Gold Refining (how to)

Daniel Labo

EASY STEPS TO

BE GI N N ER

GOLD REFINING

S

at home - from e-scrap

+BONUS SILVER REFINING

100% FREE 2012 Copyright © Labo Daniel - Romania

Notice Concerning Safety, First Aid, and Pollution Control Due to the enormous changes in these fields over the past fifty years, you should not rely on the information presented in this book but should consult current sources on these subjects.

NOT FOR RESALE ! Only some members of the 3xC Gold Company have the right to sale or distribute this digital copy.

ISBN 973-8394-17-1

1

Contents Gold Refining Notice (please read) Contents Gold Value Evolution Introduction What You Need E-scrap and where to find gold Gold Refining Process12 Melting Gold Powder Summary

1 2 3 4 6 11 12 19 20

Silver Refining Silver Value Evolution Introduction What You Need Where to Find Silver Scrap Silver Refining Process Melting the Silver Summary

2

21 22 23 27 28 35 36

GOLD

Easy steps to GOLD REFINING at home

1. Gold Value Evolution I'm sure you're all perfectly aware of the extreme volatility in the current global financial market and even more aware of how our money buys less and less and less as the years go by. What's also very apparent to those that watch the precious metals market e.g. silver and gold, that contrary to the "value" of paper based currency which has been continuously decreasing, that the "value" of silver and gold has been on a continual increase. Here's a graph showing the huge gains gold has made over the last 5 years. If you'd been smart enough (or lucky enough) to invest in gold back then, today you'd be sitting on a very pretty profit, indeed !

3

GOLD

Easy steps to GOLD REFINING at home

2. Introduction Now over the last few years, I've been taking scrap, old, unwanted and broken items containing gold and refining them in such a way as to end up with essentially 99.9% gold bullion. Originally this was nothing more than a home hobby of sorts but with the value of gold bullion apparently on an increasing trend, what started out as just a hobby has now become a means of creating gold bullion as a long term investment. I get quite a kick in checking the gold markets and watching the value of my gold slowly rise. And so I figured that now would be a perfect opportunity to share my experience in gold bullion creation at home with you who may have an interest. Not only will you end up being able to create 99.9% pure 24k gold bullion of your own, but you'll also see how ridiculously simple and easy the process is and that the majority of equipment is easily obtainable and very inexpensive. In fact, over the years I've simplified the entire process so that anyone can do it. So why not read this book and perhaps give it a go yourself. Just to whet your appetite, here's a pic of a pure gold 24k button (8 gms) I made earlier ... and worth approx. $US447 at todays market rates ... hopefully next week will be worth a bit more.

4

GOLD

Easy steps to GOLD REFINING at home

Before we get started, I need to provide a WARNING. Due to the fact that strong acids were being used in the process and that all due diligence, care and common sense was to be used at all times, there were still a few people who basically gave the impression that handling nitric acid was just so incredibly dangerous and should only be used by "trained professionals" and NOT for the average "Joe Blow". However, I'd like to YET AGAIN stress that if proper precautions are taken, care is exercised and basic common sense used, then handling very small quantites of nitric (and in this book, hydrochloric) acids is no more dangerous than many other potentially harmful chemicals normally found in the average kitchen, laundry or garage that we use everday. Chemicals such as strong bleach, drain "unblockers", swimming pool chemicals, ammonia, tree stump killers, car battery acid, etc ALL have the potential to cause serious harm if misused ... however, I'm sure that the average, level headed person is able to handle and use such "dangerous" chemicals without any harm whatsoever... simply because they exercise care and common sense when using them. So it is with the acids used in silver and gold refining... care and common sense.

Still interested ? Ok, let's start processing gold !

5

GOLD

Easy steps to GOLD REFINING at home

3. What you need We need some basic equipment which consists of a plastic water spray bottle, a plastic spoon, a plastic "swizzle" stick, a plastic "turkey baster" pipette and a small plastic funnel. All these items were purchased at one of those "cheap" stores for just a few dollars only.

We need a couple of small glass cylinders and in my case, I used some "empty" spice jars from the kitchen. Also need a small glass bowl able to stand up to boiling water and that will allow one of the spice jars to be placed upright in it. The boiling water poured into the bowl will help heat the contents of the spice jar.

6

GOLD

Easy steps to GOLD REFINING at home

We will also need some cheap disposable plastic gloves such as the ones used for food handling. We'll also need some coffee filters. Again, both of these items were purchased at the "cheap" store for a couple of dollars.

The next items that we'll need is a bottle of 68-70% strength Nitric acid and a bottle of 32% Hydrochloric acid. These are both readily obtainable from the majority of chemical supply companies which you'll have no problems in finding in your local yellow pages. A 500 ml bottle of each will be quite adequate. The nitric acid is used to dissolve any other contaminating metals in the item containing gold such as copper, silver, etc. We need to remove such contaminants leaving behind relatively clean (but not yet pure) gold for final processing. The hydrochloric acid will be used in conjunction with the nitric acid to dissolve and purify the gold after the other metal contaminants have been removed by the nitric acid. Please use gloves and safety glasses. 7

GOLD

Easy steps to GOLD REFINING at home

At this point, it's time for another WARNING reminder, so PLEASE PAY ATTENTION! Nitric and hydrochloric acids, by their nature are powerful corrosive acids and skin contact should be avoided. When working with them, you should ALWAYS be wearing those disposable plastic gloves that we purchased earlier. Eye protection would also be advisable. Simple care, caution and common sense is all that's needed and you'll be perfectly safe. In all the years that I've been refining silver and gold for a hobby and using nitric and hydrochloric acids, not once has there been an issue or concern. If any is spilled on a surface, just immediately rinse off with plenty of plain, clean water. Also, small quantities of nitrogen dioxide gas is produced so ALWAYS do the refining outside in the OPEN AIR. Be careful and be safe! But let me reiterate one more time ... if you exercise common sense and basic care, this entire procedure is perfectly safe. Again, I've been doing this for quite a few years with NO mishaps whatsoever.

PROCESS THE GOLD REFINING ONLY OUTDOOR WITH HANDS AND EYE PROTECTION !!! 8

GOLD

Easy steps to GOLD REFINING at home

There are 2 additional items that we will require to process gold but weren't necessary for silver processing. These items are Urea and Sodium Meta Bisulphite. Urea is nothing more than plant fertilizer and can be found at almost all plant nurseries and large supermarkets with a garden section. A big bag is worth just a few dollars.

9

GOLD

Easy steps to GOLD REFINING at home

And to complete your refining kit, we need someway of melting the raw gold into the shiny metal that people have lusted after for millenia. Thankfully, all you need to do is head to the nearest hardware store and get something along the lines of this badboy ... a propane powered torch. This is the one I use because it has a self-igniting switch built in, so no need to use matches to get it going. Also has a rotary button to control the strength of the flame. No problems whatsoever in finding one as they're a common handyman item and it easily melts silver and gold.

Well, thats it ... that's all the simple equipment that you need to start producing your very own 99.9% pure gold bullion and then watching it appreciate over time ! And as you can see, all of it is extremely

easy to find. 10

GOLD

Easy steps to GOLD REFINING at home

4. E-scrap and where to find gold For the purpose of this book, lets process some scrap gold that I've got lying around and recover the pure gold from it. The pins and edge connectors came from 2 old computer motherboards and a few sticks of computer memory. There is gold to be found in computer parts but usually it's just a very thin coating ... still, gold is gold ! For the next process, we`ll use these fingers and pins.

You can find gold in cellphones, electrical boards, gold plated jewleryes, computers, chips, processors, etc. Just use your imagination, everything that looks like gold on a electrical board... it`s GOLD. You can also visit your local scrap yard for various unwanted electrical boards.

11

GOLD

Easy steps to GOLD REFINING at home

5. Gold Refining Process To dissolve the metal contaminants, we need to use a 50/50 mixture of nitric acid and water. The amount of nitric acid required will be approximately 20 mls mixed with approximately 20 mls of water. Using the plastic pipette, the water is added first followed by the nitric acid (pic. 1).

(pic. 1)

(pic. 2)

To help speed the reaction along, the entire glass tube is placed in a bath of boiling water. Periodically, as it cools, replace the bath water with fresh boiling water to keep the reaction going. There is an immediate strong reaction as copper contaminants immediately start turning the liquid a blue colour. Also notice the release of brown nitrogen dioxide gas. At this point, walk away from the reaction and DO NOT inhale the gas. The reaction can proceed unattended until there is no more bubbling visible (pic. 2). 12

GOLD

Easy steps to GOLD REFINING at home

When the reaction finally stops, add an additional very small quantity (a few mls) of nitric. If bubbling starts up again, then not all the contaminant metals have been dissolved yet and once again, allow the process to continue on its own. If adding further nitric does NOT result in bubbling, then all metal contaminants will have been dissolved leaving behind relatively pure gold. At this point, you can dilute the blue liquid with water, wait for the gold to settle to the bottom, then carefully pour most of the liquid into another container. Just be careful and don't pour away any of the gold !! Add some more water to the settled gold to dilute even further any remaining liquid, then let the gold settle again, then carefully pour most of the liquid into another container ... again, DON'T pour away any of the gold. After repeating the dilute/pour procedure a few times (basically "washing" the gold), we end up with something like this (pic. 3):

(pic. 3)

13

GOLD

Easy steps to GOLD REFINING at home

Having successfully removed almost all of the contaminants leaving the gold in an "almost" pure state (pic. 3), we're now going to process the gold one last time to remove any minute stubborn contaminants and end up with essentially 99.9% pure 24k gold. One of the marvelous properties of gold, and what makes it so sought after and desirable, is that its a metal that that will never tarnish or rust or corrode. Thats because gold is an extremely nonreactive metal. And because its so nonreactive and stable, non of the common acids will touch it ... not nitric, not hydrochloric, not sulphuric, etc. So how DO we get the gold to dissolve ? We'll take advantage of the Ancients knowledge of applied alchemy when they somehow discovered that a mixture of 1 part nitric and 3 parts hydrochloric performed the seemingly impossible ... it dissolved gold ! Because this combination of acids had the "power" to dissolve gold, which they considered to be the most "regal or noble" of metals, they gave it the special name of "Royal Water" or as they called it in Latin "Aqua Regia". So, transfer the "washed" gold into one of the glass tubes and add a 1:3 mix of nitric and hydrochloric acids. With the quantity of gold in this book, using the plastic pipette, I added 5 drops of nitric and 15 drops of hydrochloric making a 1:3 mixture of Aqua Regia. Immediately the gold starts to dissolve and the liquid starts to bubble and turn a nice yellow colour. This is a good sign that almost all contaminants have been removed previously. If the liquid has a blue or green tinge, then that means some copper must still be present with the gold. To speed up the reaction, we'll place the glass tube into a bath of boiling water (pic. 4 - page 15). Allow the reaction to continue until all the gold has dissolved. If the reaction stops and some gold still remains, then add a further small quantity of "Aqua Regia". 14

GOLD

Easy steps to GOLD REFINING at home

(pic. 4)

Ok, all the gold has dissolved leaving a yellow liquid behind ... for all intents and purposes, this yellow liquid is "liquid gold" ... so be very careful and DON'T spill any ! This yellow liquid may or not look slightly cloudy but either way, it won't do any harm to filter it. So create a filter as shown in (pic. 5): 15

(pic. 5)

GOLD

Easy steps to GOLD REFINING at home

We're going to pour the yellow liquid through the filter and into a clean, empty glass tube (pic. 6). Now I can't stress this part enough ... make sure that you have scrubbed and washed this glass tube until it's absolutely squeaky clean. The reason being that shortly, we'll be causing the dissolved gold to be "dropped" out of solution as a dark brown material that will settle on the bottom of the jar. If the jar is NOT squeaky clean, some of the gold, as it drops out of solution, could stick to the sides of the glass jar giving it a very fine gold coating, similar to the fine silver coating on the back of a mirror. Then you'll waste time and effort in scraping this layer off to recover the gold in it.

(pic. 7)

(pic. 6)

After all the yellow liquid has been poured into and passed through the filter, using the water spray bottle, spray the inside of the filter to ensure that every last bit of yellow liquid containing the gold has been washed through the filter and into the glass bottle. Ok, now dilute the yellow liquid with an equal volume of water. We should be looking at something like in (pic. 7). 16

GOLD

Easy steps to GOLD REFINING at home

We're now almost ready to precipitate or "drop" the gold back out of the yellow liquid but just before we do that, we need to completely neutralize any remaining traces of nitric acid that may still remain in the yellow liquid. The reason for this is simply that if we start to "drop" the gold in the form of a brown sediment, as soon as any of it appears, it will be immediately attacked by the remaining nitric/hydrochloric acid in the yellow solution and dissolved once again. So to prevent the "gold sediment" from going back into solution, where we don't want it to go, a simple way to prevent this is to first use urea to neutralize the nitric ... then successfully "drop" the sediment where it will eventually settle at the bottom of the glass jar, see (pic. 8).

(pic. 8)

17

GOLD

Easy steps to GOLD REFINING at home

I recommend using just a pinch of urea at a time. When added to the yellow liquid, you should notice bubbles being created by the urea. This is a sign that nitric acid is being neutralized. As the urea is used up, continue adding smaller and smaller amounts until there is no more bubbling to be seen ... at this point, the remaining nitric acid has been completely neutralized and we can proceed with "dropping" the gold back out of solution as a brown sediment (pic. 9).

(pic. 9)

18

GOLD

Easy steps to GOLD REFINING at home

6. Melting the GOLD Powder Now that we've finally got our virtually pure "raw gold powder" we're going to make a gold "button". Normally when melting precious metals such as silver and gold, a proper crucible made of heat resistant material is used. Such a material is designed to withstand the approximate 1000C temperature required to melt silver and gold. Place the powder in a new clean crucible, or one that had been used only for melting pure gold and melting with the propane torch starting from the edges. Because the brown powder is fine, we'll start with a low flame to prevent the pressure of the flame scattering (and losing !) your hard work. Once the brown powder has started to combine together, the flame is turned up high and melting begins. We do a small quantity at a time as it takes less time to melt and once melted, we continue adding additional small quantities and re-melt. This continues until all the brown powder has been used.

And we're left holding a "button" of 99.9% pure gold to be added with the rest of our "long term investment" portfolio of gold "buttons". This example weighs approximately 1.5 gms and worth around $US86 at current market rates.

19

GOLD

Easy steps to GOLD REFINING at home

7. Summary Summarized, the process is simply: 1. Place the scrap gold into nitric acid to dissolve all other metal "impurities" 2. Filter the resulting blue solution and trap the gold. 3. Apply a mixture of 1:3 nitric/hydrochloric acid (aqua regia) to the gold to completely dissolve it. 4. Filter the resulting yellow liquid to remove any remaining impurities. 5. Neutralize any left over nitric acid still in the yellow liquid with urea. 6. Use SMB to precipitate the brown coloured "gold sediment" 7. Wash the sediment then leave until dried to a brown powder. 8. Melt the brown powder back into metallic gold.

20

EASY STEPS TO

BE G

IN N ER

SILVER REFINING at home - from scrap

21

S

SILVER

Easy steps to SILVER REFINING at home

8. Silver Value Evolution I'm sure you're all perfectly aware of the extreme volatility in the current global financial market and even more aware of how our money buys less and less and less as the years go by. What's also very apparent to those that watch the precious metals market e.g. silver and gold, that contrary to the "value" of paper based currency which has been continuously decreasing, that the "value" of silver and gold has been on a continual increase. Here's a couple of graphs showing the improvement of silver over the last 30 and 60 days.

22

SILVER

Easy steps to SILVER REFINING at home

9. Introduction Now over the last few years, I've been taking scrap, old, unwanted and broken items containing gold and refining them in such a way as to end up with essentially 99.9% silver bullion. Originally this was nothing more than a home hobby of sorts but with the value of silver bullion apparently on an increasing trend, what started out as just a hobby has now become a means of creating silver bullion as a long term investment. I get quite a kick in checking the gold markets and watching the value of my silver slowly rise. And so I figured that now would be a perfect opportunity to share my experience in silver bullion creation at home with you who may have an interest. Not only will you end up being able to create 99.9% pure silver bullion of your own, but you'll also see how ridiculously simple and easy the process is and that the majority of equipment is easily obtainable and very inexpensive. In fact, over the years I've simplified the entire process so that anyone can do it. So why not read this book and perhaps give it a go yourself. Just to whet your appetite, here's a pic of a pure silver buttons that I`ve made:

23

SILVER

Easy steps to SILVER REFINING at home

Before we get started, I need to provide a WARNING. Due to the fact that strong acids were being used in the process and that all due diligence, care and common sense was to be used at all times, there were still a few people who basically gave the impression that handling nitric acid was just so incredibly dangerous and should only be used by "trained professionals" and NOT for the average "Joe Blow". However, I'd like to YET AGAIN stress that if proper precautions are taken, care is exercised and basic common sense used, then handling very small quantites of nitric acids is no more dangerous than many other potentially harmful chemicals normally found in the average kitchen, laundry or garage that we use everday. Chemicals such as strong bleach, drain "unblockers", swimming pool chemicals, ammonia, tree stump killers, car battery acid, etc. ALL have the potential to cause serious harm if misused ... however, I'm sure that the average, level headed person is able to handle and use such "dangerous" chemicals without any harm whatsoever... simply because they exercise care and common sense when using them. So it is with the acids used in silver and gold refining... care and common sense. Still interested ? Ok, let's start processing silver !

24

SILVER

Easy steps to SILVER REFINING at home

10. What you need We need some basic equipment which consists of a plastic water spray bottle, a plastic spoon, a plastic "swizzle" stick, a plastic "turkey baster" pipette and a small plastic funnel. All these items were purchased at one of those "cheap" stores for just a few dollars only.

We need a couple of small glass cylinders and in my case, I used some "empty" spice jars from the kitchen. Also need a small glass bowl able to stand up to boiling water and that will allow one of the spice jars to be placed upright in it. The boiling water poured into the bowl will help heat the contents of the spice jar.

25

SILVER

Easy steps to SILVER REFINING at home

We will also need some cheap disposable plastic gloves such as the ones used for food handling. We'll also need some coffee filters. Again, both of these items were purchased at the "cheap" store for a couple of dollars.

The next item that we'll need is a bottle of 70% strength Nitric acid. This is readily obtainable from the majority of chemical supply companies which you'll have no problems in finding in your local yellow pages. A 500 ml bottle will be quite adequate. The nitric acid is used to dissolve the silver and any other contaminating metals in the silver such as copper, etc. We need to eventually remove the contaminants leaving behind pure silver for final processing.

26

SILVER

Easy steps to SILVER REFINING at home

At this point, it's time for another WARNING reminder, so PLEASE PAY ATTENTION! Nitric and hydrochloric acids, by their nature are powerful corrosive acids and skin contact should be avoided. When working with them, you should ALWAYS be wearing those disposable plastic gloves that we purchased earlier. Eye protection would also be advisable. Simple care, caution and common sense is all that's needed and you'll be perfectly safe. In all the years that I've been refining silver and gold for a hobby and using nitric and hydrochloric acids, not once has there been an issue or concern. If any is spilled on a surface, just immediately rinse off with plenty of plain, clean water. Also, small quantities of nitrogen dioxide gas is produced so ALWAYS do the refining outside in the OPEN AIR. Be careful and be safe! But let me reiterate one more time ... if you exercise common sense and basic care, this entire procedure is perfectly safe. Again, I've been doing this for quite a few years with NO mishaps whatsoever.

PROCESS THE SILVER REFINING ONLY OUTDOOR WITH HANDS AND EYE PROTECTION !!! 27

SILVER

Easy steps to SILVER REFINING at home

And to complete your refining kit, we need someway of melting the raw gold into the shiny metal that people have lusted after for millenia. Thankfully, all you need to do is head to the nearest hardware store and get something along the lines of this badboy ... a propane powered torch. This is the one I use because it has a self-igniting switch built in, so no need to use matches to get it going. Also has a rotary button to control the strength of the flame. No problems whatsoever in finding one as they're a common handyman item and it easily melts silver and gold.

Well, thats it ... that's all the simple equipment that you need to start producing your very own 99.9% pure silver bullion and then watching it appreciate over time ! And as you can see, all of it is extremely

easy to find. 28

SILVER

Easy steps to SILVER REFINING at home

11. Where to find silver scrap As for the material containing silver that will be processed, sure you could use old bits of silver jewelry or anything else that you've got lying around with a reasonable silver content. But personally, I found the simplest way to get all my "raw silver items" is in the form of old coins containing silver and purchased on eBay. Quite often you can get some really good deals. As an example, last week I purchased a half kilo of out of circulation Australian sixpence coins dating back to the 40's, 50's and 60's. By themselves as coins, they're worth next to nothing and don't have much intrinsic value. But each one of the coins has a 50% silver / 50% copper makeup that makes them a perfect source of silver. Sure beats trying to dig it out of the ground the hard way.

For the purpose of this book, lets process 2 of those coins and recover the pure silver from them. The coins weigh in total 6 gms but because they're a 50/50 mix of silver/copper, the actual amount of silver works out to be 3 gms. 29

SILVER

Easy steps to SILVER REFINING at home

12. Silver Refining Process To recover the silver component, we need to completely dissolve the 2 coins in a 50/50 mixture of nitric acid and water. The amount of nitric acid required will be approximately 17mls mixed with approximately 17 mls of water. Using the plastic pipette, the water is added first followed by the nitric acid (pic. 1).

(pic. 1)

Almost immediately, you'll see a bubbling reaction begin and the liquid start to change colour from clear to a very pretty blue shade. This blue colour is due to the copper in the coins reacting with the nitric acid to produce copper nitrate. Also, brown vapours of nitrogen dioxide will also form. WARNING Nitrogen dioxide is a NASTY, NASTY, NASTY gas and under no circumstances should you breathe it in. As mentioned earlier, do all this refining in the open air and you'll be perfectly ok (pic. 2).

(pic. 2)

30

SILVER

Easy steps to SILVER REFINING at home

To speed up the reaction, we can place the glass tube into a bath of boiling hot water. As the bath water cools, replace with fresh, boiling water (pic. 3).

(pic. 3)

Now, we sit back and let the reaction continue until both coins have been completely dissolved leaving behind just a brilliant blue liquid (pic. 4).

(pic. 4)

31

SILVER

Easy steps to SILVER REFINING at home

When the coins are completely dissolved, we need to dilute this blue liquid a bit so add an equal volume of water. Next, we need to remove any sediment by pouring this blue liquid through a filter into the 2nd of our glass jars. Here's how to create a suitable filter using one of the coffee filters (pic. 5): 1. Use a round lid to mark out a circular pattern on the filter. 2. Cut out the circular shape. 3. Fold the circular filter in half ... then fold in half again. 4. Carefully open up the filter and you'll find it should fit easily into the plastic funnel.

(pic. 5)

32

SILVER

Easy steps to SILVER REFINING at home

Place the funnel and filter into the opening of the 2nd (empty) glass jar and carefully pour the blue liquid into the funnel, allowing it to drip through (pic. 6).

(pic. 6)

We want to get every last bit of silver so once the liquid has finished running through the filter paper, use the plastic water spray bottle and spray the inside surface of the filter to ensure that all the blue solution has passed through the filter. So here we have a jar containing the filtered blue liquid with all our silver dissolved in it. But how do we get the liquid to release the dissolved silver back as a solid material ? Well, it just so happens that when a piece of solid copper is placed into the blue liquid, copper atoms in the solid copper and silver atoms in the blue liquid immediately start to exchange places. The solid copper begins to slowly dissolve and a grey, foam-like material begins to appear and fall to the bottom of the glass tube. This grey material is pure silver ! A small copper cylinder would do the job nicely but for our purposes, I'm simply going to use an old electrical power cable like the one that plugs into a computer or a kettle, etc (see pic. 7 - next page) and strip out one of the copper wires. Then I'll wind the copper wire around a pencil to create a rough helix shape. 33

SILVER

Easy steps to SILVER REFINING at home

Take this piece of copper wire and drop it into the glass jar containing the filtered blue liquid (pic. 8).

(pic. 7)

Within seconds, you should see a grey, foam-like material begin to coat the wire. When it gets heavy enough, it will detach from the wire and fall to the bottom of the jar and more will start to form. Otherwise a slight shake of the jar should be sufficient to dislodge it (pic. 9). (pic. 8)

(pic. 9)

34

SILVER

Easy steps to SILVER REFINING at home

If the copper wires dissolves completely, then add another similar piece of copper wire and repeat until there is no further grey material visible on the wire. This means that virtually all the silver has been removed from the blue solution and should now be at the bottom of the glass jar in the form of a grey sediment (pic. 10). Now we're going to "wash" the grey material to remove all traces of remaining blue liquid. We'll prepare another filter as we did before and fit it into the plastic funnel. Now the funnel is placed into the original glass jar that we dissolved the coins in and very slowly and carefully, the blue liquid and grey sediment is poured into the funnel. We want to let the filter catch every last bit of grey sediment.

(pic. 10)

When done, the water spray bottle will be used to spray the grey sediment in the filter until the water coming out of the bottom of the funnel is clear. All of the liquid in the glass jar can now be tipped into a bucket, diluted with lots of water and then can be safely discarded by pouring down the sink drain ... no damage will occur. 35

SILVER

Easy steps to SILVER REFINING at home

The filter is removed from the funnel, opened out carefully so it's flat ... then left until the grey material has completely dried (pic. 11).

(pic. 11)

This grey material is our "raw" 99.9% pure silver ... ready for the final step to change it back into that nice shiny silver metal.

36

SILVER

Easy steps to SILVER REFINING at home

13. Melting the SILVER Now that we've finally got our virtually pure silver powder we're going to make a silver "button". Normally when melting precious metals such as silver and gold, a proper crucible made of heat resistant material is used. Such a material is designed to withstand the approximate 1000C temperature required to melt silver and gold. Place the powder in a new clean crucible, or one that had been used only for melting pure silver and melting with the propane torch starting from the edges. Because the powder is fine, we'll start with a low flame to prevent the pressure of the flame scattering (and losing !) your hard work. Once the powder has started to combine together, the flame is turned up high and melting begins. We do a small quantity at a time as it takes less time to melt and once melted, we continue adding additional small quantities and re-melt. This continues until all the powder has been used.

And we're left holding a "button" of 99.9% pure silver to be added with the rest of our "long term investment" portfolio of silver "buttons".

37

SILVER

Easy steps to SILVER REFINING at home

14. Summary Summarized, the process is simply: 1. Dissolve the scrap silver completely in nitric acid. 2. Filter the resulting blue solution to remove impurities. 3. Use a piece of copper to "drop" the silver as a grey powder. 4. Melt the grey powder back into metallic silver.

38

Good luck to those of you thinking of giving a try!

ISBN 973-8394-17-1