Gold Plated Silver Jewelry

[@Robert-t5b2g]

Cool. I really needed a Sreetips video today.

[@MrCoors68]

We all did ! haha !

[@TroubledOnePaydirt]

Same…

[@brianevans1851]

Man that never gets old watching these vids

[@jasonhorvath3089]

Hey Sreetips, thanks for putting out another great video. KZbin and books are my media of choice and I legitimately think you have one of the best channels on here. Keep up the great work. God bless you and your family!

[@Edgarsantosofficial1]

My Goodness l never get tired of watching your technical videos on how to separate gold from other metal .❤🇧🇷🇺🇸🙏🏻💪🏻

[@kyzercube]

Great video Sreetips! It looks like gold plated silver is a 2 for 1 special. You can now take the silver in solution, precipitate it out and run it through your silver cell while at the same time, you got a nice $250 gold button. 👍

[@sreetips]

Exactly!

[@MostlyIC]

always love those time lapses !!!

[@shieldwolffalcontrainer9040]

Enjoy all your vids. One of my favorate subjects. Thanks for sharing!!!

[@josephcormier5974]

Excellent that's another one on the books as always well done sir thank you for sharing this six stars

[@Antonowskyfly]

You’re welcome. Excellent demo with a nice recovery. Thank you Sir!👍👍🤟

[@D_A86]

That SMB reaction was pretty darn cool 😲😲😲

[@charlesrocks]

Exactly what I needed. I have learned so much about chemistry from Streetips that it amazes me.

[@TBBWDontPlayNoReindeerGames]

@Sreetips My guess was you would recover 5 grams! I've done similar batches of gold-plated sterling silver jewelry. You can expect about 0.5-1.0% yields. Sometimes that plating is under the minimum 2.5 microns, and the yield is a bit less. Awesome recovery yield video! These videos are so great! Sincerely, TBBW

[@mouserr]

en excellent demonstration of just how little material is deposited in plating

[@TrueIndie88]

I was soooo hoping you would refine the silver also and see how much as well. If you are looking for suggestions.). Love your videos.

[@sreetips]

That silver solution will have a bunch of excess nitric so I’ll throw some sterling in there to consume the excess nitric. Then I’ll cement it out as usual.

[@torchandhammer]

I was just curious how that would compare to the strenuous work of obtaining and processing hard rock gold ore. A 1/2% yield would be like, 10 pounds of gold per ton. Did I do the math right? Then with the "waste rock" left over, you could pave your driveway with silver.

[@sreetips]

I’ve never processed ore, no experience with that.

[@torchandhammer]

@@sreetips I think the hardrock guys get pretty excited if there's a gram or 2 per ton of rock.

[@jeepin4on4]

Thank You for sharing, cant wait for the silver recovery part.

[@skinnywheelz]

I bet the cement silver yield was pretty good? Another great video, Thanks for sharing!

[@MikkellTheImmortal]

Hello Mr. Sreetips. I once commented on trying an ultrasonic cleaning to clean some gold sponge, and you rightly pointed out that the acids will destroy the pan. Well I looked into it because I found myself in need of a way to clean some material and I discovered that they make acid proof inserts for most sizes of ultrasonic cleaner. I finally remembered to tell you 😊

[@sreetips]

Thank you

[@shaneyearby4438]

Not a bad yield, more than I thought would come from plating, nice job.

[@disgruntledtoons]

One half of one percent yield suggests that the makers of gold-plated silver put a thicker layer of plate on than they do when they're making the cheap stuff.

[@sreetips]

That’s what I was thinking.

[@Richmart1955]

Always fascinating ❤

[@ArielleViking]

Very interesting to see what the yield was from that gold plated silver. 👍

[@fredrichardson9761]

Awesome video and really proves the point you've made before that gold plate is a very low percentage of gold by weight. One thing I missed was a stannous test after the precipitation. I know you've done that a lot in the past and generally there is no gold left in solution, but it always nice to see that 😉 Another great video! 👍

[@mattruz9238]

Thank you Mr Sreetips for another great video. Always learning from your experience. Question though. Could you explain why you put in a few drops of sulfuric acid before aqua Regia instead of after the after the reaction. I thought the sulfuric acid will precipitate lead out of solution. Thanks again.

[@sreetips]

That’s the way I learned it.

[@Sausketo]

Do you have to scratch each plated surface so the acid can get to the silver under the gold? That must be a pain on those chains

[@sreetips]

No, that’s not needed, the acid will get through to the gold by itself. But I did test each piece by file off a little plating and apply a drop of schwerters to verify silver. Some pieces were marked sterling/925 but they were not silver at all. About 5%

[@cjab111]

Didn’t see this, asked the same question. 😂

[@nikolajwinther5955]

It's weird that people would make silver forgeries. It's not like silver is super expensive. Why would they risk it?

[@Sausketo]

@@nikolajwinther5955 silver still costs more than whatever its made of instead, and the likelihood of being caught is small because it has to be tested by the first purchaser, otherwise its very hard to tell who made/sold it

[@ThePatriotPirate]

Thanks for sharing, very cool!!!

[@felipek.2734]

Hey there Sreetips, why do you boil the precipitated gold in hydrochloric acid prior to melting it? Fascinating videos by the way!

[@sreetips]

It seems to help remove impurities. It changes color during the HCl boil.

[@Sanzus2]

Nice little quick button! Nice new recovery method as well! I'm thinking the little bit of rodium you got from the process might be be worth more than the gold you recovered? Not suggesting you go after it but your refinery sure will. Last time I looked it was around $20k per Troy ounce!

[@sreetips]

Most big refiners don’t give credit for rhodium.

[@Sanzus2]

@@sreetips that sucks! It's hard to get, even harder to refine. At ~$500 a gram you know they are recovering it at some point!

[@TroubledOnePaydirt]

As I lay here with back completely thrown out, I am thrilled to see a new Sreetips video to take my mind off the pain….hopefully. 😩👍👍

[@thomasj8105]

Excellent sreetips. Could it be worth trying to melt it into shot and then do a special run in the silver cell, and then do a gold refine of what is in the filterbag afterwards?

[@sreetips]

That’s possible, but many extra steps. I set this stuff aside so I could make this video.

[@thomasj8105]

@@sreetips True, I just thought that using the cell is less work than the nitric boils and might save you some time with low-yield plated material. Probably not the case. Looking forward to your next video.

[@chriswinsper2073]

Out of curiosity. Would it be more cost effective to melt it into shot and run it through the silver cell you could collect the gold from the slimes and you wouldn't have the waste of copper that you're now going to have from cementing the silver from that silver nitrate you just created plus cost of nitric. Great video as always 👍

[@sreetips]

That’s possible. But I saved it up so I could make the video.

[@RealAjay]

And we all appreciate that effort I’m sure 👍

[@drcurioustube]

Would be interested to see the difference between this and gold FILLED silver.

[@ramonhart2052]

Afding sulfuric acid wil speed up the proces ADD water to cover the gold plated materials then add sulfuric and them Some nitric acid or wil iT effect the silver in solotion

[@rsnow32]

Thanks Sreetips, i always enjoy your videos. I missed the explanation as to why the gold solution was green instead of yellow as it normally is. I assume it's due to the contamination you mention at the end of the video? Do you know what it is?

[@sreetips]

Probably copper

[@MrTexaninNC]

I would pay to spend a weekend and watch and learn in person

[@AquanautSt1]

Always fascinating . " The Alchemist "

[@CannonCountry]

4g ~ roughly $250 3 days worth of work. I wonder what you spent in chemicals to yield it? Hope this video makes you more for the efforts. And I hope the silver makes it worth it too. Always fun to watch. Cheers

[@firstnlast]

He’s mentioned before that this isn’t necessarily a money-making venture, and his larger goal is to convert as much cash into silver as possible to hedge against inflation.

[@sreetips]

Well said.

[@sreetips]

I love it any time I can convert paper dollars to gold. Especially now that my debts are paid and I don’t have to sell my gold.

[@CannonCountry]

@@sreetips I would love to see a break down... what you spent on the gold plated silver, your approximate expenses in chemicals. And then how much time you spent start to finish. I think a cost analysis of this would be fascinating. I know there are hours involved but I dont think you are doing much during those hours. So the labor expense is minimal. And after the initial investment of beakers, viles, vent/hood, etc.... your overhead I also believe is minimal.

[@Chris-ch5nb]

Thank you for another excellent video! May I ask: what’s your estimated chemical cost for this refining? (Just the acids and SMB- Not accounting for time, equipment, supplies etc.)

[@sreetips]

Nitric is $50 per 2.5 liter bottle. I used about 900ml. Everything else was less than ten bucks.

[@mrboom303]

I don’t know if it’s me, but there is something soothing about watching your videos😂😂

[@jamisontaylor878]

Cool video thank you 😊

[@knightstar1312]

Nice video. Separating the gold plated jewelry according to the base metals is a wise 1st step. I am curious to know: 1. Is the electrolysis method easier and what's the bath solution made of for gold plated silver? 2. Also can gold plated silver jewelry be done with a 2-3% iodine tincture leaching method? 3. Can your method be done with sodium nitrate? What would the solution be made up of? Ex: 17% sulfuric acid, distilled water, sodium nitrate, urea. I ask because its hard for me to get nitric acid. I can only access sodium nitrate. Also do you know about the gold leaching solution made up of mostly vinegar, a little of an oxidiser, and a little of mild acid, created by the University of Winnipeg. I am guessing the oxidiser could be sodium nitrate, and the mild acid could be oxalic acid or citric acid. Whats your thought on this?

[@sreetips]

1. There’s no electrolysis method for GP silver that I know of. Best to use it to inquart karat gold. I set it aside so I can make a video out of it because I know I can dissolve the silver to get the gold.

[@sreetips]

2. I’ve never used iodine. None of the refiners that I learned from used iodine.

[@sreetips]

I’ve never used sodium nitrate in any of my processes. But I know it can be used to make nitric acid.

[@sreetips]

I did an experiment with salt and vinegar on trimmed circuit card fingers. It worked ok. But I wouldn’t use it regularly.

[@knightstar1312]

@@sreetips Thank you for all three answers! Its very much appreciated. I am looking for an alternative to nitric acid since I can't access it. I want to recover gold from my various gold plated jewelry, pens, eye glass frames, souvenir pins, and kitchen ware that I am collecting from recycle scrap.

[@ColonelBummleigh]

The man is a modern day alchemist. I love these videos

[@Nerdrem1]

Do you think there would be any benefit to doing a nitric boil either instead of or in addition to the hydrochloric boil at the end to clean up the gold? Correct me if I'm wrong but nitric alone won't dissolve the gold, or it might take a negligible amount, but it seems to me that with the gold in that highly particulated state a quick nitric boil would pull out any base metals that you missed in the previous steps.

[@sreetips]

None of the refiners that I learned from used nitric boils on the pure gold powder. But I suppose that it couldn’t hurt.

[@MostlyIC]

Sreetips, was a little worried when the aqua-regia turned green rather than yellow/orange, but it looks like the green stayed in solution after the sodium-metabisulfite, is that what you saw too ? if so all was good. but the green may have been a sign to use ferrous-sulfate rather than SMB (but not sure which is more selective). I did see your follow up video where this button was added to some other karat scrap and that didn't turn green so this must have been a good refining. thoughts ?

[@sreetips]

All your observations are correct. I concur

[@ImanGoldRecovery]

its a good job big boss .thanks for goods videos ❤❤❤👍

[@bw4593]

The plated stuff always tools me when I watch. It looks like so much until you get to the melt

[@scotthultin7769]

3👍's up sreetips thank you for sharing 😊

[@mr.g-sez]

you know what fascinates me hno3: dissolves silver hcl+hno3: dissolves gold but no silver its like its made for us to seperate metals/minerals so no matter what you always end up seperating those 2 metals

[@sreetips]

I think that’s part of the reason that gold and silver became money - by default.

[@diegohenrique3388]

Good job

[@cv990a4]

Most efficient use of nitric would be to use this material to enquart gold... But of course the idea here was to measure the proportion of gold in gold-plated silver.

[@sbent711]

Stay busy Sreetips... great work!!!

[@greendruid33]

Is there an easy test that you do to determine that the base metal is silver and not some junk "white metal" or an alloy of copper or some other substance that would mess up the reaction? And by easy, I mean something you could do quickly at the point of sale when you're trying to determine if you should buy a piece or not.

[@sreetips]

Not that I know of. A magnet only tells you if there’s any iron (or nickel). About 5% of gold plated silver isn’t silver at all.

[@theguvnor5964]

Thanks for great video.....do you wear mask when doing this? thanks.

[@sreetips]

Yes

[@Cambpro]

As always, love your videos!! I have so much gold plated computer scrap and I need to process it. It’s about 23 pounds of fingers, pins, chips, etc all trimmed down. Before I start, I’m going to build a fume hood. Being an HVAC mechanic has its perks! Any tips on where to find the chemicals needed?

[@sreetips]

I buy most of my chemicals at Ace Hardware or eBay. Nitric at dudadiesel.com

[@akramzarog4142]

Thank you for the good video but i want to ask why you skipped the incineration step...?

[@sreetips]

Didn’t think of it.

[@glOckcOma]

Staying hydrated Sreetips? You sounded parched. I have really bad Mysophonia and can tell when someone needs a glass of water. Great video as always. Also why no Stanis post SMB?

[@sreetips]

Didn’t think of it. And you’re right, I was thirsty.

[@williefleete]

I may have asked / mentioned this before, I’m guessing the junk stuff uses copper alloys which interfere with the nitric boils etc eg tin/zinc (brass bronze etc) cementing the copper and otherwise a waste of time

[@sreetips]

Agree. Dissolving silver in nitric is clean.

[@roselynn4246]

What about the ends of the cords to computers will you do those pleas

[@josephpecoul6532]

Is the gold a little thicker on the gold-plated silver as opposed to the regular gold-plated junk jewelry

[@sreetips]

Yes

[@adws5696]

8:41 Absolutely beautiful

[@mycikroto83]

how do you treat borax waste that has been melted during the melting process since there is still a lot of gold inside the borax? noted that i used a lot of borax to melt my broken jewelry to measure the percentage. thanks before. always wait and love your video

[@sreetips]

Borax is soluble in water.

[@mycikroto83]

@@sreetips so you mean we just need to boiled it in water?

[@nikolajwinther5955]

Probably not even boil. Hot water from tap. It's used it washing powder so it would dissolve at around 20C or less.

[@mycikroto83]

If the borax has been melted and become solid, it will not disolve.

[@sreetips]

Yes, it should dissolve.

[@davidutterback1544]

What kind of mask and filter do you use when you are transferring beakers and such

[@sreetips]

I’m using a fume hood to draw the dangerous vapors away from me. Mask 3M P95

[@timsmith9645]

Awesome gold button thanks for sharing sreetips

[@crystalwolf111]

Sreetips - would it be possible to get a financial break down of some of these recoveries? Like how much you recovered in USD vs the price of the base materials and chemicals so we can get a total profit from each run? I know it's a lot of work but I think it would be cool to know.

[@sreetips]

The profit, in dollars, is negative.

[@cjab111]

Do you have to expose the silver on each piece for the nitric acid to dissolve the silver?

[@sreetips]

No

[@John-dp3ln]

Why didn’t you have to inquart the foils. How could aqua dissolve them?

[@sreetips]

They are so thin that inquart is not necessary.

[@terryray4646]

I would have paid way more attention in chemistry if sreetips was my teacher! Thanks man!

[@WhoAmEye_WhoAreEwe]

always love the SMB part of the process ....and there's the gold. Lovely jubbley :)

[@pauljconroysr4080]

How Much Silver were you able to pull out of this as well ?? and did you pull out at least even for the chemical costs and cost of being the metal stock .?

[@sreetips]

Should be about 700g of pure silver

[@pauljconroysr4080]

@@sreetips thank you for the reply bud it is highly appreciated :) Good Tidings to both You and Your Wife and have always loved the informality of your videos as being quick, concise, and in depth

[@mandyballge632]

I think you said in a previous video that you sprinkle borax on the hot molten gold? What does that do? Just wondering.

[@sreetips]

It keeps the air from contacting it.

[@adamhbiggs]

It's it possible to have a chart that can help you identify the concentration of gold by the shade of the stannous chloride test?

[@sreetips]

I have a standard test solution with 1g per liter concentration to compare against an unknown concentration of gold in solution.

[@adamhbiggs]

Thanks, I really enjoy your videos.

[@josephnoonan82]

Always a great vid!

[@AdamsWorlds]

Will the SMB precipitate out anything else that is undesirable always wondered.

[@sreetips]

It will bring down traces of platinum group metals, if present.

[@AdamsWorlds]

@@sreetips cheers for that fascinating. Love that reaction when it can be seen.

[@DavidDavis-Central_FL]

Gooood evening from central Florida! Hope everyone has a great night!

[@sreetips]

Goooood evening!

[@hardergamer]

Can someone tell me what cemented silver is? And how is it different from normal silver?

[@NOFX0890]

In this case it is silver precipitated back out of solution with copper from contaminated copper nitrate and silver nitrate solution, relying on the Reactivity Series of Metals. It is a powder. Dried out it has a similar appearance to portland cement, the integral ingredient to concrete. Hence cement silver. There is very little to no consolidation, as opposed to melted and alloyed silver. Hope this helps.

[@sreetips]

Cement silver is silver powder - it’s different from sterling silver because it’s higher purity. I have a video on my channel “what is cement silver.”

[@MADDLADO1]

cool video !!

[@frankz1125]

Good video. Cheers

[@twodeadmice3321]

What are the markings/indication its silver under the gold plating? Thanks for the video.

[@sreetips]

Same as sterling/925

[@stormdrifter7904]

YEEEEAAAAHH. LETS GOOO

[@Joe.Rogan.]

Have you been cleaning out your temporary gold waste containers off video? Feels like it's been a minute since we've seen a video of that.

[@sreetips]

Last one was 6 months ago. But it’s time for another one.

[@mikesabo5583]

If the material is covered in Gold, how does the acid penetrate and get to the silver?

[@sreetips]

Nitric, always finds a way.

[@raytruesdell7873]

Very nice as always be safe everyone

[@AllanFolm]

The steam condensate coming off of your glass lids, is that just water, or is it acidic?

[@sreetips]

Probably acidic.

[@AllanFolm]

@@sreetips Good thing you're careful to return the condensate to the solution then.

[@RealAjay]

Gold plated silver 750gm or thereabouts. Gold …👀. Well at least the silver is a good hit and another karat scrap video coming soon by the looks of it 👍

[@sreetips]

Working on it right now.

[@CasutaCuRetete]

Good morning, question : can you make a table with the cost of a refinery (example to this video) 2 Can you post a link where you buy glasses and utensils you use? Have you tried making acids in your home so you don't buy anymore? Thanks

[@sreetips]

I buy stuff as I need it when I first started. I bought all my glassware on eBay. I’ve never tried making my own acids.

[@CasutaCuRetete]

Try to produce acids at home, it's simple, try this experiment, it's cheaper than buying acids. Try an experiment to recover steam and turn into liquid to recover metals

[@MrJamesstott]

will you use the blue liquid in your silver cell?

[@sreetips]

Eventually. But first I’ll add sterling to consume all that extra nitric acid.

[@IIIKNOW3]

Why do you think the solution was green and that did not precipitate out with the gold? Would it be a PGM or maybe nickel?

[@sreetips]

Probably pgm

[@jdrains16]

13:28 wait, you didn’t check with stannous to verify all of the gold had dropped before pouring off the waste solution?

[@sreetips]

Years of experience working against me. It should have been done. If any gold remained then I’ll get it from my waste container.

[@aaronfranz2718]

I have 1000+ pairs of 14k plated sterling silver earrings. Each pair is 1.7grams. What is the estimate on value and would you process for half

[@sreetips]

My yield was 0.3% I only work on my own material.

[@debcamp2359]

Thx for thevid!

[@khaterehlunden5136]

Thank you very much

[@shaneyork300]

I was guessing less than 2 grams! Seemed to be pretty heavily plated

[@larrykester8593]

Kevin, how pure is the gold off the silver??

[@sreetips]

I’m not sure.

[@larrykester8593]

Probably, .990 like you said. Im guessing for that kind of yield it is not worth refining just the gold. Where you would come out is refining the silver, correct?

[@larrykester8593]

@@sreetips I am going to your eBay store. I’m going to be purchasing a couple things.

[@larrykester8593]

@@sreetips Would there be a loss of gold if I melt a gram of your sponge or would it stay at 1g?

[@theallseeingmaster]

More than I thought it would be, by a gram.

[@sreetips]

Same here.

[@dustinscroggins3382]

So you filed into each peice and tested with shwarters??

[@sreetips]

Yes!

[@dustinscroggins3382]

@@sreetips nice very glad you showed this process, thank you

[@wildwisdom56]

Why wouldn't nitric on gold plated copper or other base leave gold behind? Thanks

[@sreetips]

Because nitric won’t dissolve the gold very well.

[@wildwisdom56]

@@sreetips right, as the first step leaving behind foils like it does with silver in this video. So it can be used similarly? I was looking at your avg yields on different gold plated, filled jewelry, processor pro8 only, trimmed fingers and it looks like 0.3%-0.6% gold recovered by weight is the range. Do you think a conservative 0.2% recovery is reasonable to use when pricing these categories for purchase? That's valuable information I really appreciate you doing these experiments. Thank you

[@wildwisdom56]

@@sreetips and don't worry about me buying it all up! I doubt I can get a bottle of nitric anyway but still curious.

[@sreetips]

GF yields about 2.5% pentium pro CPUs yield 0.3g pure gold per cpu. Trimmed fingers I can get from 1.5g to 1.8g pure gold per pound.

[@sreetips]

@wildwisdom56 I’m not worried. I don’t process much escrap because the yields are too low.

[@dynorat12]

very nice button

[@timothyodonnell8591]

Why was the aqua regia green? It's usually a golden yellow color.

[@sreetips]

Probably from the copper in the gold. It’s not pure, it’s karat gold. Karat gold has copper in the alloy.

[@MikkellTheImmortal]

As an amateur jeweler I don't understand why gold plate silver instead of a cheaper base metal like what seems to be more common. Anyone can answer this for me but please be intelligent with your answer, even if it's short

[@sreetips]

Cheap base metal turns your skin green. Silver shouldn’t do that.

[@MikkellTheImmortal]

@@sreetips I see, so if you wear through enough it won't stain you. Makes sense.

[@henryknepp]

Yea!!!! Another batch!!