Do you have a Sigma or other testing device? The crystals are absolutely beautiful and undoubtedly pure. And I know you sell them for a premium and get some of your cost back. But I'm curious what the purity is before the silver cell. I've seen a couple of videos on RU-vid where bars passed .999 fine on a sigma after just nitric, cementing on copper, and melting.
@@cwtrain it is but he is still learning and regardless of his gain being a bit to high and ur volume in ur headphones being up to loud probably; it is a huge step in the right direction he figured out mono input vs stereo so it comes thru to both ears and the poping is from it being clipped on a headset mic that is directly infront of his mouth if u watched the whole video there is a clip showing that
I work at a electrical switch gear rebuilding shop.. I cut up 1/8 thick sheets of coin silver all the time. It's so common, they just sweep up the shavings and toss them.. (unless I get to it first..) lol
@@sreetips I would be amazed if it ever hits that. About the only way that's gonna happen, is if there is a full scale hot civil war in America.. And if that happens, I doubt they will even be open for business anyway. I didn't even mention the pounds of silver tungsten chips we toss every day..lol I don't mess with that stuff since it's only 30-38% silver by weight, and takes a bunch more effort to process out.
Awesome Explanations there Sreetips, I never get tired of watching your videos, and I appreciate the time you put into making them for us :-) Have a great day mate!
telling ya man, making nitric is super easy, and brings the cost down to about $20.00 per quart.. Just have to do a recrystallization of the ammonium/potassium nitrate because the anti cake powder and other impurities will make it foam if you don't. $100.00 worth of glassware, and you will be good to go.
I make my own nitric using sodium nitrate and sulphuric in stoichiometric amounts. I add water to the reactions vessels (I run 2 3L flasks at into a claisen adapter which connects to a 2L collection flask). I end up with about 1800ml of 68% nitric in about 2hrs and the cost is about $25 in chemicals. The thing is to source your nitrate so you are using a pure product as one has stated if there is anti caking agents in the nitrate it will foam up and cause you problems.
@@aa1.5 Where are you getting sodium nitrate at a decent price? I usually order a 50lb bag of potassium nitrate off amazon, or other places around the net for around $80.00 delivered.
Look into devil forge and look into their furnaces. Big stack, Adam rock and Melt and cast from UK all use them I think it would be beneficial instead of making one.
@@RedRedux can't beat that! If your getting anything above 95% then that's the way to go. Large refiners operate on a small percentage (1-2 %) because chemicals are cheaper and plus.... They get to keep any other metals for free. Nitric right now is 45 cents a lb for 69% nitric. A gallon is about 11 lbs so about $5 a gallon (commercial pricing)
They make computer controlled electric kilns for knife making. They are small and can go up to a temperature that you want and hold there. Also there is no air movement in these kilns to blow the powder around.
It's funny that you just posted this. I had 4 people message me today on Twitter congratulating me for winning that 5oz bar you gave away on Twitter. 🤔 Not sure what is going on with that. 🤣
Have you thought about doing another eBay crystal sale? Your crystals are so beautiful. And the process just adds on to it, it looks simply magical with the crystals sitting in the electrolite solution.
Hi Sreetips. Great video!!! So many useful information. I have an idea: you could make a video using electrolysis to get 100% pure silver, similar to your Electrolytic Gold Refining Cell video. You already have pure silver for the anode and you simply melt the cement silver for the cathod. What would be the electrolyte? Silver nitrate solution? That would be interesting to see and compare with the gold process. What voltage to use? Amps? How many time would it take to process 1 troy ounce? What shapes the pure silver would make on the anode side?
Are there any drawbacks to using a lower voltage and amperage to grow larger silver crystals? I know it will take longer. Also once the silver is precipitated out of the silver nitrate solution you can also use that same solution with two copper bars to make and grow pure copper crystals via electrolysis
3.3 to 3.7 volts DC are the parameters that I leaned from the pros on the goldrefiningforum.com anything else runs the risk of other metals plating out with the silver and contaminating the beautiful pure silver crystals. Palladium is the main concern. It’s solubility in nitric makes it a candidate for cross contamination in the silver cell. A little Pd in the electrolyte won’t hurt silver purity. But if it builds up then it can start to plate out with the silver. Green electrolyte, instead of blue, is a tip off of palladium contamination of the electrolyte. I’ve been told that the silver can have as much as ten percent palladium in it before you’d notice any difference in your silver. While it’s bad for your silver purity, the real problem is this; palladium is one hundred times more valuable than silver!
sreetips thanks for the advice... if the electrolyte is green wouldn’t that mean that the Palladium is not being precipitated out into the Silver crystals? (because it’s in the solution?) just like blue would mean that’s copper being refined out of the anode basket... ?
@@TheMeditron According to the size of cell, current density, and 10 other things. I have has some in larger cells grow to 6 inches plus. Those are worth good money!
I really like watching your videos @sreetips I have a few questions however. Excuse me if you already mentioned that in some other video. 1. What do you do with the remnant of the dissolved shot in the anode baskets? I presume it's mostly copper/copper rich silver. 2. Why do some of the silver shot pieces when they come out of the water look so yellow? It could not possibly be because of the copper, as there should be quite little in it, certainly less than in the sterling silver you start out with. 3. I remember in some other video you said that you can typically reuse the electrolyte of the silver cell one more time. Couldn't you just knock down the already formed crystals in the cell to be able to run it a lot longer before dissasembling and maybe use up the electrolyte in one (larger) batch? 4. Why do you run the cell at that low of a current? The surface area of the bowl should 0,1 m² at least, so the current density would only be 14 A/m². Some quick search tells me you can go up to ~300 A/m² without running into to much problems with copper contamination at the cathode. That would let you produce ~20 times the amount of silver in the same time. Even if you wouldn't increase it by that much, what's the reasoning for the low current? The Power Supply should be able to put out a lot more than the 5 W it does now.
Just a thought ... When you make the filter basket, it looks like a lot of waste filter material. You should make a basket, then pull out the shape you've cut off for the filter. Make a pattern from it. Then on your filter source material, see if you can't get more than one basket's worth from it.
You should try to use a pipe and a dowel to compress that silver powder to suitable sized pucks. By compressing it you will remove most of the isolating air and save a great deal on gas spendages and also time waste. Just let it melt in the furnace then drop another puck in.
I do enjoy your videos. Is there a reason you use two layers of the dacron bag for the anode basket? Knowing things can run expensive with the refining process, could you use one layer for the basket and stretch the use of filter bags? They might be cheap, but it would cut down on the expenditure regardless of those being fairly cheap to buy.
@Power 2 Weight Actually a professional lab is not much different. The fundamentals are the same. You don't need a million dollars to do this and that's what he is teaching.
@@sreetips I got the repour done today and video'd. Now on to the saw ,files, sanding and polish. I will do bits and pieces of that as well. Have a great weekend my friend.
Quit messing around with the lump of silver for an anode and line the anode bag with a conductive mesh that’s dilute nitric resistant, titanium maybe but gold mesh if you have to. It would be a slight pain weaving and or spot welding the wire, but you'd never have to worry about burning up your annode again. I use a titanium ”bag” (perf sheet, folded up) to plate copper... Saves a lot of small chunks from falling down into the slimes
if you still can get the coin rolls for free at the bank the ones made from paper you should be able to make preloaded packages for the electric smelter and just pop them in. Or would that that that contaminate the silver to much? sorry if my spelling is off english isnt my first languge and its early morning here :P
Next Step is Whispering everything you say, @Streetips. your foot is in the door for ASMR anyway.... you may as well commit. Love your content, Thank you for sharing!
I have watched all you videos at least once so I knew everything in the video already, but it's always fun to see more of!! Would melting in the furnace maybe go quicker if you left a little bit of molten metal in it before filling it with the next charge of cement silver?
Hello Based on your experience, approximately 10 kg of sterling silver or antique jewelry contains approximately as much gold, palladium and platinum. We certainly do not know the exact number. An answer that is somewhat acceptable. If you say for 1 kg, I can equate I look forward to the answer
Hey sreetips, I love what you do and you are way smarter than me on all these acids and such, but it bugs me when you get your numbers wrong. Sterling silver is labeled as "sterling" or 925 for a reason. It is 0.925 pure or 92.5% pure. Coin silver or "junk" silver US coins are ninety percent pure or 0.900 silver. Some older silver flatware was "coin silver" instead of "sterling silver" but that is rare to find these days. Also your cement silver is pretty pure but has some copper content so it is not 99% pure. It is somewhere between 92.5% and 99% pure and that is why it shows a slight copper color cast to it. Your pure crystal silver is almost certainly four nines fine, but without an assay that cannot be stated definitively so labeling it three nines is safe and probably understating it. Love that four nines fine!!! And you have it even though you have not paid a lab to certify that. Gotta love it. Thanks for all you do. Big refiners can run a massive large batch and just run one test to certify the whole batch and that makes the assay affordable. For a small guy with little batches it costs more than it is worth to do that. Great job though.
Quite correct, it’s true in theory. But as a refiner who actually processes 925/sterling silver, I’ve NEVER been able to get 92.5g of pure silver from 100g of sterling. It’s just not possible. It’s usually in the neighborhood of 88% to 90% - this is based on tens years experience and having refined hundreds of pound of silver.
I love wakin' up to another Sreetips video. I have a question. When I go to mow the yard I will often put your videos on autoplay. They play the entire time that I am out working. Does this added number of views help you like I think it does?
@Power 2 Weight it sounds possible right? Especially in these days of 3d printing. I have a few good ideas for better bowls for this process, if it's possible with 3d printing materials.
@Power 2 Weight yeah it all depends on if they merge or if the just push into each other. Maybe let them grow until they start to touch and then weld the tips together and let it grow some more.
Sreetips are you working on something new? One thing I noticed about JUUL vaping devices is they appear to have gold fittings in the oil chamber and contact points for recharging and people tend to toss them when the devices run out of power or stop working for other reasons. In your opinion would they have much scrap value if one had enough of them? So far I've picked up 2 of them of which I retained one and a gold plated hoop that hangs from an ear. If you have a sharp eye you will literally find gold on the streets and sidewalks every now and then.
Just a question for you. If you were just interested in refining silver alone. Could you melt down the 90/10 silver directly into shot & put it into the silver cell for refining ?
If you do that; the copper (from your sterling flatware) will consume the nitric acid in the cell over 3x as fast as does silver. So your nitric acid costs would rise dramatically, you would have to change out and tend to the cell a lot more often, and you would reach that point where copper would plate out faster. Should that happen, your charge of silver would become polluted and you'd have to start over with the melting and shotting. Since the cell takes maybe 10 days to run its course, if you start plating out copper overnight on day 3 or 4, you come in the next day and your silver is polluted. So it's just not the way to go.
@Power 2 Weight You can watch this for a more technical explanation, I don't think he explains all that well, but he DOES show the impact of excess copper in the electrolyte....and it sucks, it crushes how much silver you can process before bad stuff happens. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-CC9LO5WnuvU.html The simpler way to understand it is: Cu is a +2 ion, silver is a +1 ion. Copper nitrate is Cu(NO3)*2. Silver nitrate is AgNO3. So, a copper ion eats double the nitrate ions that silver does AND is more reactive than silver. So Cu just kills your nitric.
Sreetips, can I ask, what got you into refining? What was it that captured your imagination? I’d love to have a crack at it but don’t have the circumstances right now. Best wishes.
NO! The silver will compact and restrict the flow of solution. This will lead to a BIG rise in voltage which is not got for several reasons. Don't reinvent the wheel, just roll with it. Lol
What do I do melting pots I have a lot of them there are minutes of molten gold How was it possible to extract this gold Please reply Thank you for all the advice and information
You can soak the melting dishes or crucible in a stainless pot of hot water and the borax should release the gold pellets. If hot water does not work add a little nitric to the solution and heat. Do not use ar or you gold will go into solution and soak up into the crucible or dish. That's not good! Once the pellets are free and separated you can then refine them.
Without revealing your net worth or too much info, what are some general number for total weights of silver and gold that you keep as investments from purifying like this? I'm fascinated with this type of refining and can only assume that you have been able to source much of your worth with the aid of your wife from yard sales and estate sales, etc. I'm sure you have beat the spot price significantly over the years and have rode the increases over the last few years!
I really don’t know. I’d have to go dig it up and throw it on a scale. I don’t keep track. It’s my hobby. But my kids are going to love it when I’m gone!
I'm still a bit confused. What happens to the copper in the Silvershot after the Electricity is passed through it? does it just stay in the basket and only the Silver goes into the Electrolyte and deposits on the side of the bowl?
Thank you for sharing your knowledge. I still think you should find smaller bowls and let the silver attached to the bowl and pour clear blue resin( As close to the colour as the solution as possible) and sell as Art, It is really really beautiful in solution. Oh BTW, if possible perhaps add in some filler music when your mic is not active lol Keep having to make sure there is nothing wrong with the Audio on my end.
The dead sound footage; I had the mic in my mask and it sounded awful so I just muted it. Soft music is a good suggestion. Didn’t think of it. Thank you
Hi i was thinking about buying a gold bar that is 1020 g that is from melted gold pins from computers and was wondering how much gold I could expect to refine down and get out of it
What do you fill the stainless bowl with. I noticed you said earlier in this video you added distill water to prevent the silvee from vaporizing. So the electrolyte solution is made up of distill water and sodium or table salt to make the electric current or just plain water?
