Can any of you do it?

I’ll pay you for your work.

I just bought a set up for melting metals and pouring them into bars. Don't have enough scrap gold or silver, but my plan is to do all the copper and brass I have left over from building our house as well as from remodels I've done.

The set ups are pretty inexpensive and can double as a forge.

How much does it increase the value of copper compared to just taking it to a recycling center?

I am not going to destroy evidence for you.

This is old broken stuff.  My wife can vouch for me.

We’d rather give it to the kids as a unique gift for Christmas than to sell it.

So are you telling me you can do it?

I wish I could, would be fun.  I wish I had a hobby foundry.

The easiest way is to melt it with a blowtorch in a crucible then pour it into a really cold bucket of water.  They will nugget up when they hit the water.

Second way imho, would be to do lost wax using steam.. make nugget looking thing out of wax, put it in lost wax plaster, then melt the wax out with steam, then pour gold into cavity where wax used to be.

ETA:

Thanks for the info Freeride, but that looks like I might put my eye out kid!

I had a guy in Wickenburg do it about 10 years ago, but his shop is gone now.  His method included Borax.

To my understanding, you have to heat gold to about 2,000 degrees F to melt it.  I don’t know about silver, but I’m assuming less temp.

I’ll keep looking.

I want to do this as well. Not sure where to find scrap silver though.

It could lower it.  A scrap yard might have a hard time determining the composition if you just bring in bars instead of #1 copper, which is readily identifiable.  If the yard has an XRF analyzer, it might not be an issue.

Then again, I've heard some scrap yards won't buy stripped wire from unlicensed individuals so if one could process stripped wire into bars and get a scrap yard to buy the ingots, it might be worth it.  I would check with my scrap yard first though.  Otherwise you might end up with something they refuse to buy.

As for gold and silver, look up sreetips on You Tube.  He does a lot of gold and silver melting and refining.  I believe he use an oxy acetylene torch with borax and a crucible.  Instead of pouring into an ingot, the melted metal could be water dropped to form cool nuggets or shot.

You can watch the metal solidify while the borax is still liquid.  As soon as it does, pluck the metal bead out of the liquid borax with needle nose pliers and drop it in water.

Good call.

Gold MP is 1945; silver is 1761. Both in °F and assuming pure metal.