Melt the money

Many women with a silver jewelry collection also own one collection of broken silver chains and bracelets or too damaged to continue wearing them. The advantage of solid silver jewelery is that it never loses the value of the metal it is made of.

It’s easy melt these jewelry scraps to create a silver nugget which can be resold or reused to make new silver jewelry at a lower cost.

Little equipment needed

You will need a brick, as well as a blowtorch.

If you want to melt small jewels, a kitchen torch will suffice. Otherwise you need to use a regular blowtorch, like those sold in DIY stores.

To recharge the torch we use butane (sold in supermarkets as refills for lighters or torches). You can consult this site: supplier of jewelry items.

In the case of silver jewelry scraps to be melted to form a nugget, simply create a small pile with the silver scraps in the center of the brick, then heat with a blowtorch.

The blue color of the flame indicates a temperature of approximately 1200° Celsius, and thepure silver melts at approximately 962°C. Our jewels are not pure, they contain a little copper so their melting temperature is a little lower.

When the silver melts, it forms a molten ball which bonds easily with other molten silver spheres. You will also need tongs to make it easier to handle the hot silver balls.

The following video summarizes the entire process:

We obtain a dark gray silver nugget, the result of combustion residues mixed with molten silver.

Purify money

This part is more complicated. Silver nuggets must be immersed in a bath of nitric acid (concentration unknown) to dissolve the silver and copper after several hours (or even several days).

Next you need to add a salt solution which will create silver chloride in the form of a precipitate. This can then be filtered and isolated from the rest of the metals that make up the silver in our jewellery.

Once dried, the precipitate becomes a silver powder that can be remelted to obtain a block of pure silver. This purification process occurs over several days.

Update: you can consult this article on money purification which will give you more information. You can also view ours on this topic

Video of melting silver with a kitchen torch

Pour in the molten silver

(Source: Solyfonte Lyonnaise, company specialized in foundry since 1991)

If you want to collect money from several pieces of jewelry to make a small bar to take to a jeweler, you will first have to a crucible to melt your money.

To pour silver into an ingot-shaped container, it is advisable to hollow out a cell in a piece of solid wood, or make a frame of solid wood with a wooden bottom (the cheapest).

Then you pour the molten silver into the mold. This will burn, but within seconds the silver will cool and your wooden mold will not be destroyed. However, know that the real method consists of pouring molten silver into a plaster mold.

Then go to your jeweler to use your ingot to create a new piece of jewelry. Your jeweler then he will test the quality of the silver that you bring him.

Silver plated jewelry case

Casting silver plated jewelry it’s no use. The silver layer on these jewels is so thin (a maximum thickness of a few tens of microns) that it represents almost no value.

Additionally, when you melt this jewelry, you will be mixing the silver with the rest of the jewelry metal. You will thus obtain an alloy which is very low in silver and which will not interest you either for resale or for making other jewellery.

Professionals in the casting of precious metals

If you would like to have your silver melted by a professional, please see this map of France of silver and precious metals smelters.

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