Ive got a bunch of junk aircraft AC power contactor assemblies. They have several big threaded lug contacts, that look to be silver plated copper. Non magnetic, fairly heavy for size, silvery white appearance . I filed the top of one down 2-3mm, and its still silvery colored. I put some bleach on it and got nothing.
Any ideas?
I’ve got a pile of scrap and sterling silver I’m thinking about sending to a refiner instead of selling piece by piece, and I want to understand the mechanics before I commit rather than just accepting whatever number they quote me.
A few things I’m unclear on:
Does the fee scale with the silver price? If spot goes from 60 to 90, am I paying a proportionally bigger fee, or is the cost mostly fixed so the effective percentage drops when prices are high?
Is timing just “sell when spot is high,” or do refiners widen their spread during price spikes when everyone’s dumping? Basically, does a high spot partly get eaten by worse terms?
Anyone in Europe (Belgium specifically) dealt with the bigger refiners or the smaller regional ones? Curious how VAT is handled on the payout side too.
Thankstrying to learn the background rather than just get a number.
Sitting on quite a lot of 800 and 900 flatware. Estate stuff.
Local refinery offers 77% of spot. So a quarter of my metal evaporates before the box even leaves my apartment. Then I turn around and buy coins at a premium over spot. I’m paying the spread twice, in both directions, like an idiot in a currency exchange booth at an airport.
Why I want to do it anyway: forks aren’t money. If governments keep printing and things actually get ugly, nobody is handing me a loaf of bread for a salad fork. A recognizable 1oz coin is liquid, divisible, and every dealer on the continent knows what it is. Flatware is cutlery with a melt value and a vibe.
Why I’m stalling: 77% feels like being mugged by someone who says please. And if silver rips, the flatware rips with it, so there’s no actual deadline here except my own impatience.
What I’d love input on:
• Has anyone negotiated above 77%? What’s the best percentage you’ve gotten, and from what kind of buyer?
• Am I overthinking the melt-then-buy spread, or is that genuinely just the toll for turning junk silver into real silver?
Roast me, I can take it. I’ve already been roasted by the refinery.
What is your favorite material to work with and what do you think has the highest profit margin?
I’ve tried a lot of different processes to get to this point. Salt water electrolysis, copper sulfite cell, abrasion, but it was always too inconsistent, lots of contamination, and was very difficult to scale. I finally bit the bullet and ordered some nitric from walmart. Thanks to the YouTube video linked below I was able to process 320 teaspoons and small forks in a reasonable amount of time and ends up with 341g of really nice looking silver.
Process:
95 parts concentrated sulfuric
5 parts nitric
Low heat
Transferred spent utensils rinse water
Dropped out silver chloride with concentrated saltwater
Rinsed
Lye and sugar
Rinsed
Dry and melt
Less labor and less messy than the saltwater electrolysis
Figured it might be useful for me to make a short post that just links to each of the 4 posts I had to divide this guide into. I'll work on condensing them down a bit at some point so that I can include more than a link to the next part in each guide, but here's a temporary band-aid for that problem:
PART 1: Introduction and what items are needed, recommended, and optional.
I'm suspecting that the "pure" copper wire I'm using might be coated with something and that's what's causing it, but does anyone have any other ideas? The backs seem at least closer to what I expect, but even those seem contaminated. Ordered some good copper sheeting I've been successful with in the past to re-refine these properly, but anyone have ideas?
9gm of 10k gold ring I made with e-waste and some scrap jewelry. What do you guys think?
Just getting into the hobby / addiction. I’ve done a few small trial runs to work out the kinks at home. This was my first big recovery with nitric acid.
So a little over a month ago, I had posted a picture of what I’ve collected so far from all the electronics I’ve took apart . So practically it’s been a little over two months now since I’ve started E waste recycling. The last 5 pictures were taken today. Any thoughts?
Also, I have another box full of items that I thought maybe could be reused or have some value to it. From the electronics I’ve broken down. But I have that at the Storage also with some copper wire that I have stripped From cables.
Lastly, if you’re gonna come on here and tell me that I’m wasting my time or it’s not worth it. I have all the time in the world. Plus I enjoy doing this. So take your negativity elsewhere.
Some kind of cliche I guess when a Hillbilly has chemicals and stuff, automatically "Hey whatcha cookin? Meth?".
No. It's the Colones secret recipe to really zazz up the chicken ya dingbat...
I think this is a really nice looking silver/copper nitrate solution. Twice through a coffee filter. I drilled a bunch of little holes in a funnel so it'd flow better. Looks like the stuff eh? Letting the last few drips go through and then cementing.
These colors are awesome!
I am through the last of my Sterling and am harvesting the remainder of the silver from some electrolyte that still fairly high silver. The reaction is happening quickly compared to the first time I did it with fairly used up electrolyte. I saw the density changing visibly as the silver dropped out and the less dense newly formed copper nitrate migrated upward. The end of the video shows it slip down and new silver precipitate onto the copper quickly. Pretty neat.
I didn’t get into this to make much so much as to exercise my nerdy side, it’s been good for that.
That's not my motivator. It's fun. If I weren't having fun I wouldn't be here no matter what it pays.
Just now though I looked at spot prices. I have 62g of feed stock for my cell and it'd be stupid to sell that but just for kicks that's over $132. I'm not exactly counting my time because I'd be doing this anyways but I have $35 in nitric and I still have over 1/4L left. I have $10 into a scale, $2 into a calculator, $15 in silver for some coins which may have been the guy just helping me get started and doing me a favor. $67 all in.
Does this actually pay for itself and then some? I figure it must somehow. People don't want to pump money in. You have to love it first but if it pays, like is this at least a solid side hustle?
At my work, in the lab, those things used to get thrown out about every half year.
Diameter around 10cm, solid copper, ~700grams.
The silver tip is pretty thick, pure platinum, about 5g per piece
I'm getting close to assembling a silver cell. Heavily based on Sreetips current design just scaled down.
I've been rooting through threads on here, watching vids and such. I picked up somewhere that a rough rule of thumb, one ml of nitric will dissolve one gram of silver.
Thanks to a very generous person here (You know who you are and I can't thank you enough for the assistance in getting started!) I have approx. 20g of beautiful silver crystal. I hate to dissolve it but I also think if I were to do the bootstrap method to get myself to clean electrolyte I'd be blowing a lot of money on nitric.
Conservatively speaking, could I start with 10ML of nitric, add the 20g of silver crystal and end up with 10ml of concentrated electrolyte? I know I don't want all the silver to dissolve. I want to convert all the nitric to silver nitrate and be left with some undissolved silver crystal.
Is there a good ratio as far as diluting this electrolyte? It's going to be a small batch but it seems you get a lot of pure silver out of a small amount of electrolyte. I only need one good run in order to make enough pure silver crystal to then make a decent batch of clean electrolyte. I believe I've read in here that I can dilute the electrolyte as far as I need but is there a ratio you just don't go over?
I'm going to have to dilute this a fair bit. I'll be operating something like a 1/2 L cell for the nonce.
20g silver (yet to be confirmed I'm grabbing a scale today)
add the silver to 10ml of nitric?
This results in 10ml of silver nitrate with some undissolved silver?
Can I add distilled water to dilute this electrolyte to fill a 1/2L (possibly 1L) silver cell?
I really appreciate you guys. You've all been so supportive and free with your hard earned knowledge. I'm trying to do my homework before I get on here and ask questions that have already been answered but I can't exactly find this answer.
I think I want to try a small silver cell. Do I really need pure silver to make electrolyte? Can I use cement silver for the first batch of electrolyte?