Question about melting gold and silver?

Question

I was thinking....
how can i melt my old gold and silver chains down to make nuggets or maybe little bars?
Will they melt with a blowtorch? What would I put them in to melt them. I don't want to have to buy anything. I want to use stuff laying around my garage.

Answer 1

You can't safely melt silver or gold without a proper crucible. They are inexpensive ceramic cups used just for that purpose. As long as you heat the crucible with the metal in it. Any other way will cause splatter and is dangerous. Crucibles are available at some craft stores, or where they give lessons for jewelry fabrication or on line.

You can use a propane torch to melt either, but once again, by heating the crucible.

If you don't want to do this there are many pawn shops who will swap your scrap for just about anything you want comparable in Price. The karat quality must be at least 10 or higher or they won't mess with it.

Good luck.

Answer 2

Melting Gold At Home

Answer 3

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
Question about melting gold and silver?
I was thinking....
how can i melt my old gold and silver chains down to make nuggets or maybe little bars?
Will they melt with a blowtorch? What would I put them in to melt them. I don't want to have to buy anything. I want to use stuff laying around my garage.

Answer 4

I went through a phase where I was recovering and refining gold and found the plans for a refractory oven called a "flowerpot furnace". It is fired with charcoal and has a hairdryer for an inducer fan. It took me about 6 tries until I was able to generate enough heat to melt gold. The next question would be, do you have an ingot mold? You not only need all the equipment to melt the stuff, you need to have some way to mold it.
Melting jewelry and the like will produce very impure bullion, you need to learn how to refine it also.
It was a fun but expensive hobby, I'll stick to panning for real gold nuggets.
Good luck

Answer 5

There are a lot of reasons not to try it. The silver might burn, and the gold might get scattered, by evaporation and splattering. A lot of chains are plated, and the plating would be lost, by being diluted into the base metal. Also there are a lot of accidents waiting to happen when you use a blowtorch. You could easily lose a finger from slipping and burning it.

Answer 6

A blow torch, no.
You're looking for about 1500-1700 Deg. F.
An Air-Gas torch at a minimum.
You'd need a special ceramic crucible, with cover.
Not a playground for an amateur.
Just find yourself a reliable fence.

Answer 7

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Answer 8

Do I melt silver in crucible first before adding gold and then copper?

Answer 9

Well, you could grab a blowtorch and raid your mom's jewelry box to perform some experiments. That would be the best option, to learn from doing. You could go to a jewelry store and ask them - I'm sure they will be very informative. If you're lazy, you could go to google, and type in g-o-l-d- -a-l-l-o-y.

Answer 10

its worth more as jewelry than as a molten puddle of slop.... you don't have anything to get it hot enough to melt .... pawn it