Experiment day! Melting down sterling silver...making ingots! & a little trash picking too!

hey everybody so I am gonna go try to make the silver bars today it's nice and it's a nice day but on my way to the warehouse somebody was throwing out this amazing oriental wooden screen definitely uh one of the nicer trash picks I've and I mean I got the dumpster at the house and everything almost makes me want to go drive around and see what else is out there it's a three panel three panel screen all wood it's just really really cool it's got these peacocks where Phoenix is on it again you never know what you're gonna find in the trash but uh next stop is the warehouse I'll take this guy out and it's just like finding a hundred dollars on the curb all right I can't believe it's here it's crazy it just barely fit so I guess it was meant to be all right we'll see how this is my first time using this furnace I've never never made a silver bar so they'll be interesting I had to drive around after finding that because I figured nobody was out here looking and I just found a Dyson looks like the nice thing is they put all the attachments and the attachments are worth good money let's just make sure nobody cut the cord I think it's let's see I'm not seeing it maybe they cut the cord but I know the attachments I know this dust collector just pieced out this vacuum cleaner yeah here see somebody drove by cut the cord off of a $20 $30 vacuum cleaner at the flea market but online I'd say this is about a $50 part out but it's a shame they cut the cord maybe I'll just take the mmm this and leave the rest because the arm here has a little break makes it a hard hard to sell but definitely we'll be able to sell these all right just ahead of the trashman so made it to the warehouse I guess the first thing I have to do is open up the furnace actually kind of interested to see what what I need to use it I think all the parts like the tongs and everything come with it this is the furnace I got a 2 kilo says for gold melting but we're gonna use it for silver and but it comes with a graphite crucible this this is what will pull the crucible out of the furnace it's actually got some decent tension but this is probably a crucible itself let's make sure it's not broken before we start it looks pretty good it's definitely you can fit a lot of silver or imagine if that was all gold fill that up but so basically this will inset into that thing right there and then these go right like that you kind of want to have the poorer part and we'll be able to pour it right in alright I'm gonna get this all set up I was just worried about the crucible if that was cracked we wouldn't have been able to to do anything today so alright see you as soon as I get this set up so I have it kind of setup set for 1100 degrees but I don't know if we need all that for the silver might be able to lower it just a little I put the crucible in there it's got a fire brick or ceramic inside let's see I don't feel like it's wanting to shut though why is that there we go so it has a little give have to push back on the handle in it so the next next step is I'm going to weigh out this is the scrap silver I've picked four for this I've got a lot of broken broken chains this is actually pretty good for the beads I might save that the list [Music] the one thing I'm gonna check everything for see if it's magnetic don't want to put any steel into these bricks or into these bars I think I'm gonna go for if I can get five hundred five hundred grams for I guess the first melt will be pretty good that one's actually maybe sellable put that aside to there's a lot of I always seem to find this little pieces of silver while I'm picking so it's one of those things could always get more see how much this one weighs under it you have to take that bag off I'll check everything make sure we don't have make sure I don't have any what's it called steel in in these clasps there tends to be a little steel a little steel clamp that looks like 500 but after I take that bag off it's going to be less I think I have something in my pocket on this little baggie here I have to thank everybody for checking out my eBay definitely definitely is really cool how uh how well the stuff I put on there does so thank you very much for bidding I think that's five oh five all right I've got to take off one little piece maybe this there we go 500 so we'll see after I pour the bars see if we still end up with 500 grams put all the silver back and load up that crucible alright so after going through all this with a magnet I found all the clasps were magnetic so I took those off and I had to add a couple little pieces to get back to 500 grams but I think it's a time just try to see if this will heat up I think I think it's on right now it's gonna take set seven degrees right now so it's going to take probably 15 minutes for this to heat up and until then we'll we'll wait to start putting the silver in I wonder if everything's gonna fit be interesting we going up but it is going to take about 10-15 minutes for it to hit 1100 degrees and figure out why it's still cool and I don't need gloves I'm going to try to fill up the crucible with the little bits of silver I have it'll be interesting how how much of it I can fit in while it's still still cool I have a good pair of pliers and stuff too to add more but just seemed like like the thing to do I don't think we're gonna be able to fit much more in so 79 degrees right now so sorry about how dark it is today I fit in 315 grams into the furnace right now let's see see how long that takes to get the temperature so the next thing I got is the borax I'm gonna add that once this hits temperature we're still at almost 200 degrees I have my safety glasses I'm gonna put those on now and I have gloves for when it gets hot I did buy the furnace from eBay so you never know what I mean it looks like it's working so I'm kind of excited to see if this actually works there's one other thing my friend who was pouring it's the one time you always want to preheat these uh molds I have a little torch to do that before you pour because he poured he actually poured one out he was trying to pour one ounce gold bar and when it hit the cold graphite it turned into little beads and went all over his room he was able to recover I think it was 95% of it but he still lost 5% and it took them about an hour to two hours to find all the little Gold beads that went everywhere so if I'm gonna preheat the molds and hopefully we can fit the last hundred and fifty eighty five grams into the crucible still have probably twenty minutes so it's at four twenty six the one interesting thing about this is it makes hardly any noise at all I haven't heard really even a motor turn on yet I did put on my leather I guess it's overalls or not overalls of apron or whatever to keep to keep it safe hopefully hopefully this does pretty good I got this at the flea market I actually pick up most mostly everything I got for the experiment came from the flea market or eBay so even found the borax at the market the one day I'm not sure how much I should use for this I know it's just the burn off a little bit of the probably just go for the half a teaspoon so it's at 622 degrees right now 623 I moved the scale over so that way I don't melt that and it's gonna be getting pretty close to where this silver starts to melt down I think it starts at like 750 if I remember I get a flashlight in there so what you guys can see what it looks like it's no smoke or anything it's just just real quiet it's very nice all right 6:35 so it's at 7:58 with out having gloves on I could feel the heat coming off of the side it almost feels like baking cookies and nothing's melting yet but definitely working we've got probably another couple hundred degrees to go so we're at eight hundred and fourteen degrees 15 degrees but it's now you can see the red all the way down at the bottom of that and the silvers turned like a matte color so it definitely is getting really close to to melting all right we're almost at 900 degrees 899 still no real sounds or anything from the 900 be interesting what the silver looks like it is red red red hot look at that definitely I'm surprised it hasn't melted yet but it's it's definitely on its way be be very interesting what what it comes out as I'm actually kind of excited to have a nice sized silver bar or an ingot I know the smaller ones will remelt down but I might actually save the bigger one just because it's kind of fun I still have all the silver plate silver to melt I might do that tomorrow but I will definitely show you I'm probably actually going to use that to make this right here in another video so if you guys would like to see me cast my first item I did get some casting sand in please leave me a message I'm gonna put just because these flakes will blow and keep this copper top on it this is a some brass that an artist made I just kind of like the way the drips look I sure hope it's not gold but I'm pretty sure it's brass went up 9 degrees since then alright we'll see see how it goes it's definitely kind of fun so I just opened it back up and it looks like it fell all the way down so we definitely have some malted silver all the way down at the bottom I don't know if you guys can see that down there it's probably down here we'll take this fork and it's almost the height of the fork so definitely definitely pretty cool I might have to cut the fork in half too to fit that in I'm gonna add the rest of these little pieces though just put on pair of gloves just to make it so it continues to melt then we don't have to wait as long for for everything to fit in figured I could just pour it right it right in most of the pieces think that expires see it just kind of all fits right in hopefully actually have to take off that jump ring has a piece of one piece of steel in it if they let out a lot of the heat just have that network didn't really lose too much heat it's 908 still the temperature it's definitely nothing down really fast so right at 900 degrees the silver definitely turns liquid I'm gonna put the fork right in top and see if it will it's kind of cool slowly slowly melting doesn't have the residual heat is not actually that bad but you can kind of see the bright bright orange all the way at the bottom grab my little pair of pliers once we move that work it should go right down in now it's ready to shut I'm gonna add my little bit of 4x because I would say once we hit 1,100 degrees everything will be fairly well well melted [Music] I'm just gonna add 1/2 teaspoon of borax and we will see what happens just went up to nine hundred and ten degrees it stayed at night when I added the new Silver State at 9:09 for a while but everything looks pretty flat I'm gonna give it another let I'll probably pull it out right at a thousand degrees and I'm now going to heat up my my molds remove the borax so we don't melt that there's nothing really flammable on my table right now and I do have this little bucket of water for putting the ingot in after we're done so I'm gonna start heating up the mold so I have a I have the torch and I'm gonna probably keep this for about or four minutes or so just because everything's really cold I am working outside definitely will take a minute to heat up the temperature right now is 926 on the furnace so hopefully hopefully this is a enough time to eat it up so down there it definitely looks like hot lava you can I can definitely see that the silver is molten and I have the molds heated so I'm gonna put you guys in my little thing hopefully you can see I'm pulling out the crucible it is bright bright red hot hopefully this works out a little bit too much not quite what I was hoping for for first pour it wasn't awful but you can see I definitely poured it a little too fast and let it cool for a minute I have these this pair here it's a little bit better it's a blacksmith tom and definitely kind of goop goop DUP what I'm gonna do is stick it back into the crucible and see if see if I can get it to go one more time might not I had right amount of heat I'm thinking it's probably just enough or the the big bar if I let it but if I let it get to 1,100 degrees it might might work but first attempt at least it made it back in and we are these actually worked pretty well for turning it over and probably uh from like 1910 1920 I got those at the flea market also so I'm gonna go for attempt number two shutting off my gas right now I'm just gonna try to do the one larger one larger ingot I think that's gonna fit uh the five pound or 500 grams it definitely looks a lot better more melted malted now so let's see we just have to arrange this to where we want I have a good angle to pick up and hopefully this works see how red it is it's definitely hot looks like there's still a little bit of slag in there but it's definitely better than last time I just can't decide if doesn't look like all 500 grams are in the mold I think we'll think I'll stick it back in one more time try starting to look a lot better definitely held up as one solid ingot fit right back in just have that little piece right there all right attempt number two just have to I think when I'm pouring I have to do it more steady it's just maybe I just don't have it hot enough yet all right hopefully it works this time just just heated the mold definitely is pretty cool something's up yeah I don't know don't know why it did that of course I had to have an epic fail once I was but I figured I'd show you guys how this works and I haven't quite figured it out yet you can see my little bit of slag I don't know why that didn't melt in at least I got the right sized [Music] crucible or not crucible right sized ingot molds because I'm able to easily put the pieces back in and seems to be working pretty good just have to figure out why I haven't been able to pour a steady pour all right I'll do a temp number 4 coming up so I'm at 954 degrees I believe that's the hottest that it's been today 955 I rate it only goes to eleven hundred and fifty degrees the the kiln but it seems to be on a picking up temperature pretty good right now I just turned off my my torch so my molds pretty hot but I'm just got the call to come home for dinner so I have I'm gonna try to make this work right here see if it keeps on creeping up 964 look in here see what it looks like and try to get this poured out pretty fast oh man it's bubbling now so it definitely looks good I don't know if you guys can see that here we go pull that out mmm almost but the bar itself looks pretty darn good I can get all the silver out though it's probably probably 10 15 out or Graham's sitting right there in that a little uh little piece right there but Bart so now this will be my first bar I've ever poured I guess this is a two pound mold it looks pretty cool to the edge and bring it over to the water definitely uh looks like you can see I kind of broke my stream of pouring with those lines but this part on that side looks pretty darn good I think with a little bit more practice I'll I should have this figured out but it's cool enough to pick up put this little piece in too so that way we can wet way all the silvers see what how much we ended up with definitely has a nice feel to it got probably uh probably has pretty close to I have these little pieces right here from that I'm gonna bring over my scale and we'll weigh this up see what what we're at I did find this scale at a house clean-out so but it has been working pretty well for so the oddball pieces are 10 grams 10 grams and kind of interested to see what the bar turns out to be 495 so somewhere I lost 5 grams it might still be in the in the crucible I'll have to look after after it cools down but definitely that makes the bar 480 grams it's just over a pound by about an ounce a troy ounce so definitely cool I don't know if I'll remelt that I might actually keep it as my first bar and because I have a nice place to stamp it right there all right thank you guys very very much for watching I'll catch everybody next video if you haven't yet please subscribe we are gonna get to the flea market tomorrow it's gonna be a nice day so see everybody later peace so I did have fun doing this I don't know if you guys did like it please leave me a comment and tell me if I should do more things like this I am very interested in making some cool jewelry so hopefully it works out first experiment

Channel: Blue Bus Dave

Views: 9,894

Rating: 4.8644919 out of 5

Keywords: Blue Bus Dave, Experiment, Sterling Silver, Making Ingots, Ingots, Melting Silver, Trash Picking

Id: jl7YNgvtqtA

Length: 35min 40sec (2140 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 19 2019