How To Recover Silver From Electrical Contacts

Fever said:

Thanks for the great info Harold!

When you lot say that yous doubt they are but plated, do you remember they may be solid? There are no "tabs" or "discs" of soldered-on contacts with these. They are solid through and through. That's why I thought they might be solid silver. These are WW2-era contacts, and U.s. Military machine at that. They rarely spared any expense.

Considering the era, yous may be correct. I think making some argent contacts from money silver equally a young amateur when I worked in the missile industry. All of my experience with contacts came in the eighty'southward and early xc's, all from industrial fleck. One salvage yard used to send me contacts to refine on a somewhat regular basis. In that case, they were always soldered to a base piece, well-nigh always pure copper, and nearly half the time silverish plated after assembly. Makes them look better later the soldering performance.

And then the reverse electroplate technique that works and so well for Lazersteve would likewise work well if these were indeed silver plated? No differences in the chemicals/ratios/materials? How well-nigh differences in the reaction itself? Would it stop fizzing when the plating is stripped, as in Steve's vids?

Because I rarely processed electronic scrap, and almost never anything plated, I am not wise in the mode of running a stripping prison cell such as these. I exercise happen to have the patent number, thanks to another contributor, and it details the matters of importance. I highly recommend yous read the original patent, number 2185858, issued in 1940 to S.R. Mason. It will help you lot understand the parameters, and what to expect. Also, the correspondent has given some excellent information regards running these cells. so combined with Steve'southward guidance, you lot should come up to a firm agreement of how to get about stripping silver. I'thou sorry I don't have the proper thread in mind, but look for posts by goldsilverpro. He'southward very experienced in this field and has posted some bang-up information. Unlike the majority of united states hither, he has worked in the refining industry since a immature man, and he'southward no kid! Meliorate yet, he'due south helpful, dissimilar others that claim to have experience.

As well, which i of these things is a "Buss"? Equally I mentioned, there are no soldered-on tabs or anything else.

It'southward entirely possible that there is no copper involved. The buss would be the distribution portion of the excursion, to which the contact was attached. In this instance, you may exist correct that it is just a solid piece of silvery simply your comments, below are what I'd recommend:

I think I'll cut one of these in half on my band saw and see if they are indeed plated or not. I'll permit y'all all know, then hopefully I tin can go on to refine these into high-grade silvery.

Practise that, then touch the cut faces with a drop of nitric. If they're silver, you won't get a color reaction, although the silver itself will take on a sort of foam colour after a moment or ii. Allowed to sit long enough, and the silvery is an alloy of copper, you'll somewhen run into a little blue, also. If they're copper, or a low-cal yellow allow, you'll get a copper (blue) reaction from the acid, nearly immediately. I mention this considering a saw cut can exist deceiving. The soft surface metallic is often dragged across the face of the cut, disguising the base metallic.

Are you familiar with the solution that is used to examination for the presence of silver? It's really piece of cake to make, and easier to use. A drop, practical by a examination bottle with a dobber, instantly turns blood red on silver------and just silver. If you'd like the information needed to make the solution, delight ask and I'll try to observe my notes. You lot'll need some reagent nitric, distilled water and potassium dichromate. Brand a couple fluid ounces and you'll accept plenty to last y'all for a couple years, possibly more than. You lot tin can buy a kit from jewelry supply houses, everything but the nitric, and depending on the kit called, you may also go test needles and a touch stone for determining the purity of karat gold.

Harold

Source: https://goldrefiningforum.com/threads/202/

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