[Jewelry making - Article 00049] - Re: [Orchid] Retrieving silver from a nitric acid bath

[hans]

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>     Finally I would ask myself if it is worth the effort. How many
>     milligrams of silver are in solution? Let's imagine that is 1000mg,
>     and let's say for the sake of argument that silver is costing
>     around $7.00 for 31 grams. All your effort would yield about $0.23.
>     I suspect that you will spend more than that to neutralize the
>     pickle.

Hi

    In the old days, in the eighties in South Africa, one of the main
    occupations of a self-employed goldsmith was to stay one jump ahead
    of the gold cops. I don't know what the current situation is now, but
    then they used to harass you endlessly. Filling in a stupid register
    EVERYTIME one melted, weighing all your different golds at the end of
    each day. Three warnings if your register was not up to date and then
    a fine and possible jail.---because of your own gold. Having to get a
    bank guaranteed cheque before you could buy gold, (no cash allowed)
    and then being escorted into the Mint by an armed guard, to buy your
    measly 30grams of fine. I always laughed at the irony-- the Mint
    makes the money, but you got to bring a bank guaranteed cheque to buy
    there. Made life a real hassle and that wasn't the endless surprise
    inspections of your records, safe or invoice books. I won't even talk
    about the 35% customs and excise duty that was enforced by the demons
    of hell in another one of Satan's departments. There were many times
    when Sgt. De Beer (his real name) insolently flicked his fat ugly
    thumb through my register, his red alcohol flushed face becoming
    redder and redder because of some small mistake. At those times my
    thoughts were anything but Christian. 

    Anyway, I am coming to the point. 

    I used to put all my yellow gold scrap, which consisted of 9ct and
    18ct " old gold" and melt 5 times the weight of copper with it. So
    100grams gold became 500grams gold/copper. Then I used to roll it out
    into strips (which would supply me with my monthly gym work-out)
    After that, I would dump the strips into concentrated Nitric acid.
    This was done at home and at night, because of Satan's sidekick, Sgt.
    de Beer. After the reaction was finished I would be left with what
    looks exactly likes coffee grounds. Dark brown and powdery. I used to
    store small amounts in a Nescafe coffee jar, for workshop use. The
    balance would be stored openly in the copper/gold form in my
    workshop. They cops never did figure it out. It looks just like
    copper. Or coffee-- and yes, before you ask, one of my workshop girls
    did use it to make coffee once, but after she was told that that's
    the boss' 'private' bottle of coffee, it was left alone. All I would
    do is take a small amount of "coffee" and mix it with boric acid,
    some saltpetre, and methylated spirits, to stop it flying around in
    the crucible. When it was melted it would be regarded as 23c.t gold
    and I would alloy it down to the proper caratage I needed. I would
    also make my own solders from that fine gold, because the cops had
    figured if you buy a lot of solder under permit and not much fine
    gold, something did not balance. And 'knock knock", they would be on
    your doorstep. I once tried to remove the silver out of the expended
    nitric by adding table salt and the drying the white gunk that forms.
    And them melting it down. Don't bother. Was a nightmare, thick clouds
    of awful white smoke and a tiny silver ball left. I used more oxygen
    and gas and time than the silver was worth. If memory serves me
    correctly, the white gunk also went grey where light fell on it and
    stayed white in darkness. Like photo stuff. 

Hans Meevis
http://www.meevis.com 

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