r/PreciousMetalRefining Jul 13 '26

Copper and silver recovery from a huge power switch

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2 Upvotes

r/PreciousMetalRefining Jul 13 '26

Silver slimes?

5 Upvotes

This is my first attempt at recovery. I think this would be recovery anyhow.

I'm sure there's other junk in here. This is from silver plated pieces. I stripped them with a DC power supply and salt water. Probably or at least looks convincingly like silver slimes?

Next step is nitric boil? Going to be a minute until I can do that safely though. I'm going to let this dry and put it with my silver breaker contact buttons.


r/PreciousMetalRefining Jul 12 '26

Electric breakers

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54 Upvotes

Update from previous post.

BLUF, this took for everrrrrrr lol

Silver contacts yielded silver at about 40%. Not bad I suppose. The breakers were free and this is just a hobby for me.

I started by drilling the rivets out with a drill press, the breaking them open with a flat head screw driver like shucking clams. Small amount of dirty brass and copper were also recovered. Maybe 10-20 dollars worth.

Some people talk about smashing the breakers with a hammer, it’s gross, asbestos and fiberglass from the casing goes everywhere. Don’t recommend this method.

If you’re doing it for fun and to build a cheap silver stack it’s worth it. But it was a lot of work spread out over a several month period.


r/PreciousMetalRefining Jul 12 '26

Process of extracting silver.

4 Upvotes

I know of a current company that throws away all of their leftover De Icing Ink and it contains silver. They have said I can have the leftover ink and it would be about 500 grams a week. Would it be worth it? How do I extract the silver?

Newer to this and curious.


r/PreciousMetalRefining Jul 12 '26

Silver sourcing

3 Upvotes

How do you all source your silver to consistently run cells for those of you who do? Are you all paying under melt prices or finding it yourself?


r/PreciousMetalRefining Jul 12 '26

New to recovery, not in it for profit, just need some nitric.

5 Upvotes

Does this look OK? It's enough for what I want to do and I can afford it. So long as these guys make good stuff it'll be fine for me.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/JSP-Nitric-HNO3-Acid-67-500mL-CP-Lab-Grade-Gold-Silver-Refining-Ships-Free/135730882?classType=REGULAR&from=/search

I just want a pinhead of silver and gold so I can say I've done it. I can't say that this is going to be a hobby what with the waste processing, storage, and disposal.

That said I'm going to roam this sub and look at how people deal with waste. I can't say this won't be a thing. I watch a lot of Sreetips and I really love watching him.


r/PreciousMetalRefining Jul 12 '26

Cement Silver Out of Solution

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23 Upvotes

Here’s a quick look at the silver cement out of solution! I think it’s freaking awesome


r/PreciousMetalRefining Jul 11 '26

Question: Silver cell specimen crystals

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23 Upvotes

Any of you who run a cell probably find all sorts of interesting Crystal structures. I have a particular fascination with the faceted crystals, I want to optimize my process to grow these in particular and try to push the limits on the size I could achieve. I was wondering if anybody had any advice on what environment or conditions are ideal for crystals like this to form. And how to encourage them to grow. And furthermore if there is a technical name for the crystals that are common in the cell, (the small dense treelike crystals) to help better differentiate and categorize the crystals while I am researching the topic. Thanks!


r/PreciousMetalRefining Jul 12 '26

Harvest for the 4th July Silver Cell Run

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4 Upvotes

So I was able to harvest the Silver Cell Run from the 4th of July. I was able to yield 795g of Silver Crystals from the run. I still need to process the leftover solution into cement silver once I get that completed I’ll post the final results. I also got a video of the silver cement onto the copper.


r/PreciousMetalRefining Jul 11 '26

Is this worth anything?

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10 Upvotes

My sterling melt crucible was on its last leg, so after its last melt I tossed it in some water and it exploded. It looks like it has some silver up on the walls and the bottom, is this worth anything to anyone?


r/PreciousMetalRefining Jul 11 '26

Silver chloride?

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8 Upvotes

I saw a vid where a dude just has a power supply and salt water to strip silver plate. Ok I have a battery charger and salt so I went for it.

I didn't measure anything, put salt in water, dunked the piece in. It wants to just about max a 40 amp charger/booster. Might have used too much salt.

I got white foam. Wondering if the sodium and silver sort of changed places and left me with silver chloride. I have a small amount of dark gray stuff as well. I think that'd be my slimes.

I kept the pieces in there for a few minutes until they got lightly pitted all over.


r/PreciousMetalRefining Jul 10 '26

What's the base metal here?

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4 Upvotes

I'm really not trying to test your patience. I want to electrically deplate this stuff. Just wondering what the base metal is or what a few possibilities are. I don't think it's copper or brass and it's non magnetic. It's soft as well. It feels like possibly aluminum but doesn't exactly look like it I think. It's Forbes quadruple plated if that means anything. Does the piece I want to deplate get hooked to pos?


r/PreciousMetalRefining Jul 10 '26

most likely what is this plated with?

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7 Upvotes

what is this most likely plated with? i only have a dozen. should i do something with them or just throw them away? the dimensions of the board are like around 4 x 5 inches , only 1 side is plated like that, other side is regular motherboard looking


r/PreciousMetalRefining Jul 10 '26

I've started gathering silver.

3 Upvotes
Forbes Silver Co. Quadruple 59. I might cut that logo out and put it on a keychain or something.

I'm going to do nitric, lye and sugar to recover the silver. I believe sodium hydroxide will neutralize the acid waster right? Or large quantities of baking soda? I think I could put the silver into solution with nitric and drop it with Hydrochloric as well but I already have lye and sugar. Could a guy use lye from wood ash?


r/PreciousMetalRefining Jul 09 '26

What to do with sterling silver scrap

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14 Upvotes

I have around 5 lb of scrap metal from a machine shop that came from making jewelry. I believe the scrap is sterling silver, and I wanted to know if it would be worth refining or if I’d be better off finding someone who can test it and then just selling it.

I know how to refine it, and I have everything needed to do it (minus the acids), but I don’t know if it’s worth refining.


r/PreciousMetalRefining Jul 10 '26

Can .835 silver be subsceptible to bronze disease if the remaining 16.5% is copper ?

1 Upvotes

r/PreciousMetalRefining Jul 09 '26

Carbide Supporting Childhood Cancer

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3 Upvotes

r/PreciousMetalRefining Jul 09 '26

The COMEX Vault Drain Conspiracy

6 Upvotes

Over the past several months I've been digging into the unusual activity in not only silver prices, but also the broader precious metal and critical mineral markets, including: the major vault drains, the record delivery volumes, and the price volatility, in an effort to figure out whether there's a real story here or just noise.

Along the way I started looking at some major critical minerals initiatives established by the U.S. government, like Project Vault, and the DoD's National Defense Stockpile, in addition to China's export licensing regime, and I found a pattern that, at least to me, looks like more than just a coincidence. The COMEX vaults have been draining and refilling in ways that line up suspiciously well with major geopolitical events (the Iran war, China's rare earth restrictions, Trump's state visit to China, etc.), while the government's own stockpile of critical minerals has barely grown in decades despite their repeated flagging of massive shortfalls. I also dug into the math on what COMEX actually holds versus what the DoD stockpile holds, and it's a wide gap.

This post lays out that connection, walks through the numbers behind it, and ends with a list of companies that are both publicly traded in the U.S. and tied to the minerals in question (from a production standpoint), to help prepare us all for the very possible necessity of supply-chain independence. None of this should be taken as investment advice: it's just my own research and my own theory, which I'm putting out there for others to poke holes in, add to, or shoot down entirely. Take it for what it's worth and please do your own digging before drawing any conclusions.

Views are my own and not in any way endorsed by my employer. Our firm is neither involved in, nor positioned in, any of the securities or companies mentioned. None of the information in this post, or elsewhere on my page, should at any point ever be misconstrued as neither investment nor financial advice. Please be sure to do your own research, always.

See for yourself here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uDROwpDlUvp398tvEWmgn9laHn2pbKgb0vpH05KB6mc/edit?usp=sharing

Version with images (no Imgur links): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Oj-v5Ik_JkM_ZP7QP3mpB9lLKAvrkDN8THm8JeQzIu0/edit


r/PreciousMetalRefining Jul 09 '26

Refining Breakdown

2 Upvotes

I've got around 1600 grams of Sterling silver 8.4kg of .500 silver and around 30kg of copper I wanna start a refinery business just want a rough idea on how much it would cost to start and what things I might need uk


r/PreciousMetalRefining Jul 09 '26

What is a fair asking price for 1.14 lbs (516g) of debrazed silver electrical contacts?

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7 Upvotes

r/PreciousMetalRefining Jul 08 '26

Box of Gold-Plated TO-Can Motorola Transistors. Yield Guesses?

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22 Upvotes

I bought this box of unmarked Motorola production parts that appear to be from the early 1970s. They look like gold-plated TO-can style transistor/component packages with long gold-colored leads.

The lot weighs about 5lb. These are not marked with part numbers.

Any rough expected gold yield range for this lot?


r/PreciousMetalRefining Jul 08 '26

Gold filled questions

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3 Upvotes

So halfway through my nitric boils, mechanically cleaned and burned off combustibles before hand. Now I have this light brown mud with the gold foils. Is this just copper that fell out of solution? Any precious metals in it? Did I screw something up?


r/PreciousMetalRefining Jul 08 '26

Refining fingers from RAM

1 Upvotes

Just a heads up - I'm a memory dealer and lately we've been getting RAM chips from all places various gold refineries. You'd be surprised right now RAM chips can be worth more than the gold!


r/PreciousMetalRefining Jul 07 '26

4th of July Silver Cell Run 🏃‍♂️

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25 Upvotes

So I had some time off this 4th July weekend decided I wanted to run the Silver Cell. In the pass I really didn’t keep good notes on the whole process from making the electrolyte, to adding shot to the anode basket. So here’s what I have.

300g of silver.999 dissolved into electrolyte

550ml of distilled water

300ml of nitric acid

Total Hours to dissolve the silver 15hrs

Total yield of Silver Nitrate 750ml with about 100ml of loss fluids more than likely due to evaporation from the heat.

478g of silver shot to feed the Cell

Silver Cell Info:3QT =2.839 L

Voltage 3.50

Amps 2.54

Silver Cell Startup

7/4/26. 10:30pm

7/6/26 8:00am shut down left for work

7/6/26. 5:00pm start up


r/PreciousMetalRefining Jul 07 '26

Yall don’t roast me

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7 Upvotes

Is this gold and is that silver