Melting silver plate off of flatware

[No gold in NY]

I have access to a bunch of old flatware from an old barn loft. Would melting the silver off be worth while? There would also be gain from the base metal. Brass or copper. Any thoughts?

 

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[Al D]

I have access to a bunch of old flatware from an old barn loft. Would melting the silver off be worth while? There would also be gain from the base metal. Brass or copper. Any thoughts?

You would be better off using the electrolysis method

 

[Red-Coat]

There's some good discussion here:

https://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=15320

The general consensus is that it's theoretically possible, providing you're sure that the underlying base metal has a melting point which is sufficiently higher than that of silver. That will be a variable and you may only discover by experimentation. However, even if the relative melting points are sufficiently different and you have good control of the heat source to prevent overheating, the coating on plate is usually so thin that the molten silver won't 'bead up' in sufficiently large droplets to drip off the flatware (shaking may help a bit); you may need to let it cool and then tediously scrape the tiny solidified beads off the surface and will likely get some of the base metal along with the scrapings. Even then, surface tension effects on the molten silver may mean you don't recover more than about half of what was a thin coating to begin with. It's not likely to be an economically efficient process and certainly not a time-efficient one.

 

[Al D]

Another point to consider is that the thickness of the silver is likely insufficient to allow you to remove it even when you reach the melt point of silver, it will most likely act as a solder and remain stuck to the base metal.
a reverse electroplating method is the only way to remove it, and it will probably not be cost effective to do so.

 

[No gold in NY]

Good thoughts guys. Going to leave it in the barn.

 

[RTR]

Might be worth doing sometime in the future,but not at $27.00 per oz.

 

[pepperj]

Good thoughts guys. Going to leave it in the barn.

How much is there in the barn?
Should post up a picture of the maker/pattern.
Many patterns from different makers have value to them as fillers to the canteen silverware sets.
Even in scrap value one would get $$$ for the plated brass.

 

[Duckshot]

The fact of the matter is that liquid metals are the best solvents of other metals. If you try to melt silver off of copper all you will end up with is an alloy of silver and copper. Silver has a slightly lower melting point than copper, but when the silver melts it will actually dissolve the copper at lower temperature than the melting point of copper. Since the silver plating is so thin your result will probably be in the area of >99% copper that is merely contaminated with traces of silver. AlanM and Red-Coat give the correct method- electrolysis.

Failing electrolysis, you might try to scrape the silver off with a steel blade, or buff it off and collect the fillings, but it you still won't get a result that silver test acid might turn red unless you can refine the silver-copper filings. The "scraping it off" method simply isn't worth the energy expended. Too much time and effort.

 

[Doubter in MD]

There's some good discussion here:

https://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=15320

The general consensus is that it's theoretically possible, providing you're sure that the underlying base metal has a melting point which is sufficiently higher than that of silver. That will be a variable and you may only discover by experimentation. However, even if the relative melting points are sufficiently different and you have good control of the heat source to prevent overheating, the coating on plate is usually so thin that the molten silver won't 'bead up' in sufficiently large droplets to drip off the flatware (shaking may help a bit); you may need to let it cool and then tediously scrape the tiny solidified beads off the surface and will likely get some of the base metal along with the scrapings. Even then, surface tension effects on the molten silver may mean you don't recover more than about half of what was a thin coating to begin with. It's not likely to be an economically efficient process and certainly not a time-efficient one.

Who the hell are you? Are you the guy that Dos Equis based their "Most Interesting Man in the World" campaign on? You seem to know something about everything! Don't take that the wrong way. I'm actually a little in awe of you. Your feedback is always interesting, well thought out, and eloquently imparted.

Kudos to you, Mr. Coat. I tip my cap to you.

 

[Red-Coat]

Who the hell are you? Are you the guy that Dos Equis based their "Most Interesting Man in the World" on? You seem to know something about everything! Don't take that the wrong way. I'm actually a little in awe of you. Your feedback is always interesting, well thought out, and eloquently imparted.

Kudos to you, Mr. Coat. I tip my cap to you.

Well thanks (I think LOL)!




I do at least know something about this. Although I’ve never tried to recover silver this way, I have been silversmithing for some years now and once tried to do a repair job on something I thought was solid silver, but turned out to be plate.

What happened is that the silver coating did bead up in a similar way to silver solder, but the beads were tiny and there wasn’t enough of it to flow in the way that silver-solder does when you flood a joint with it. One thing to know about silver-soldering is that you can’t ‘push’ silver solder with a torch. Counter-intuitively you have to ‘pull’ it along a heat gradient and it will flow from the coolest region to the hottest region where you’re playing the torch. That might work with a silver coating but only if there is enough of it, and I don’t think silverplate will give up its coating in sufficient quantity for that to happen.

 

[No gold in NY]

How much is there in the barn?
Should post up a picture of the maker/pattern.
Many patterns from different makers have value to them as fillers to the canteen silverware sets.
Even in scrap value one would get $$$ for the plated brass.

The guy that stashed the stuff in the barn ran an auction house. Anything that didn't sell got put in the barn loft. I have found the flatware here and there in the barn in many boxes. I would say there are many handfulls of it in there.

 

[whisperer]

“Many handfuls” is likely best for scrap of the base metals. “Many full 5gal buckets” to me would be worth figuring out a way to do it, probably the correct acid.

 

[galenrog]

Red-Coat gave an excellent summary of the thread he linked to.

There are several threads on Gold Refining Forum regarding different methods to recover silver from plated items. Some work well. Some do not. Thus far, in my opinion, none are cost effective.

You might also want to look at the various plating forums. Someone on one of those forums may have posted a method that could be useful. I have glanced at a few of these forums over the years, but not enough to make a suggestion as to which may useful in this area.

Personally, I would inventory the lot. Some pieces may be appropriate as aftermarket replacements. Others may not. Those not, I would relegate to the scrap pile, after determining the underlying base metal. Dirty copper is more valuable than dirty brass or dirty zinc.

 

[Al D]

Here is an idea I have yet to try, it may work and it may not.
use a fine sand blaster to remove the silver, then treat the sand with a Nitric acid to separate the silver from the sand.
or which ever process you prefer.
I have been contemplating this method for my electronic scrap gold.
would love to hear other opinions about it.

 

[No gold in NY]

Here is an idea I have yet to try, it may work and it may not.
use a fine sand blaster to remove the silver, then treat the sand with a Nitric acid to separate the silver from the sand.
or which ever process you prefer.
I have been contemplating this method for my electronic scrap gold.
would love to hear other opinions about it.

Thanks Alan, but after weighing all the options presented, I think if I do anything it will be to hit each piece with the grinder and drop them into the dirty copper or brass bucket.

 

[galenrog]

Here is an idea I have yet to try, it may work and it may not.
use a fine sand blaster to remove the silver, then treat the sand with a Nitric acid to separate the silver from the sand.
or which ever process you prefer.
I have been contemplating this method for my electronic scrap gold.
would love to hear other opinions about it.

I know of a few people who have tried similar methods. The primary reason for it not being particularly effective is the time involved. Secondary was the amount of base metals put in the mix by the abrasives. Any tin in the base metal alloy would create metastannic acid once you add nitric acid. You do not want that.

Even if there is no tin in the base metal alloy, nitric acid would attack base metals first, along with any material in the abrasives that are not inert in nitric. Silver may be the last metal dissolved into solution. All in all, a very poor method.

If you do gold refining, you can use silver plated copper for inquarting.

Have fun. Time for more coffee.

 

[Al D]

Thank you for your input Galenrog....

 

[pepperj]

Here is an idea I have yet to try, it may work and it may not.
use a fine sand blaster to remove the silver, then treat the sand with a Nitric acid to separate the silver from the sand.
or which ever process you prefer.
I have been contemplating this method for my electronic scrap gold.
would love to hear other opinions about it.

There was a very knowledgeable member that surpassed anything I knew about recovery of PMs from electronic scrap.
Just follow some of the postings and his online info. I'd give it a . I wish I'd known some of it 25-30yrs ago when scrapping out 50micron military scrap.
http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/scrap-metals/558298-where-s-gold-part-1-a.html

 

[Argentium]

With sterling silver as the plating ,on the quantity
you are dealing with - I don't see how this will be worth your time and effort. If you were already set up for large scale electrolysis , or a nitric acid reduction /refinery , and you were dealing with a ton of this plate , I would be more optimistic !