It always amazes me when you melt the beautiful pure silver crystals and it changes form to its equally beautiful silver liquid form and then to its solid form which reflects the light like a mirror. Our natural elements on this planet are a real gift.
Some of our elements are stunningly beautiful, for sure. Then of course, there's the really dangerous ones, and the really ethereal ones. All are amazing in their own way, I think.
Planet? 😂 that's not even worth mentioning when looking at the universe. Not even grain of sand on the planet scale. But I do understand what you meant. An consideration that most ever metal is asteroid meteorite etc long after the outer mantle cooled. It's gifts from space❤
@@philindeblanc even then many don't exist naturally especially really heavy ones. Existing only for milliseconds before deterioration. Only knowing they Existing because the formula math requires it
This has to be one of the most satisfying channels on youtube, you waste nothing, everything is a closed loop. That is one big honking bar of silver, it's gorgeous!
If you pre heat your molds in an oven or on top of a furnace to about 300 deg. the sides of the bar will turn out much better and the cooling of the bar will go slower and the top will look better also. great video , love the new cell. Thanks
I refine gold. I use sterling silver, that I buy at estate sales, to refine the scrap gold. I recover the silver from that, melt into shot, and run it through my silver cell. Silver is a by-product of my gold refining. The cell converts the impure silver (about 980 parts per thousand silver) to high purity four nines fine (9999 parts per ten thousand) pure elemental silver metal. So I’m refining the impure silver, into high purity silver, not creating silver out of thin air. When it’s full, I harvest the pure silver crystal, put it away and forget about it. Then I repeat the whole thing again.
Except your clickbait thumbnail says "why pay for silver when you can grow it" so I guess the estate sales just give you the silver when you buy the gold?
No, I buy the silver - pay them nearly full price. Because it doesn’t matter. Silver is so grossly undervalued, and I don’t have to worry about trying to resell it. I’m keeping all my silver.
2 observations I have made watching sreetips videos: one, you never “waste” anything. Even though you might be justified in throwing some by-product out because of the small amount of recoverable metal, you don’t. Used filters come to mind. Two, you always slavishly follow protocols. For example, taking the silver bars out of the anode basket, you always use the forceps, instead of using your fingers. Good discipline!
I've been watching his videos for a long time, I have learned a lot, I think I'm almost ready to start a refinement of gold from jewelry, which will give the the opportunity to start a silver cell, getting nitric acid is a bit tough it seems, not many if any places cary it on hand
@@damiansullivan9728yes, this does seem to be an issue. i havent had much luck prepping myself. what I might have to do is make some via other means. i cant justify buying a couple gallons if i don't end up getting into the hobby.
I too have been bitten by the silver bug. I absolutely blame Sreetips and a couple other RU-vidrs. It's a good affliction to have though. I am starting small just experimenting for now and not trying to refine any huge quantities. I am dealing with only silver for now, I don't feel comfortable playing around with gold and possibly making a very expensive mistake. As far as nitric acid, I just started out by buying 10 one ounce bottles from Amazon. They also offer larger bottles at better prices. It's more expensive than quantity yes, but like I said, I'm starting small. You can also get quartz stir rods, beakers, ceramic wool, basically everything you need from there. I'm sure there are many other places as well. I hope to have a cell up and running by the end of June. Good luck to you if you have a go at it, and stay safe.
@@TheAzrai For me pouring was the unexpectedly difficult step in the process. Sreetips does it so matter of fact like, and makes it look effortless, but I assure you it is far from it. Once you do it a few times and know what to do it's not hard just detail oriented.
First of all I'm glad you followed the idea to drain the cell with a tube instead of lifting the whole thing. Second, a small good quality plastic shovel (IE sand toys) could pick up most of the metal without the bowl being in the air. Also I'm sure we can find a better way to rinse the silver. I'm thinking to start by puting the silver in a fine mesh seive rincing with tap water, first then when it's somewhat clean, using distilled water like you usually do. A serious foundry setup would melt this amount of silver in less than 10 minutes. Could be great for impure silver shots as well. What a fantastic harvest that was. That melting silver looked incredible.
The cell is a monster! Been waiting on this video for a few days now. Spectacular result! The deposits at the bottom of the cell were thicker than anything I could have imagined! Great looking bar as well! Well done sir, very well done!
My friend, it seems to me it has become time to start thinking about some production streamlining. a collection, wash and and straining station would be relatively simple and would make your life easier along with decreasing waste. Also a smelting forge large enough that the crucible could hold 5 pounds of your elemental silver would make things so much more efficient. Cheers!
I just dissolve copper into a solution, dilute that, drop the copper using iron, decant and collect the powdery copper, then cement out my silver using the fine powdery copper. I estimate til I feel it’s close, then I put some of the copper into a filter and let it steep like a teabag so that last bit gets dropped without ending up with an excess of copper as a contaminant
It’s not pretty crystals though. However it IS silver and I have only one thing I use it for. . . And I won’t tell anyone because I am patenting the idea. It’s going to get make me Sreetips wealthy.
That was my take too. All that work to grow and process it. It must become a part of you at some point. I've done business with JMB for a few years now. 😇🤑🤣
If the torch flame is yellow/ orange.. youre carborizing too much you need to use more oxygen to tune the flame out to a more blue flame or just barely white flame. It takes time to get used to your torch setup and to really dial in the amounts of O2 to Acetylene But this new silver cell youve made is just brilliant !! As always I really enjoy watching your process
@@philindeblanc idk much about metallurgy but when im making ceramic pottery i use a outdoor western raku style kiln and use propane as my heat source. I just hook up a propane weed burner to a propane tank and blow that flame into my kiln and i got it up to 1700°F last time. Idk how much of that transfers into metallurgy though, i know the temperature required isnt as high.
Tapping the Oxy/Acetylene head against the table usually clears that fouling , so you don’t have to stop while pouring Really nice bar . I’m moving up to 250g bars next . Always enjoy your channel
theres nothing better than the finger prints of a poured bar. its a beautiful thing. melting silver is such a satisfying chore. i always want to melt my silver down just to melt it but it would be pretty inefficient to just melt silver bars into silver bars for no reason lmao
Many overlook the true purpose of silver. It's safe around humans, it's natural antibacterial, it's the top dog of electric current conductivity. You have more than you realize sir.
For Sreetips Try a pasta sauce ladel/scoop combined with the scraper to move silver across from the stainless steel bowl to beaker until it gets a little lighter. Don’t want to get sore wrists and or risk dropping kg of silver everywhere!
@@danger3_255 That's a great idea! Hey @sreetips ! Got any way to cast some high purity silver bullets? I bet they'd go over REALLY well at the eBay store
Seeing this reminds me of how Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, used to extract silver from photography solutions thrown out after developing the film. Got it free & made money off the silver.
I guess these people in the comments weren't around when you first started selling PMs on eBay. I remember several pieces that went for under spot. I happy as a clam that now Sreetips silver draws a premium price, you deserve it.
Here’s what’s missing: I really didn’t want to sell it because I know when silver gets to a hundred bucks then that bar will be twice as valuable. So, if I do make a sale, then I’m not going to let it go for the grossly undervalued thirty bucks (with premium). If I can’t get fifty, I’ll just keep it. Time is on my side. Hope this helps.
I refine gold. I use sterling silver, that I buy at estate sales, to refine the scrap gold. I recover the silver from that, melt into shot, and run it through my silver cell. The cell converts the impure silver (about 980 parts per thousand silver) to high purity four nines fine (9999 parts per ten thousand) pure elemental silver metal. The impure silver is added to the anode basket. The anode basket is suspended in the silver nitrate electrolyte. I pass an electric current through the impure silver. The silver dissolves, passes through the Dacron filter, travels through the silver nitrate electrolyte, and deposits on the stainless steel bowl (the cathode). The bowl is connected to the negative pole of the power supply. The process only deposits pure silver on the cathode. So I’m refining the impure silver, into high purity silver. When it’s full, I harvest the pure silver crystal, put it away and forget about it. Then I repeat the whole thing again.
My dad saw the title of this and misunderstood, he asked me why I buy silver if I could grow it? I had to explain to him that you aren't producing new silver, you're refining.
@@sreetips Such a cool process to watch. If you ever have the misfortune of having to deal with too much silver again (lol) you could put the pump hose into the receptical (sp) before you put the wet silver crystals in. Then you can just pump out the majority of the electrolyte without having to lift the whole thing like at 6:25.
Sreetips, have you ever considered using coin molds? Just the idea of buying some small wooden chest and adding some pirate décor and casting pure silver coins would be freaking awesome!
Electrolytic refinement of copper--which is done on an industrial scale--also produces anode sludge, but like you, they keep the sludge; it contains silver, gold, and platinum-group metals, as well as base metals (which at the scales involved are still worth extracting, if for no other reason than to keep them out of the waste stream). Anyway, $4200+ at today's spot price, not bad for a day's work.
torching smaller amounts at a time would actually save you a lot of time and fuel. if you run the torch and just add a touch of silver at a time, itll melt within seconds and just sprinkle new on slowly while torching and youll hit a rate thats almost an instant melt
I watched a jeweler coat their silver and gold melt dish with liquid borax and build a glazed layer that hardens when dry. Do this to separate dishes. She also explained to let silver get watery looking like a mirror 🪞
Wow. To get those blue crystals in the face of the ingot, I bet that only has 30-40 ppm of impurities (99.997 - 99.996%). That's a credit to your precise technique and determination.
I have studied Sreetips videos watching hours upon hours and absorbing what he teaches. As a testament to his videos, my very first attempt building and running a silver cell was a resounding success. The dense silver crystals that came out of my cell look a lot like these just smaller and are a beautiful pure white. My hat's off to him.
get a fime mesh screen for pouring out the electrolyte and get a spatula with a curved or round edge for scraping the silver off the cell. super simple tools thatll make your life a lot easier
I found a beautiful sterling spoon in my travels hunting for silver to refine. I use it to fill the vials and fill the anode basket, for smaller tasks. It's like a half sized spoon, about 12 grams, and a fairly basic design, but it's in amazing condition. I have grown rather fond of it, and I don't have the heart to send it to the nitric bath.
I just think this was enjoyable to watch, as an educational experience. Even if I don't have plans to do it myself. Thanks for sharing something you are passionate about.
I was wondering if you used a fine mesh collender or sive to wash the electrolite off the silver. Kinda set it up over an empty beaker or pail and just rinse the liquid right through the mesh?? Maybe worth a shot anyway to make the cumbersome task of washing easier. Just a thought
Very nice job! I know how hard it is to pour silver and keep it from absorbing oxygen and bubbling and to do it with that big of a poor, you did a perfect job. Very nice.
love your videos man, started my own silver and gold cells in the garage a couple weeks ago, so far i've measured the difference between the weight of the gold and silver and the solutions they're "growing" in and so far i have 10 lbs of silver and 7 lbs of gold growing. no i dont have a fume hood but i did utilize my welding extractor to great effect
@@icedragon1000 i got my impure gold and silver from old jewellery and computer hardware bought from pawn shops and junk stores, all together i have about $600 invested
@@JmmanuelKondo i didnt get all 7 lbs of it with the $600, i also was given a bunch of old computer parts by friends and family and was buying electronic pieces from scrapyards for rock bottom prices (about 50 cents a board)
I'd sure trade you my problem of not having enough silver for your problem of having too much silver 😂 Wonder if a guy could use a screened colander to strain off the excess electrolyte from your silver beaker. Love this step in the process. Thanks for sharing 👍
Also if you watch any of his previous videos you can easily get the backstory of what his whole gig is. I've found it to be very informative & interesting
$3500 for $2000 worth of silver? I would just assume go buy 2 kilo bars from hero or monument, they have very low premiums on those size bars they also come with a serial number and a stamp from a reputable refinery so they are easy to resell. I'd be interested and I know you have a lot of time but $50 per oz is way to much, it could be a very long time before we ever see that money back, silver is finally just starting to come to life again after years and really it ain't much especially if you consider it's supposed to follow gold and gold is on fire.
An interesting process. Thank you for the video. I used to do amateur silversmithing. Helped pay my way through college - and I still have a fondness for silver. I mainly worked with sterling silver but I used fine silver for a few things. It's too soft for most work though. And once I did a 10 pound fine silver casting for a friend. He had about a month's worth of work in making the wax model and something of that size pushed the equipment I had beyond what it was designed for. It all went well but I had nightmares of a blowout and 10 pounds of molten silver skittering and spattering everywhere. I've still got a few pounds of silver left from those days. Not sure where it is. Now that I'm retired I'm getting the workbench set up again so I'll find it.
I’ve done projects that exceed the limits of my small hobby operation. It can be very stressful instead of relaxing. But when it’s over, and it went well, then the sense of satisfaction makes it all worth while.
@@sreetips It does indeed. I'm a little wiser these days though. I'd still do it, but I'd spend more time preparing and testing that the equipment cold handle the strain.
Silver hit US$48.70 per ounce, the highest silver price to date, towards the end of the 1970s. I understand that there are labor involved, but no one would even recoup their investment at US$50.00 per ounce.
@@hossericthere are people that spend thousands of dollars on bars that are "worth" a fraction of that based on the spot price. In circles, silver bars are quite literally considered a form of art. Like anything that is collectable, the less of something that is made, the higher the value is placed on it. There are a lot of people that have the money to spend and scramble to own a Sreetips bar of silver or gold. Lord knows if I had copies amounts of currency to spend on a whim, I would absolutely have a bar that Sreetips refined and cast.
You know, if you used a sifting bowl for your silver and a big enough catcher bowl you can make it much easier to rinse off the electrolyte Just be sure to use your industry coffee filters. What a beautiful harvest you have.
With that nitric in the electrolyte I would recommend plastic, but otherwise the same idea. As a side benefit, you can use it for a first rinse immediately after.
What I love about this video is just like what it says in the thumbnail, sreetips tells you how to get free silver. I've used the techniques in this video to make a billion tons of free silver and I'm now I'm very wealthy. Thanks, sreetips!
I bet you could sell it in the crystal form, for more, just for how beautiful it looks. 😍 Also an electric foundry would be very helpful for your melts.
I’m actually amazed. How much profit is there in this 15 days of work? Your equipment looks extremely expensive. It’s really a beautiful process and product! Much respect!
I get to keep all the silver. The silver is my profit. And later on, when silver gets up over a hundred bucks, I’ll start making and selling some pure silver bars.
@@sreetips I hope all the best for you! So many people want to make money in exchange for what is of little or no real value. What you do is different! 👍👍
There is another RU-vid content creator that has a way to clean your copper waste via electrolysis if you’re up for creating another cell? Thanks for all the chemistry lessons Chief.👍❤️🤙
I would say the cracking is the temperature change making the crystals crack before they melt. 19:19. The pour. That is a thing of beauty that bar and it has sold already.
That would definitely make some unique jewellery! Epoxy would have hard time to get to all nooks and crannies of the crystal, but the bubbles left might produce some nice effects on them. Ultrasound might break up the finest branches, but not sure.
@@LexYeen It might break the crystal, though. Trial and error will tell us. At some point, someone's going to stop commenting on here and just get up and DO it. When they do, I hope they tell the rest of us how it went.
I used to harvest silver from electroplaters for a company when the tech was printing plates and x-ray film. The silver in those machines looked like this stuff. One time a machine discharges some silver solution in my face. Silver tastes like powdered sugar.
Maybe a simpler question would be, Is there any additional accumulation of silver, once the 15 day process is complete? IE, over & above the silver used in the Silver Nitrate start up and impure silver used in the basket over the 15 day process?
Sreetips not only extracts pure silver and gold, he extracts many experts that cry over a thumbnail. Sreetips is famous for his work, and his gracious replies to wannabes.
Hello Mrs and Mr Sreetips. Hope both of you are fine🙂🌺🌺🔥 Finely i have started to use my two metal detectors...no gold..silver..but some coins. Man...Hard work...now paytime🌺🔥 Thank you. God bless you🌺🔥
❤ I love watching this stuff, and when that silver went clear it makes me think of what my Bible says about us 😊 funny how we all watching you for different reasons Even looking at and knowing cinder blocks are processed differently gives me thought about how God works in me.
I think it's funny how you have sorted out the hard technical issue of purification but find the most difficult part to be the transfer process! I'll think about a good bulk procedure for silver handling post electrolysis
