.

 

[Yggdrasil]

Hi everyone, I have a small melting shop here in Upstate NY, and I came across this forum after searching how to melt precious metals. A customer of mine sent me a bunch of dental and wants to melt his dental material; and with the PGMs this thing is not dissolving fully. I am sure there is some sort of flux that's needed here, and I was told to melt with copper, but I am afraid if I melt with copper his purity will go down and weight will go up and I have the explaining to do there. Any advice on the flux would help, I have until next week to work with this and get him bullions.

Welcome.
Some discrepancies here, when things dissolve they are usually dissolved in acids or similar.

As for your description you are just melting it
But Palladium that is the most used PGM in dentals have significant higher melting point than Gold, Silver or even Copper.
What do you use to melt it?
Torch, furnace or other?

 

[BullionKing999]

excuse my terminology, newbie here, i am melting on an old rdo induction melter using a graphite crucible.

 

[Yggdrasil]

excuse my terminology, newbie here, i am melting on an old rdo induction melter using a graphite crucible.

Are you getting enough amps and frequency into it?
Are it well insulated?
In what form is the Pd, powder or chunks?
How full is the crucible?

Just somethings that is nice to know in these cases.

 

[BullionKing999]

it's almost 100 grams, not powder, it's dental teeth etc, crucible not full, i don't think 8kW is enough; you may be right I might end up sending to a refiner with bigger melting furnace.

 

[GoIdman]

it's almost 100 grams, not powder, it's dental teeth etc, crucible not full, i don't think 8kW is enough; you may be right I might end up sending to a refiner with bigger melting furnace.

Hi,

#Yggdrasil is corect. It all depends on the crucible and the efficiency of your melter. Usually dental alloys are melted with (ex: Castomat, Rotocast etc. are between 2,5 and 5kW) type induction casting furnaces which can melt and cast up to 100gr of alloy.
It all depends on your technical data of the furnace, 8kW might be too much, sufficient or to little to melt palladium, you also need to know the operating frequency since different material need different combination of power-frequency.

 

[andu]

Metals can partially dissolve in other metals at lower temperatures than their melting point, like a copper in aluminium or in this case i guess palladium in copper, you can also add trace amounts of other metals to vastly decrease melting point.

Edit: Scientists Have Broken a Staggering Record on The Melting Point of Platinum Gallium or lithium for example are used in ratios of 0.1% or less.

 

[GoIdman]

Metals can partially dissolve in other metals at lower temperatures than their melting point, like a copper in aluminium or in this case i guess palladium in copper, you can also add trace amounts of other metals to vastly decrease melting point.

Edit: Scientists Have Broken a Staggering Record on The Melting Point of Platinum Gallium or lithium for example are used in ratios of 0.1% or less.

I agree, but the purpose of the refining is to have as pure metal as it can get, therefore alloying with other metals to bring down the melting point makes the whole refining process useless.

 

[Yggdrasil]

I agree, but the purpose of the refining is to have as pure metal as it can get, therefore alloying with other metals to bring down the melting point makes the whole refining process useless.

The purpose here was to melt the scrap into a bar or something similar, not refining per se.
Still he did not like the idea of adding Copper to it, so then anything else is off to.

 

[Yggdrasil]

it's almost 100 grams, not powder, it's dental teeth etc, crucible not full, i don't think 8kW is enough; you may be right I might end up sending to a refiner with bigger melting furnace.

I’d talk to your customer and find an agreement on how to proceed.
If he agrees to add a bit of Copper or Silver to get the job done, perfect.
If not, you need to agree on a plan B.

 

[GoIdman]

The purpose here was to melt the scrap into a bar or something similar, not refining per se.
Still he did not like the idea of adding Copper to it, so then anything else is off to.

Indeed, my mistake, i thought the material has been sent in to be processed fully.

The interesting thing though if its dental alloy, it is already mixed metal content according to one of my dental tehnician friend. According to him the high palladium composition can have % : Ag 21,2 Au 15,4 Pd 51,9 Sn 4,5 In 5,9 Ru < 1 Ga in some cases can have other metals too not mentioned here.
Some search on google dropped somewhat same percentages but other compositions too.

If this is the case, I wonder, why doesnt it melt at lower temperatures using 8kW input, when a dental casting machine using 3kW (which i have recently repaired) does melt the mixture.

Metals can partially dissolve in other metals at lower temperatures than their melting point, like a copper in aluminium or in this case i guess palladium in copper, you can also add trace amounts of other metals to vastly decrease melting point.

Edit: Scientists Have Broken a Staggering Record on The Melting Point of Platinum Gallium or lithium for example are used in ratios of 0.1% or less.

Is it possible to have been processed before (without the customer telling you) and other metals have been removed then melted as some sort?

 

[Yggdrasil]

Indeed, my mistake, i thought the material has been sent in to be processed fully.

The interesting thing though if its dental alloy, it is already mixed metal content according to one of my dental tehnician friend. According to him the high palladium composition can have % : Ag 21,2 Au 15,4 Pd 51,9 Sn 4,5 In 5,9 Ru < 1 Ga in some cases can have other metals too not mentioned here.
Some search on google dropped somewhat same percentages but other compositions too.

If this is the case, I wonder, why doesnt it melt at lower temperatures using 8kW input, when a dental casting machine using 3kW (which i have recently repaired) does melt the mixture.



Is it possible to have been processed before (without the customer telling you) and other metals have been removed then melted as some sort?

Or the settings for the machine do not fit said alloy.
The frequency might be too high/low or what ever settings he have.