Wednesday, March 25, 2015

first melt

Melted down 12 salad forks today.  Yield was 465 grams of sterling silver nuggets...enough to make 32 half ounce coins.  I chop up the flatware and melt it like this to burn off any residual grime.  The nuggets soak in a warm acid "pickle" for a couple of hours to clean off the firescale.  Dry sodium hydrogen sulfate is mixed with water releasing a mild sulfuric acid.  Firescale is cupric oxide - stains left by the copper that is in sterling silver as it reacts with oxygen at high temperature.  79,85,51,0,W

7 comments:

Steve said...

You're starting to remind me of a guy named Walter White.

HordeHey said...

very cool. I was checking out this crafting site and came across this home made electric arc furnace.

Got me think in of you melting stuffs.

heres the link maybe not for this but lotta cool things

http://craftersu.com/video/processes/casting/metals-casting/make-your-own-arc-furnace-diy-craftersu/

I've missed the previous coinage hopefully I can get in on this round.

Looking forward to the finished product

Unknown said...

Very interesting.

Margery Billd said...

Yep. Lotta work, patience, and talent. More power to you.

KW said...

Yep... This is pretty darn cool. I too have missed out on previous coinage. Hope to get my name in the hat for a couple this time around.

ken walker said...

would like to get my name inline for a couple of the finished coins
ken walker

Unknown said...

I would like to aquire a coin also. Would you accept three salad forks for one coin ?