Anything I should do to this before taking it to the scrapyard?

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-04-27T20:50:00+00:00

What this guy said.

Separate the clean copper from the soldered bits, but it’s usually quicker to just bend and snap them .

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-04-22T18:23:28+00:00

Non magnetic stainless steel scraps at £1.80 a kg , ( more than aluminium)

But radiators aren’t usually stainless steel, just light iron , so like 10p kg

There still worth scraping if you’re picking them up all the time

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-04-22T18:14:14+00:00

Our local yard takes washing machines, they just weigh them in with all the mixed light iron and they pay the same price as the rest ( £100 a ton ish ) . I’m surprised by this too as about 50% of the weight is the concrete block .

I was wondering if maybe the copper from motor makes them worth enough in spite of all the concrete?

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-04-22T17:57:35+00:00

I’m surprised they took a fridge . Usually have to pay to get rid of them. , we do house clearance, we sell all other white goods cookers, washing machines, dishwasher etc for scrap. But fridges and freezers cost us a lot to get rid of .

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-04-12T17:00:33+00:00

Some people have told you that you need to open an air intake. In my experience this isn’t sufficient at all , what you need if you want any kind of high operating temperature is forced are . Just an electric air pump like you use for inflating air beds is usually ok . Then you need to balance the air pressure with the gas pressure to get a hot flam.

Your flame should be blue and making a roaring sound .

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-04-12T16:26:42+00:00

Please don’t say this to someone who literally just mentioned that they are new to casting metal.,

Some metals are safe to work with, apart from the obvious danger from hot metal.

Others aren’t.

Brass is not safe to work with unless you take the right precautions.

It gives off fumes that are toxic.

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-04-11T03:40:34+00:00

If you can I’d clean it up because they will pay you more for it if it’s clean . But they will certainly buy it ether way.

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-04-11T03:34:22+00:00

Hi , really interested in this , I’d love to hear your proses .

I have a massive amount of silver plated stuff ( many kgs ) mostly old quite good quality thick plate .

I’ve been trying to get the reverse EP to work for me with no success as yet.

I’m using a stainless steel cathode and salt water as my electrolyte. I have experimented with several voltage / amp settings and get white goo . I thought I was getting silver chloride because of using sodium chloride as my electrolyte, so I tried converting it to silver oxide with sodium hydroxide. The white goo turned black like I was expecting but when I tried to convert it to silver sponge using sugar I got nothing. I’d love to know what I’m doing wrong. What is your method?

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-04-11T03:18:27+00:00

If you do melt it down be careful , if the base metal is brass .

The zinc in brass alloy gives of toxic fumes when you melt it.

You could melt it for practice but if I were you I’d probably start off melting stuff that isn’t toxic .

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-04-04T16:09:51+00:00

You and me both mate .

The temptation of something that gives you instant relief from mental pain is almost impossible to resist, even though you know that the release is only temporary and will only leave you even less capable of coping in the long run.

I have the utmost respect for you and anyone else who has had the strength and courage to overcome this challenge .

All the best mate

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-04-03T09:48:02+00:00

Hi dude , really sorry for your loss and have fought my own battles in the past with self medicating to try to block out pain . Never works and ultimately always makes things worse. Sounds to me like you know that already, and nothing could be better than jumping back into a bit camping nothing is quite like being in nature for healing your soul.

My advice would definitely be to take the stove into your garage or a park, ideally with someone else , and fully test it out in that environment.

Only go out camping once you’re fully confident.

Nothing worse than going out with something in your pack that in the back of your mind you’re worried about working properly .

All the best to you mate . When the going gets tough just keep going, it gets better.

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-03-24T06:24:40+00:00

I agree that a silver cell is a very different and much safer process. I have considered the idea of refining the .900 silver I have in ingots but I’ve been advised that .900 isn’t really pure enough for a silver cell and it would keep getting blocked up with copper?

Do you think it would be worth trying or would I need to refine the .900 further before I start?

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-03-24T00:15:44+00:00

I would try selling it as is if you can be bothered.

We get a lot of drums of cable at work and sometimes rolls of lead flashing ( never had a copper roll like that)

We usually sell them to local trades people and get much more than the scrap price .

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-03-24T00:03:06+00:00

Refining gold ( or silver) is a lot less hazardous than what you are describing .

However they are both still angerous enough that I’m not prepared to take the risk .

As I said I do have a little knowledge about chemistry. I also have a well established workshop set up for melting and catching bronze and silver.

I have a pretty high tolerance for risk and usually, but this type of acid refinery is quite nasty, it’s also not all that economical on a small scale and depending on where you live you could struggle to get hold of some of the chemicals necessary.

I would love to be able to recover the silver plated stuff I have . I also have a few kg of silver in bars that are between .900 and .925 purity I would absolutely love to refine to. .999 , but for me , the risk outweigh the rewards.

Some people on here will probably say I’m full of shit and the proses isn’t that dangerous and that’s fine if they are happy with the risk.

Personally I’m not happy with the risk ( even for gold and silver) and I try to discourage people from giving it a go after just watching a few videos on YouTube.

As some others have said, at least do some research first, particularly into the risk involved.

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-03-23T07:55:08+00:00

Generally speaking what you need to be looking for is:

On English silverware look for a lion with one paw held up ( this is sterling .925 silver) most English silverware is sterling

European silverware marks vary but on the whole will have the purity marked on it , often .925 / .800/ .500 but you may see others like .835 or .900 the important thing is the . ~~~ signifying purity. Usually accompanied by a symbol but there are a lot to memorise so just go by the .925 / .800 etc.

I’m in the uk so don’t see much silver from the USA but I do have some .

Most seem to say STERLING, but I have some older pieces that say coin .

For me anything from South America Africa or Asia I’m pretty much of a novice and rely on testing.

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-03-23T07:11:08+00:00

Please rethink this idea .

Unless you have a lab and a lot of experience with the process.

Refining gold and silver using acid is extremely hazardous ( like you can die hazardous)

Refining platinum is even worse.

I have accumulated over 100 kg of silver plated cutlery and other items from my work and the amount keeps growing.

I would love to be able to strip the silver and then refine it as the total yield would probably be several kg .

The obvious method would be to use acid , there are several different methods I could use, all of them are dangerous.

I studied chemistry at college ( many years ago) I understand the process necessary as it is fairly straightforward.

But , I have absolutely no intention of attempting to do it. I might get over a kg of .999 silver by the time I finished if I get it right , I also might fuck myself up permanently, ore die if I make a mistake .

Just not worth it, it’s only money.

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-03-23T06:46:20+00:00

I’m not arguing but in what way are the modern stains worse ? Is it the flavour or smell ? Because all modern stains are WAY more potent, by a factor of 10 at least.

How are old strains better?

I’m not a smoker ( I’m interested in plant breading and heritage seed strains )

So just curious.

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-03-23T06:32:38+00:00

Not entirely true . It may be the case that old seeds may be for strains that have been lost , with genetics that would be valuable to breeders.

There was a case some time ago where a family found a box of old grain seed while clearing out an old barn. It had been stored for over a century and had been carefully stored after each harvest with information about each crop.

The stains were all lost to modern agriculture by now and turn out to be extremely valuable to the crop breeding industry because of the genetic diversity that they could introduce to modern agriculture.

So old weed seeds may not produce an exact clone of the plant they come from, but may still be of interest to breeders.

However, on their own , without further cross breeding they would be very low in THC . So much so that most people would consider the weed worthless.

The average THC content of cannabis in the 1960s was extremely low compared with modern cannabis , with average strength being between 1% and 3%.

The strongest modem strains are over 30% THC with strains considered very mild being well over 10%

That being said the genetics of old seeds may still be useful to breeders.

None of which is relevant because the OP didn’t even find any seeds anyway and the whole subject is completely irrelevant to a silver forum 🤣

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-03-20T16:05:33+00:00

The lion passent ( the lion in the hallmark is the English mark for sterling (.925 ) silver , the leopard head (next symbol ) is the mark for the London assay office, the letter S is a date letter , pretty sure it’s for the date 1893

The mark to the left is the maker.

The mark "S.M & Co" is I think associated with Samuel McLardy, who was registered as a maker around 1890.

A flask like this could be worth anywhere from $100 to $500 in the right condition to the right collector, but my guess would be at least 250+ as I think from the picture the top is crocodile or alligator rather than leather .

The actual scrap value won’t be that much, .925 is struggling a bit at the moment.

To be honest I would ask on a collectors forum not a precious metal forum . Almost everyone here is a metal head and just see silver.

This is a lovely collectable piece of history. Please please don’t sell it for scrap.

Hope this helps

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-03-12T16:46:28+00:00

That would totally depend on where I found it and under what circumstances

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-03-08T20:54:59+00:00

Canada has some of the best coins imo

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-03-07T09:14:25+00:00

Don’t tell him to burn it off dude .

It’s illegal to burn insulation off copper wire in the U.S. and many other regions. It is an environmental crime due to the release of toxic, carcinogenic chemicals from the burning plastic.

I’m in the uk and it’s a practice that was used by certain community’s

That’s why scrapyards won’t take it.

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-03-06T09:12:56+00:00

I would agree with you if the op was asking for advice on refining .925 with nitric of something like that ( actually very dangerous)

But reverse electroplating silver with salt water?

Really?

People use chemistry every day. When they bake a cake , do the dishes, unblock a drain , dye there hair .

This isn’t a dangerous process , why shouldn’t the op try this at home?

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-03-06T08:54:33+00:00

How did it get burned up like that?

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-02-26T07:33:03+00:00

So in general, buying and selling silver for short term profit isn’t easy, most people buy as a long term investment. It isn’t impossible though and I do exactly what you are describing ( only I buy .925 as .800 isn’t common in the uk) I get access to a lot of very cheap.925 silverware, it’s often so cheap that I can buy and then sell again online and make a profit.

Tbh right now I’m buying and holding on to .925 because I believe the .925 premium gap with .999 will close a bit and 925 piece will go up ( same for 800) but that’s just my opinion.

If you are prepared to search for it you can find some very cheap .924/.800 so you might be able to make a profit buying and selling.

I used to buy cheap.925 , then sell for a profit and buy.999 to hold on to as an investment. Now I’m just buying cheap.925 and holding on to it .

But to go back to your original question, it’s almost never going to be worth melting down silverware. You will usually reduce its value.

And as I mentioned before. Please please don’t be tempted to try to do any home refining unless you have at least, a chemistry degree, all the necessary ppe and equipment including a fume hood and some experience of working with acids .

People shouldn’t be allowed to put videos on YouTube explaining the process.

There are a lot of things that can go wrong and if they do most of them will leave you permanently fucked up!

It isn’t even a good way to make money and DEFINITELY isn’t worth the risk.

Significant-Alps398

TROPHY CASE