Melting silver

Hi all.

I have some silver scrap of various purifies that I want to melt. I have access to oxy so no drama with the temp.

Problem is that the scrap is contaminated with plastic and wood dust. I tried to burn it off but this leaves ash. Any ideas to just get a clean silver alloy melt?

I have searched online but I can only find articles on refining with chemicals, not what I want.

Many thanks

 

I've believe that adding borax helps with this.

 

Thank you both

 

Borax will take care of the ash - it acts as a flux.
If you want to refine Ag purity, you will need nitric acid.

 

Thanks

Yeah not interested in refining. Just in melting what I have and removing particle contamination.

 

Yup Borax.
Many youtuber recommend using a pinch of borax, but in your case add generous amount of Borax until it completely covers the silver.

A pinch of borax is fine if you basically have pure metal or alloy but in your case with lots of containment dont be shy. Borax is cheap.
But to account for the excess borax, carefully pour some of the borax into a scrap metal bucket/plate/container etc which you should have ready on the work bench.

When enough borax is pour off bring the silver back to temperature than pour into the mold.

 

whilst borax will float to the top you can't actually pour borax out before metal, as your pouring the metal always comes out first because it's heavy.
i'd melt, pour, chip off the borax off the top and melt again, then you've just got clean silver and borax is not require then.

 

Thank you. Damn molten silver looks pretty.

From now I am going to seperate my off cuts into different levels of purity. 50% 60% Sterling etc.

I have another question. Hall mark stamps are readily available on the internet to purchase. But do you, technically, need a licence to use them?

Could I melt and pour what is marked as. 925 and then remark it?

And what stops someone stamping any silver looking alloy?

Hope this makes sense.

 

And what stops someone stamping any silver looking alloy?

Nothing! But on selling technically you can be done for fraud.

 

Thanks. This is entirely not my intention just to be clear. I was merely wondering how it is governed.