Really looking forward to the silver cell build video. At my job i braze copper pipe all day with 15% silver brazing rods. Ive been saving all the waste for almost a year. Your videos inspired me to not just buy bullion but to refine my waste as well. I just dont have the space to build a workbench out yet but one day. Thanks for putting this knowledge out there. It brought a whole new appreciation for precious metals to me.
@Josh neibarger 🤣 while it's funny everybody knows I'm doing it. They think I'm weird but I only catch the waste before it hits the trash pile. They see me Frankenstein brazing rods together out of shit the other guys throw away. I don't rip off my employer.
@sreetips that's a great video. Everything I have saved up has already been melted. I'm curious to see if it still holds around 15% after it's been heated up to brazing temperatures. I'll throw the soft solder splashes in my bag too even though it's only 5% Hell, it's gunna get thrown away. It doesn't expire. I look like a crazy person but I don't really care. One man's trash.
I really do enjoy these videos. Always learning something new. I have been collecting sterling silver coins and bars for over 20 years. If I ever decide to melt it down I have these videos to remind me that I would mess this up and probably die in the process. Leaving this to the professionals!
THIS FOOL IS LUCKY TO STILL BE ALIVE CAUSE HE HAS NO IDEA WHAT HE IS DOING. HE SAYS IN THIS VIDEO HE MAKES IT UP AS HE GOES. THATS NOT INTELLIGENCE THATS STUPIDITY.
never gets old seeing that beautiful elemental silver, to think I was so happy finding 4 silver coins this week while metal detecting lol I can only imagine how happy you are about 58 troy ounces.
@@xindaxoxou7431 cost of 999 silver comes from its refinement process iirc. So the cost of the final product comes from labor, not just materials. I’m assuming they are getting all this silver solution as a byproduct of some other business like jewelers.
Sreetips, you are an absolute wizard! I love your content. My 8 year old son and I love to watch your chemistry and refining videos. I bet your vault is absolutely loaded. Nice watch too. Please keep up the good work! Refining and video editing. You are the best!
I just started stacking silver, it's really underrated as a metal, it's beautiful when really pure. Scottsdale mint has these 'galaxy bars' that your process reminds me of, a kind of iridescent blue.
Silver isn't underrated, it's all over RUclips and all the preppers are talking about it.....If you truly want something that's underrated.....buy platinum....absolutely nobody is talking about it, and nobody has it...
Platinum is cool and all, and more power to you if you are acquiring it in pure form, but the refining process… The level of tedium, chemical transitions and steps are…. A bit much.
@@henryvanderbeek2973I guess it’s underrated to the average joe who only makes up around 1.5% of the silver market in buying terms. When the dollar starts to crash and other currencies follow, it will be a lot less underrated as billions of people flock to silver. They won’t be able to hide the scarcity of silver when global supplies get low.
I focus on the crystal as I pour, and use peripheral vision on the blue liquid. As soon as those crystals start to tumble I counter immediately. I’ve done it so many times that it’s become second nature.
Thank you for doing these videos. I have always found scientific research fascinating it was my favorite class in school with shop class being my next favorite. Both are extremely important and useful in everyday life.
Another beautiful video and how nice were some of those needles of silver in there. Watching silver grow is so much better than watching grass grow 😂😂😂. Weird how addictive these silver refine videos are. Thanks for sharing.
You had me there for a second. I thought you were literally growing silver. I was thinking to myself…. “Wow, we’ve been duped “. Then at the end you tell us it’s refined. Lol. This would have been a great April fools joke. Cheers!
I was thinking the same thing. Like what am I missing here. Have we been lied to or what. We can grow this shit? I want in. Lol. Then I found your comment. Haven't quite made it to the videos end yet.
He dos grow in oher videos. And so do some other channels. Goggle it. Here he is refining some he has already grown. But the formula is online. You can even mine silver and gold with plants. It's called phytomining.
The worst part of these videos is when they end. Sad i have to wait for the next! Good news is there is plenty on the books to go back to. Got a huge chuckle out of the rearranging protons comment. 😅😅 keep up the fantastic work good man. 🙏
My favourite videos of yours are of the silver cell, they never fail to fascinate. Another great video and Thankyou for sharing your wonderful hobby with us.
I recently came across your videos and was immediately captured by them. I buy silver bars from time to time, but am very interested in learning the methods that you follow for refining. I too would like to do this as a hobby (I like to keep myself busy during downtime). I have watched a couple of your videos, including the one about building your own silver cell. The question that I have is, do you have a tutorial video (or a blog post) where you teach how the whole process works, including all the tools needed and steps to follow? I look forward to your response. Please keep sharing these videos, we very much appreciate them! And thanks in advance!
@@sreetips may I ask when you built your first cell how much elemental silver did you add to make your silver nitrate solution? Have you scaled up over time as I noticed in your video 2 weeks ago you started with 600g of elemental Ag, or about $300-$400 worth!
My first silver cell was a one liter beaker with a graphite cathode. It worked good but I always had problem with the silver crystal making contact with the anode filter basket. I used about 150 grams of silver for the electrolyte in the glass cell. Then I switched to the larger stainless steel cell. It’s 3.5 liters. I still use 150 grams of silver per liter in the bigger cell. So yes, I used about 600 grams of silver (reserved from a previous silver fell harvest) to make the electrolyte. I re-use the electrolyte for a second run. I add another 200 grams of silver to the second run because the silver gets depleted as the cell runs, some of it deposits on the cathode. I never use the electrolyte more than twice because copper builds up and turns it blue. I get about three kilos for both runs, I reserve 800g for the next two runs. My net yield is 2.2 kilos out the door,
I've seen the time lapse on the gold drying but I pretty sure that this was the first for silver crystal. It was cool seeing the metallic looking slivers of silver shine!!
Was thinking a bit, it might be so that if you decrease voltage a bit, increase nitrate concentration = decrease resistance of the cell so it wil increase current you can grow fatter crystals bit faster and a lilttle longer before restarting the cell. Looks to me that the crystals get more elongated shape at higher voltage.
This hobby is very addictive , i just bought a 12 x 20 walk in freezer with out the cooling unit , its all stainless steel out side and inside , ( food grade ) 100 bucks ,,,, going to make a SWEET lab , got a stainless steel sink and this sweet stainless hood and some corion tops , everything all together was less then 200 bucks ,
Q&A: 1) What would happen if a gold-filled (the orange liquid before hitting it with stump-out) or a silver-filled solution was allowed to evaporate? 2) Is there any other way to refine silver to 3-9's fine without using a electrolytic cell? 3) Do you keep any of the bars (gold and/or silver) for yourself, just to have as a personal stack? Or do you just sell your stuff on eBay or to the jeweler? 4) Is everything you refine done on camera? Or do you refine stuff off camera? 5) What does the wife think of your work? I know she enjoys the hunt for scrap, but the refining process is dangerous.
1) it will form burnt orange colored chucks of solid chloroauric acid. 2) silver chloride conversion with lye and sugar will yield three nines silver. 3) I refine it, harvest the silver, put it away (because I don’t have to sell any) and forget about it. 4) since I’ve started shooting video, I can’t seem to resist producing a video. But I do refine off camera every now and then. It’s like taking a breath of fresh air when I don’t have that camera in my way. 5) she hates refining but love finding a good deal. I can’t stand going to sales (but I do sometimes with her) and I love refining with a passion. We are the perfect match, at the perfect moment in time, with the right instrument, in the exact right place. Circumstances like this may not happen again for another thousand years!
@@sreetips 😊 I love that you take time to answer questions. Not many RUclipsrs do anymore. And I love the way you look at life. Thanks for all your work in making videos. I love watching the processes be it gold silver or platinum metal. So interesting and it's something I can really focus on and it helps me deal with stress watching it
@@sreetipsMaybe you should lay low with the vids. This is my first time seeing this and I'm pretty amazed with how many subscribers you have. I was just saying you need a bigger operation, but, if a good portion of your subscribers started up their own cells, you are capable of bringing down the house of silver and driving holders nuts, with price fluctuation.
Found your channel today. Kudos for showing these processes. It confirms that I have no desire to expose myself to these toxins! 😊 Thanks for the informative videos!
Awesome! I haven’t started my refining yet, I was thinking of trying to de plate some (a lot) lol, of plated silver. I should be able to run the solid finished product through a sieve cell like this for a final high grade product? TIA for all the awesome vids!
@@46kvolt You'll probably find the yield from plated items to be annoyingly small. Sreetips makes it look easy because he's done it so many times, but as a beginner, naturally you would expect to get less yield. Even so, silver plated stuff yields almost nothing, it certainly will not pay for your nitric.
Never gets boring watching this process….I do have a question tho…Instead of doing multiple rinses of the Silver Crystals to remove the Silver Nitrate. Couldn’t you just add copper to cement out the Silver right in with the Silver Crystals?
No, I need that rinse water to dilute the silver nitrate. If I poured that concentrated silver nitrate directly on those pieces of copper it could passivate: firm a hard crust of silver that shields the copper and causes the reaction to cease.
No, I use the silver to refine gold. Then I recover the silver and run it through the silver cell. It would be difficult to put numbers on it. But you can be sure that I wouldn’t do it for very long if it was costing more than I get out.
I did that a few years ago. The electrolyte stayed clear and colorless. I sent a sample off for ICP analysis. Came back greater than five nines fine. That’s 99,999 parts per one hundred thousand pure silver.
Another great video. Will you ever be doing the lead experiment by adding lead to a gold and silver alloy to see how efficient sulfuric acids is at removing/precipitating the lead from your gold refining process?
Why? He does a good job keepingPb and Sn out of his processing. Either only create problems. Pb,especially, will make his waste solids toxic, if they exceed a certain concentration. Right now he doesn’t face that problem. Pb is nobody’s friend.
Hi Sreetips.. Please forgive me if I sound stupid... I am not an expert but i think that the next time you are going to refine the junk left in the anode filters.. It would be beneficial if you just wash it and fish out the large chunks of undissolved silver shots... I guess it will reduce the amount of nitric needed to put all those silver back into solution...
Good suggestion. I’ve tried it with negative results. But I didn’t give it my best effort. I may try again by first soaking the slimes in water then try to recover some of the undissolved silver shot. But it’s so messy, and the thought of just letting the chemicals do all the work is much more appealing to me,
If you believe there is 550'000 tons of silver in reserves you live in an illusion. Most of the silver mined is consumed. We have less investable silver than gold in the world, approx 6'000 tons
What do you do with the silver Crystal? do you melt it into bar? do you stock pile it up in crystal form, do you use it for other projects? do you sell it? im so intrigued, if you do stock pile it up id love to see a video of your whole silver crystal collect ot even better a video of your entire precious metal collection, that video would be awesome, great video much love from the UK keep up the good content
I used to pour bars and sell every bit of silver that I refined. But with silver so grossly and artificially undervalued it makes no sense to sell it right now.
999 Silver right now is 23$ per ounce. If you are able to grow more than 1000 grams with that silver cell you can sell it for around 800$, I think it’s not bad.
Will sreetips crash the price of silver? I doubt it. But . . . your videos are great and the work is amazing. Your diy approach to smelting and refining is amazing too. Thanks for sharing!
Blue, pink, yellow, whatever man just bring me more of that. Can this guy cook or what? You’re alright sreetips. You’re alright man. We’re gonna make a lot of money together.
Hi Sreetips, just wanna say that I love your gold and silver refining setup! I was watching some of your older videos, and wondered - would it be a good idea to filter the solution from the cementation buckets to capture any particles that may be suspended in solution?
There is a lazer out now that they use to get rid of rust on steel very efficiently and fast. Ive seen an etching lazer on gold turn the water purple. Im wondering how fast that bigger rust removing lazer would convert these noble metals to nanoparticles. Just throwing ideas out there, its what i do.
nano-silver is made out of silver nitrate by adding tannins. Green tea is used. Even coffee and other organic stuff. At least I think it's the tannins. That's the process anyway. Much smaller particle size than any electrolysis can give you
and when you go sell that silver to a refiner, such as myself... you will find that we charge about 20% , because we are going to refine it anyways. Sell us bars, those go into furnace too we refine everything and then settle on what comes out.
@@sreetips can agree there. ratio is way out of wack, demand/supply as well, premiums too high. and recycling in the E stream sector (biggest use of Ag is too costly)
Creating Elemetal silver out of thin air will involve rearranging protons and neutrons which you do not have the ability to do..... Yet! excellent video as always Sreetips
I'm assuming there are ways to increase profitability... depends on if you can find deals on the equipment, materials, and space without sacrificing too much ( safety 1st 😆 ) How much time one realistically has to work on this. It seems here it's mainly a means to an end ( for gold refining ). So many other avenues to take with this than simply making money though.
Watching your most recent silver cell harvesting video, it dawned on me that sometimes when you add distilled water to a reaction, you say that you're adding X amount, but you're adding it to a beaker with solid matter inside, to the level you're claiming to add. This doesn't take into account the displacement caused by the materials already in the beaker.
I am wondering if you can try something sreetips. It is pretty simple. In an audio quiet area can be done with a couple comforters. Tap one of the bars and record the sound. Then on the next run melt down and form a silver tuning fork at or close to that frequency and record that audio. Then play back that audio when you are growing the silver. It is a simple resonance experiment but, I think it may cut formation time but, would be an interesting experiment.
So you got a bunch of pure silever from your cell. What was the source of your silver stock, and how much did it cost? The answer to this question is also the answer to the thumbnail question.
@sreetips I have been collecting pc's from work (I.T. guy) and old circuit boards from eBay with the plan of extracting the gold from the traces and hard drives. I also collect copper and aluminum to make art and non-mission critical parts for my fixed-wing aircraft build post-ingot processing. I haven't found a source of scrap silver. I think I noticed a comment about jewelry from garage/estate sales? I'm in my 50s and my 8th-grade chemistry teacher got me hooked on this ever since. You remind me of him. R.I.P. Mr. Tidd.
These videos are mesmerising and its wonderful to watch the whole process. But apologies for asking, is this just for the art of producing pure silver? Or is the whole point that its profitable to purify the silver nitrates via the process ? Is it a money thing or an art of the process thing?????
Definitely a money thing (and a little art). You see, silver is money. Paper dollars are not real money. They require third party validation to give them value. Remove the third party and the paper collapses. Not so with gold and silver. They represent final payment (paper dollars are promissory notes). Gold and silver stand on their own. Holding savings in promissory notes, that can be printed out of thin air, is a bad idea.
@@sreetips Totally agree with the final payment thinking. And if I had a cell setup, even ignoring the electricity - is the silver output >999s still cheaper than a silver bullion round ??? What are the economics ?????
My man! Great stuff here....looks like the big guys have bought up a lot of shorts again, they WILL use it as ammo to knock down the silver price, I have seen it time and time again on the charts I study....the only 2 times silver was allowed to "level up" in the past 12 years was Covid and silver squeeze....every other time the price follows the shorts....
As of writing this... Silver is trading @ £19 Oz. or $17 Oz. It's an amazing metal but worth very little and hardly worth your time I would imagine. The 58 Oz is worth about £1100. Take into account the...cost of the scrap silver, the time involved, chemicals and other consumables etc, you can't be left with much tbh
This is the exact point of view that enables people like me to buy lots of silver, for much less than it’s real value. Trading paper for metal is a good idea. Especially if the paper is declining, and the silver is rising - like it is now. Silver is money.
@@sreetips I don't know how it's on the rise to be honest. It's been steady between £15 to £19-20 Oz for 4 years now, it hit an all time high in 2011 of £29 Oz for like a week then dropped. I'm not saying it's a bad thing to do by any means! Like my farther always said "Land and prescious metal's is what you want to invest in! As they always go up in price over time I suppose. My point was, on such a small scale, with the expenditure and time involved it's hard to see a worth while profit on silver unless you have tons and tons of the stuff and wait for years and years for a market spike. It's not like gold, that steadily rises year after year without fail.
---- the only question that I would need answered about this entire process is how much does each troy oz you get costs you ? --- what is the return on investment ?
It doesn’t matter unless I’m going to immediately resell the silver. Which I’m not going to do. I’m keeping this silver. I offer a few ounces for sale on my eBay site. But that’s about it. Makes no sense to sell silver with the price so grossly undervalued. But it does make sense to buy as much as I can. So that’s what I’m doing.
How much did the contaminated silver shot weigh per basket fill prior to extracting the silver for silver crystal growth? You mention how many Troy oz's of silver crystal's you've grown but, if I recall the amount of silver scrap/contaminated silver that's being used adds up to well over 5lbs. So I ask how much silver is being grown per basket fill of a specific weight?
I’ve got to tell, I don’t know, because I’ve never taken the time to calculate it. But there’s no gain in silver. It’s one for one, less impurities and small losses.
Silver cells refine the silver you already have, there is no extra silver gained. Hell there be some loss if you don’t fully recycle the silver out of the electrolyte used which is silver nitrate. If you were getting extra silver out of this refining method then silver would cost next to nothing as this method has been practiced since the 1890s.
I will keep asking this until I get an answer…..how much does it cost in equipment, and silver nitrate to get the pure silver crystals? With the research I have done it cost significantly more than purchasing .999 silver from a reputable dealer. Plus you don’t need to do all that work.
He has stated in the past that it is not cost efficient to do this. The real question is, why not when you have a RUclips channel that makes money for you?
I can’t answer for two reasons: 1) it’s nearly impossible to calculate because I buy the sterling at all different prices. And since this is my hobby, I don’t keep track for each batch. 2) I’d have to sell the silver to realize a gain or loss, and I ain’t selling any silver. You see, I’m on the gold standard. You don’t have to wait to go on it. You can do it yourself. My profit is in pure silver, not paper dollars. If I need some paper to pay bills or buy food, then I sell a little metal. Paper is declining. Silver is rising. It’s kind of a no-brainer.
I’m if the mind that anything worth doing, is worth over-doing. Especially when I’m shooting video for my channel. Think how bad it would look with a bunch of silver nitrate stains on the bottom of that dish that I dried the silver in.
Depends on the price paid for the silver. And right now silver is grossly undervalued. So I’m strictly a buyer. I don’t want to sell any of my silver. Except a few ounces on my eBay site.
So when is the cost being outweighted by the benefit How much of a quantity, or should we say how much money do you sink to become profitable, really profitable, not barely above the cost. Take into account everything, from components, equipment, energy, time, labor, etc...
Yes, several times. It came back three nines every time except once it was greater than five nines because I ran some of the pure silver crystal back thru the cell a second time with fresh electrolyte. Copper wasn’t specified. But it wasn’t much. Five nines is 99,999 parts per one hundred thousand pure silver.
Love it, thanks for all of your content!! Question The silver nitrate is blue because of the copper. Why doesn’t the copper or other dissolved metals form crystals/ plate during the electrolytic refining? * I’m sure I’m not the first to ask but couldn’t find the answer in comments or Google.
Silver nitrate is clear and colorless, like water. Copper nitrate is blue. As the cell operates the silver and the copper both dissolve and pass through the anode filter. The silver deposits on the cathode and the copper builds up in the electrolyte, turning it blue. It (the copper) stays in solution if conditions of voltage and copper concentrations are properly maintained. About 60 grams per liter copper concentration, the copper can begin to co-deposit with the silver.
Really looking forward to the silver cell build video. At my job i braze copper pipe all day with 15% silver brazing rods. Ive been saving all the waste for almost a year. Your videos inspired me to not just buy bullion but to refine my waste as well. I just dont have the space to build a workbench out yet but one day. Thanks for putting this knowledge out there. It brought a whole new appreciation for precious metals to me.
I have a video of me recovering the silver from Staysilv 15 brazing rod. It’s been a few years since I posted it.
Someone’s losing their job…
@Josh neibarger 🤣 while it's funny everybody knows I'm doing it. They think I'm weird but I only catch the waste before it hits the trash pile. They see me Frankenstein brazing rods together out of shit the other guys throw away. I don't rip off my employer.
@sreetips that's a great video. Everything I have saved up has already been melted. I'm curious to see if it still holds around 15% after it's been heated up to brazing temperatures. I'll throw the soft solder splashes in my bag too even though it's only 5% Hell, it's gunna get thrown away. It doesn't expire. I look like a crazy person but I don't really care. One man's trash.
It all adds up.
I really do enjoy these videos. Always learning something new. I have been collecting sterling silver coins and bars for over 20 years. If I ever decide to melt it down I have these videos to remind me that I would mess this up and probably die in the process. Leaving this to the professionals!
Wise decision. Melting it would destroy the markings and make its value questionable.
haha that cracked me up lol
THIS FOOL IS LUCKY TO STILL BE ALIVE CAUSE HE HAS NO IDEA WHAT HE IS DOING. HE SAYS IN THIS VIDEO HE MAKES IT UP AS HE GOES. THATS NOT INTELLIGENCE THATS STUPIDITY.
never gets old seeing that beautiful elemental silver, to think I was so happy finding 4 silver coins this week while metal detecting lol I can only imagine how happy you are about 58 troy ounces.
I do not see how he makes a profit. If you know how pls correct me If I am wrong.
@@xindaxoxou7431 cost of 999 silver comes from its refinement process iirc. So the cost of the final product comes from labor, not just materials.
I’m assuming they are getting all this silver solution as a byproduct of some other business like jewelers.
You make your profit when you buy. You realize it when you sell. But I’m not selling any of my silver. Except maybe a few ounces on my eBay site.
I have been subscribed for a bit now, and I am very grateful that you have not electrocuted yourself trying to take the power supply off
Me too!
Sreetips, you are an absolute wizard! I love your content. My 8 year old son and I love to watch your chemistry and refining videos. I bet your vault is absolutely loaded. Nice watch too. Please keep up the good work! Refining and video editing. You are the best!
Thank you, what’s your sons first name?
Do i sense a shoutout brewing?... lol respond!
😊
I just started stacking silver, it's really underrated as a metal, it's beautiful when really pure. Scottsdale mint has these 'galaxy bars' that your process reminds me of, a kind of iridescent blue.
Wise decision.
Silver isn't underrated, it's all over RUclips and all the preppers are talking about it.....If you truly want something that's underrated.....buy platinum....absolutely nobody is talking about it, and nobody has it...
@@henryvanderbeek2973 I probably will in the future.
Platinum is cool and all, and more power to you if you are acquiring it in pure form, but the refining process… The level of tedium, chemical transitions and steps are…. A bit much.
@@henryvanderbeek2973I guess it’s underrated to the average joe who only makes up around 1.5% of the silver market in buying terms.
When the dollar starts to crash and other currencies follow, it will be a lot less underrated as billions of people flock to silver. They won’t be able to hide the scarcity of silver when global supplies get low.
I can't be the only one that gasped around the 2 minute mark when the silver shifted while pouring. Awesome catch senior chief!
It's like pure snow, but expensive. 😭
I focus on the crystal as I pour, and use peripheral vision on the blue liquid. As soon as those crystals start to tumble I counter immediately. I’ve done it so many times that it’s become second nature.
@@sreetips That's awesome.
✋I too experienced a reflexive short inhalation. Am I too invested in what he is doing?
@@tinydancer7426 Nope, not too invested. Just the right amount.😁
I love you homie. Been following you for years. Youre literally a legend please keep it up
Thank you
Thanks for keeping the content coming. Have a great weekend! 👍🏼🍻
This and the gold refining are my favorite things I've learned a lot from you thank you for sharing this six stars sir
Thank you for doing these videos. I have always found scientific research fascinating it was my favorite class in school with shop class being my next favorite. Both are extremely important and useful in everyday life.
AMAZING! the revel was STUNNING! Well done!
This is why we had a 6% drop in the price of silver this week. 😮
😂😂😂
I already made one batch myself!
no they found the oak island buried treasure
It will go up, be patient
Last I checked it was 15/oz : o
Another beautiful video and how nice were some of those needles of silver in there. Watching silver grow is so much better than watching grass grow 😂😂😂. Weird how addictive these silver refine videos are. Thanks for sharing.
Beautiful stuff you have grown there brother. I never get tired of seeing that silver. Very interesting process. Thanks for sharing.😎😎⛏⛏🔥🔥
You had me there for a second. I thought you were literally growing silver. I was thinking to myself…. “Wow, we’ve been duped “. Then at the end you tell us it’s refined. Lol. This would have been a great April fools joke. Cheers!
I think you would need a star to make silver.
I was thinking the same thing. Like what am I missing here. Have we been lied to or what. We can grow this shit? I want in. Lol. Then I found your comment. Haven't quite made it to the videos end yet.
Silver, and other heavy elements, or made in supernovae.
He dos grow in oher videos. And so do some other channels. Goggle it. Here he is refining some he has already grown.
But the formula is online. You can even mine silver and gold with plants. It's called phytomining.
@@LadyIrrigator where can I find what you're talking about
The worst part of these videos is when they end. Sad i have to wait for the next! Good news is there is plenty on the books to go back to. Got a huge chuckle out of the rearranging protons comment. 😅😅 keep up the fantastic work good man. 🙏
My favourite videos of yours are of the silver cell, they never fail to fascinate. Another great video and Thankyou for sharing your wonderful hobby with us.
I'm always fascinated by your process and smelt of the metal.. I love the informative nature of this stuff... :) Keep up the good job entertaining us!
Smelt: rendering metals from ore. I’m not smelting, I’m melting the metal.
AND SO PROFFESSIONAL IN SAFTY FIRST, AND EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS, LATER, AWESOME STUFF SREETIPS!!!
Always a pleasure to watch you work. Makes me want to do this myself.
This is great stuff. I'm not a chemist by any means, but enjoy watching how you do this
You answered my question at the end of the video,you have steady hands to do such good work
I recently came across your videos and was immediately captured by them. I buy silver bars from time to time, but am very interested in learning the methods that you follow for refining. I too would like to do this as a hobby (I like to keep myself busy during downtime). I have watched a couple of your videos, including the one about building your own silver cell. The question that I have is, do you have a tutorial video (or a blog post) where you teach how the whole process works, including all the tools needed and steps to follow? I look forward to your response. Please keep sharing these videos, we very much appreciate them! And thanks in advance!
I’ll be doing a silver cell build from scratch soon. Just need to find the time. Thank you.
@@sreetips I appreciate your response and thanks for that. I look forward to the video and learning more from you.
@@sreetips may I ask when you built your first cell how much elemental silver did you add to make your silver nitrate solution? Have you scaled up over time as I noticed in your video 2 weeks ago you started with 600g of elemental Ag, or about $300-$400 worth!
My first silver cell was a one liter beaker with a graphite cathode. It worked good but I always had problem with the silver crystal making contact with the anode filter basket. I used about 150 grams of silver for the electrolyte in the glass cell. Then I switched to the larger stainless steel cell. It’s 3.5 liters. I still use 150 grams of silver per liter in the bigger cell. So yes, I used about 600 grams of silver (reserved from a previous silver fell harvest) to make the electrolyte. I re-use the electrolyte for a second run. I add another 200 grams of silver to the second run because the silver gets depleted as the cell runs, some of it deposits on the cathode. I never use the electrolyte more than twice because copper builds up and turns it blue. I get about three kilos for both runs, I reserve 800g for the next two runs. My net yield is 2.2 kilos out the door,
Nice to have you in here😊. Arne
I've seen the time lapse on the gold drying but I pretty sure that this was the first for silver crystal. It was cool seeing the metallic looking slivers of silver shine!!
Was thinking a bit, it might be so that if you decrease voltage a bit, increase nitrate concentration = decrease resistance of the cell so it wil increase current you can grow fatter crystals bit faster and a lilttle longer before restarting the cell. Looks to me that the crystals get more elongated shape at higher voltage.
I’ve been taught to maintain constant voltage at around 3.5 volts for proper cell functioning.
my advice at tweaking stuff. nevver go beyond 10% at a time.
I think you may be getting somewhere... trick is.... go back to How crystals form. Any crystals. Base theory. Good luck ⚡️
please make a step by step how to do this and what to do after we need a complete guide
Sreetips You're an expert in elemental silver crystals. Great video and amazing silver crystals
This hobby is very addictive , i just bought a 12 x 20 walk in freezer with out the cooling unit , its all stainless steel out side and inside , ( food grade ) 100 bucks ,,,, going to make a SWEET lab , got a stainless steel sink and this sweet stainless hood and some corion tops , everything all together was less then 200 bucks ,
Make sure your fume hood is suitable for acid digestions; no metal parts.
Q&A:
1) What would happen if a gold-filled (the orange liquid before hitting it with stump-out) or a silver-filled solution was allowed to evaporate?
2) Is there any other way to refine silver to 3-9's fine without using a electrolytic cell?
3) Do you keep any of the bars (gold and/or silver) for yourself, just to have as a personal stack? Or do you just sell your stuff on eBay or to the jeweler?
4) Is everything you refine done on camera? Or do you refine stuff off camera?
5) What does the wife think of your work? I know she enjoys the hunt for scrap, but the refining process is dangerous.
It's not work in the sense of it being a job. It's his hobby. And, yeah, the chemicals he uses are dangerous.
1) it will form burnt orange colored chucks of solid chloroauric acid. 2) silver chloride conversion with lye and sugar will yield three nines silver. 3) I refine it, harvest the silver, put it away (because I don’t have to sell any) and forget about it. 4) since I’ve started shooting video, I can’t seem to resist producing a video. But I do refine off camera every now and then. It’s like taking a breath of fresh air when I don’t have that camera in my way. 5) she hates refining but love finding a good deal. I can’t stand going to sales (but I do sometimes with her) and I love refining with a passion. We are the perfect match, at the perfect moment in time, with the right instrument, in the exact right place. Circumstances like this may not happen again for another thousand years!
@@sreetips 😊 I love that you take time to answer questions. Not many RUclipsrs do anymore. And I love the way you look at life. Thanks for all your work in making videos. I love watching the processes be it gold silver or platinum metal. So interesting and it's something I can really focus on and it helps me deal with stress watching it
Good questions
@@sreetipsMaybe you should lay low with the vids. This is my first time seeing this and I'm pretty amazed with how many subscribers you have. I was just saying you need a bigger operation, but, if a good portion of your subscribers started up their own cells, you are capable of bringing down the house of silver and driving holders nuts, with price fluctuation.
Take the value out of the equation, and silver is so much more gratifying to see filtered through a cell than gold... cheers Mr. Sreetips!
Found your channel today. Kudos for showing these processes. It confirms that I have no desire to expose myself to these toxins! 😊 Thanks for the informative videos!
Welcome!
Nice to have you in here😊 Arne
Just subscribed, I will be watching these videos all week . I need to start learning how to refine myself .
Welcome to my channel!
Awesome! I haven’t started my refining yet, I was thinking of trying to de plate some (a lot) lol, of plated silver. I should be able to run the solid finished product through a sieve cell like this for a final high grade product? TIA for all the awesome vids!
“Silver”
I haven’t tried reverse plating silver off of plated stuff yet. Must give it a shot.
@@46kvolt You'll probably find the yield from plated items to be annoyingly small. Sreetips makes it look easy because he's done it so many times, but as a beginner, naturally you would expect to get less yield. Even so, silver plated stuff yields almost nothing, it certainly will not pay for your nitric.
How much silver is actually grown, after contaminates and scrap? “For each bucket”? Numbers please?
2.2 kilos
I just started watching the channel. Super impressed!!! Where you find the silver salts and other salvaged silver to make this purified crystal?
Local sales.
Never gets boring watching this process….I do have a question tho…Instead of doing multiple rinses of the Silver Crystals to remove the Silver Nitrate. Couldn’t you just add copper to cement out the Silver right in with the Silver Crystals?
No, I need that rinse water to dilute the silver nitrate. If I poured that concentrated silver nitrate directly on those pieces of copper it could passivate: firm a hard crust of silver that shields the copper and causes the reaction to cease.
@@sreetips That make sense thanks 🙏
I would love to see those silver and gold crystals of yours under microscope! I think it’s gonna be awesome!
i wish you took a shot with a waterproof camera before breaking the crystal formations up
looks otherworldly
Keep an eye on the TDS of your distilled water. I've found that in many cases, grocery store distilled water is often dirtier than reverse osmosis.
Silver AND copper are highly anti microbial. I’d be interested to know about the bugs you grow.
Thank you sir you seem to be the holy grail of knowedge, in refining of precious metals.!!!
Man cant wait to see that .9999 fine silver bar! Gonna pour a big one soon?
That would make an excellent video.
@sreetips yessir! Gotta break out the big furnace
Agree. A big fluffy bar😊
Every video is a gem 💎 .... Thank you Sreetips 👍👍
Cool video. Have you calculated how much you spent refining the silver compared to what you got out?
No, I use the silver to refine gold. Then I recover the silver and run it through the silver cell. It would be difficult to put numbers on it. But you can be sure that I wouldn’t do it for very long if it was costing more than I get out.
I would be curious to see a second electrolysis. See if the electrolyte still turns blue and if there is sludge in the filter bag.
That would be really interesting to see
I did that a few years ago. The electrolyte stayed clear and colorless. I sent a sample off for ICP analysis. Came back greater than five nines fine. That’s 99,999 parts per one hundred thousand pure silver.
I know it's like asking someone how much money they have in their bank account but I'm dying to see your silver stash.
Times being what they are, that wouldn’t be very wise. Plus Mrs sreetips would shoot me.
@@sreetips Fair enough.. happy Wife happy life.
@@sreetips You don't have to show us where your secret vault is. 😄 Just the goodies.
I wanna buy all of this from you... I'm literally drooling over this video... Terrific job
Another great video. Will you ever be doing the lead experiment by adding lead to a gold and silver alloy to see how efficient sulfuric acids is at removing/precipitating the lead from your gold refining process?
Bismuth can also be used : )
Yes, just need to find time.
I'd love to see this! My 16 year old son and I are big fans of your channel!
Why? He does a good job keepingPb and Sn out of his processing.
Either only create problems.
Pb,especially, will make his waste solids toxic, if they exceed a certain concentration.
Right now he doesn’t face that problem.
Pb is nobody’s friend.
@@sreetips Thank you for your videos! I hope one day I can replicate this myself when I have the proper space :). (Chemist by profession)
Hi Sreetips.. Please forgive me if I sound stupid...
I am not an expert but i think that the next time you are going to refine the junk left in the anode filters.. It would be beneficial if you just wash it and fish out the large chunks of undissolved silver shots... I guess it will reduce the amount of nitric needed to put all those silver back into solution...
Good suggestion. I’ve tried it with negative results. But I didn’t give it my best effort. I may try again by first soaking the slimes in water then try to recover some of the undissolved silver shot. But it’s so messy, and the thought of just letting the chemicals do all the work is much more appealing to me,
With 550,000 TONS in world silver reserves, I don't know how much you can influence, but keep fighting the good fight!. LOL Great video!
Its not about influencing the worlds reserves. It’s about influencing your reserves
Silver is everywhere, I kinda know what the OP is talking about.
If you believe there is 550'000 tons of silver in reserves you live in an illusion. Most of the silver mined is consumed. We have less investable silver than gold in the world, approx 6'000 tons
@@grasam86 Nope! Go look it up!
@grasam86 we have way more then 6 tons. I have almost 1000 oz. And there's people with way more then me
Great to see your process to extract silver out of blue Gatorade. My son tried but never got a trace silver element.
Sreetips about to sell his silver and buy a super-collider and realize his dream of creating silver from air.
I'll pay a few quid to see that 😅
Sreetips! I love the "I am not an alchemist, I did not create silver" disclaimer at the end haha. You're the man, keep up the great content!
What do you do with the silver Crystal? do you melt it into bar? do you stock pile it up in crystal form, do you use it for other projects? do you sell it? im so intrigued, if you do stock pile it up id love to see a video of your whole silver crystal collect ot even better a video of your entire precious metal collection, that video would be awesome, great video much love from the UK keep up the good content
I used to pour bars and sell every bit of silver that I refined. But with silver so grossly and artificially undervalued it makes no sense to sell it right now.
@@sreetips does this produce more silver than what is extracted from silver scraps?
@@sreetips 🤦
999 Silver right now is 23$ per ounce. If you are able to grow more than 1000 grams with that silver cell you can sell it for around 800$, I think it’s not bad.
@@skippygrabber7639 1000 grams would be less than $600. Shot and unhallmarked silver sells at 80% or less of spot.
Will sreetips crash the price of silver? I doubt it.
But . . . your videos are great and the work is amazing.
Your diy approach to smelting and refining is amazing too.
Thanks for sharing!
This guy is like the Silver version of Breaking Bad- over here growing blue crystals... 😅
Blue, pink, yellow, whatever man just bring me more of that. Can this guy cook or what? You’re alright sreetips. You’re alright man. We’re gonna make a lot of money together.
LOVE YOUR VIDEOS
May I ask. Why is there always a glass rod in the bowl. Is there a chemical reason? Thanks.
So I can stir it often,
Hi Sreetips, just wanna say that I love your gold and silver refining setup! I was watching some of your older videos, and wondered - would it be a good idea to filter the solution from the cementation buckets to capture any particles that may be suspended in solution?
Yes
There is a lazer out now that they use to get rid of rust on steel very efficiently and fast. Ive seen an etching lazer on gold turn the water purple. Im wondering how fast that bigger rust removing lazer would convert these noble metals to nanoparticles. Just throwing ideas out there, its what i do.
nano-silver is made out of silver nitrate by adding tannins. Green tea is used. Even coffee and other organic stuff. At least I think it's the tannins. That's the process anyway. Much smaller particle size than any electrolysis can give you
I remember your gold recovery a while back, awesome, it was time consuming. Not only with Gold, but now it is also with silver. Cha-Ching.
Nice
This is so fascinating. Thank you for your videos.
Yummy silver
Scrumptious
and when you go sell that silver to a refiner, such as myself... you will find that we charge about 20% , because we are going to refine it anyways. Sell us bars, those go into furnace too we refine everything and then settle on what comes out.
I have a few ounces for sale, but other than that, I ain’t selling my silver with the price so grossly undervalued.
Thumb cells?
@@sreetips can agree there. ratio is way out of wack, demand/supply as well, premiums too high. and recycling in the E stream sector (biggest use of Ag is too costly)
Creating Elemetal silver out of thin air will involve rearranging protons and neutrons which you do not have the ability to do..... Yet! excellent video as always Sreetips
It would be great to see you melt some of this into silver bars
I was going to on this one but have other obligations.
@@sreetips understand. Looking forward to your next video.
Is this process economically viable or does the silver nitrate and electrify cost more than the silver is worth?
I'm assuming there are ways to increase profitability... depends on if you can find deals on the equipment, materials, and space without sacrificing too much ( safety 1st 😆 )
How much time one realistically has to work on this.
It seems here it's mainly a means to an end ( for gold refining ).
So many other avenues to take with this than simply making money though.
Silver is money, so yes, it is economically viable.
I’m refining silver, silver is money. I’m not in this to make paper dollars, that are declining. I’m in it for the silver, that’s rising in value.
FYI when pouring liquids you should always pour away from yourself, to avoid pouring splashing on yourself.
I would never pour the liquids towards me, unless I’m trying to get a better shot, for you, the viewer of the video.
These silver crystals always look so beautiful. 👍
I don't have the resources or the knowledge, so I'll continue watching you and dream.
Watching your most recent silver cell harvesting video, it dawned on me that sometimes when you add distilled water to a reaction, you say that you're adding X amount, but you're adding it to a beaker with solid matter inside, to the level you're claiming to add. This doesn't take into account the displacement caused by the materials already in the beaker.
I always try to remember to say “adding to the 300ml level” instead of “adding 300ml”. But sometimes I forget.
at like 1:40 what were the few random things that looked like they were floating on the surface? havent noticed that in your previous clean ups/outs.
Tiny bits of pure silver floating on the electrolyte.
I am wondering if you can try something sreetips. It is pretty simple. In an audio quiet area can be done with a couple comforters. Tap one of the bars and record the sound. Then on the next run melt down and form a silver tuning fork at or close to that frequency and record that audio. Then play back that audio when you are growing the silver. It is a simple resonance experiment but, I think it may cut formation time but, would be an interesting experiment.
So you got a bunch of pure silever from your cell. What was the source of your silver stock, and how much did it cost? The answer to this question is also the answer to the thumbnail question.
I buy sterling silver at local sales. I use it to refine gold. I recover the silver and run it through my silver cell.
@sreetips I have been collecting pc's from work (I.T. guy) and old circuit boards from eBay with the plan of extracting the gold from the traces and hard drives. I also collect copper and aluminum to make art and non-mission critical parts for my fixed-wing aircraft build post-ingot processing. I haven't found a source of scrap silver. I think I noticed a comment about jewelry from garage/estate sales? I'm in my 50s and my 8th-grade chemistry teacher got me hooked on this ever since. You remind me of him. R.I.P. Mr. Tidd.
Do you have an introductory video to this process? I would like to learn more.
My channel has many silver refining videos posted.
These videos are mesmerising and its wonderful to watch the whole process. But apologies for asking, is this just for the art of producing pure silver? Or is the whole point that its profitable to purify the silver nitrates via the process ? Is it a money thing or an art of the process thing?????
Definitely a money thing (and a little art). You see, silver is money. Paper dollars are not real money. They require third party validation to give them value. Remove the third party and the paper collapses. Not so with gold and silver. They represent final payment (paper dollars are promissory notes). Gold and silver stand on their own. Holding savings in promissory notes, that can be printed out of thin air, is a bad idea.
@@sreetips Totally agree with the final payment thinking. And if I had a cell setup, even ignoring the electricity - is the silver output >999s still cheaper than a silver bullion round ??? What are the economics ?????
My man! Great stuff here....looks like the big guys have bought up a lot of shorts again, they WILL use it as ammo to knock down the silver price, I have seen it time and time again on the charts I study....the only 2 times silver was allowed to "level up" in the past 12 years was Covid and silver squeeze....every other time the price follows the shorts....
I'm still amazed at the amount of silver you have lying around in various states. Also, the silver price seems a tad low atm.
As of writing this... Silver is trading @ £19 Oz. or $17 Oz. It's an amazing metal but worth very little and hardly worth your time I would imagine. The 58 Oz is worth about £1100. Take into account the...cost of the scrap silver, the time involved, chemicals and other consumables etc, you can't be left with much tbh
This is the exact point of view that enables people like me to buy lots of silver, for much less than it’s real value. Trading paper for metal is a good idea. Especially if the paper is declining, and the silver is rising - like it is now. Silver is money.
@@sreetips Are you a fan of Mike Maloney?
@@sreetips I don't know how it's on the rise to be honest. It's been steady between £15 to £19-20 Oz for 4 years now, it hit an all time high in 2011 of £29 Oz for like a week then dropped. I'm not saying it's a bad thing to do by any means! Like my farther always said "Land and prescious metal's is what you want to invest in! As they always go up in price over time I suppose. My point was, on such a small scale, with the expenditure and time involved it's hard to see a worth while profit on silver unless you have tons and tons of the stuff and wait for years and years for a market spike. It's not like gold, that steadily rises year after year without fail.
Cool video, but i dident understand what is probably the m I st important part, where did all of ths come from? Where is the silver coming from ?
Silver looks so beautiful sitting in that blue electrolyte solution.
---- the only question that I would need answered about this entire process is how much does each troy oz you get costs you ? --- what is the return on investment ?
It doesn’t matter unless I’m going to immediately resell the silver. Which I’m not going to do. I’m keeping this silver. I offer a few ounces for sale on my eBay site. But that’s about it. Makes no sense to sell silver with the price so grossly undervalued. But it does make sense to buy as much as I can. So that’s what I’m doing.
Wow they're big beakers! Really cool video too 👍
Silver crystal is always so beautiful. Wish it had better structure so you could actually pull out some of it and save it in that form
Oh.. i'm assuming there exists a way...
So amazing to see silver crystals
How much did the contaminated silver shot weigh per basket fill prior to extracting the silver for silver crystal growth? You mention how many Troy oz's of silver crystal's you've grown but, if I recall the amount of silver scrap/contaminated silver that's being used adds up to well over 5lbs. So I ask how much silver is being grown per basket fill of a specific weight?
I’ve got to tell, I don’t know, because I’ve never taken the time to calculate it. But there’s no gain in silver. It’s one for one, less impurities and small losses.
Silver cells refine the silver you already have, there is no extra silver gained. Hell there be some loss if you don’t fully recycle the silver out of the electrolyte used which is silver nitrate.
If you were getting extra silver out of this refining method then silver would cost next to nothing as this method has been practiced since the 1890s.
Correct. I never claimed that extra silver was gained or created out of thin air.
I will keep asking this until I get an answer…..how much does it cost in equipment, and silver nitrate to get the pure silver crystals? With the research I have done it cost significantly more than purchasing .999 silver from a reputable dealer. Plus you don’t need to do all that work.
That's my question too, I don't think we are going to get an answer,
@@daliOtter yeah, I have asked this question a few times before.
He has stated in the past that it is not cost efficient to do this. The real question is, why not when you have a RUclips channel that makes money for you?
@@helives2630 ty :)
I can’t answer for two reasons: 1) it’s nearly impossible to calculate because I buy the sterling at all different prices. And since this is my hobby, I don’t keep track for each batch. 2) I’d have to sell the silver to realize a gain or loss, and I ain’t selling any silver. You see, I’m on the gold standard. You don’t have to wait to go on it. You can do it yourself. My profit is in pure silver, not paper dollars. If I need some paper to pay bills or buy food, then I sell a little metal. Paper is declining. Silver is rising. It’s kind of a no-brainer.
Why not start with the boiling distilled water? In organic chemistry things are done in 3s and just seems to be unnecessary steps.
I’m if the mind that anything worth doing, is worth over-doing. Especially when I’m shooting video for my channel. Think how bad it would look with a bunch of silver nitrate stains on the bottom of that dish that I dried the silver in.
I enjoyed this tremendously. Very satisfying conclusion.
From observation, it seems like operation costs likely far exceed yield pricing.
Depends on the price paid for the silver. And right now silver is grossly undervalued. So I’m strictly a buyer. I don’t want to sell any of my silver. Except a few ounces on my eBay site.
Thank you. The point is try it yourself and draw your own conclusion.
This is a great project for homesteaders, and preppers all across America, a great hedge for the failing American Dollar on the world market....
Well said. Silver is money. Paper dollars are failing - fast.
How are the Frankensteins coming 😂😂😂😂 great content. Very usable information. You rock!
You have one hell of an operation going on there Sreetips. You're well beyond hobbiest precious metals refiner.
I’m still a hobbyist. Someone once said that if you turn your hobby into your work then it becomes just that, work.
Really enjoying your videos
So when is the cost being outweighted by the benefit
How much of a quantity, or should we say how much money do you sink to become profitable, really profitable, not barely above the cost.
Take into account everything, from components, equipment, energy, time, labor, etc...
My profit is in pure silver, not paper dollars.
Have you ever had your silver tested at .999? What was Cu content?
Yes, several times. It came back three nines every time except once it was greater than five nines because I ran some of the pure silver crystal back thru the cell a second time with fresh electrolyte. Copper wasn’t specified. But it wasn’t much. Five nines is 99,999 parts per one hundred thousand pure silver.
What are your all-in sustaining costs per ounce ?
I’ve never taken the time to figure it. I don’t know.
Love it, thanks for all of your content!!
Question
The silver nitrate is blue because of the copper.
Why doesn’t the copper or other dissolved metals form crystals/ plate during the electrolytic refining?
* I’m sure I’m not the first to ask but couldn’t find the answer in comments or Google.
Silver nitrate is clear and colorless, like water. Copper nitrate is blue. As the cell operates the silver and the copper both dissolve and pass through the anode filter. The silver deposits on the cathode and the copper builds up in the electrolyte, turning it blue. It (the copper) stays in solution if conditions of voltage and copper concentrations are properly maintained. About 60 grams per liter copper concentration, the copper can begin to co-deposit with the silver.