Nearly wrote these off!!!

**TheCreator** · 12-21-2016, 02:07 AM

But now I know better.

A - (3) Bakelite switch missing the cover.
alright silver plate on heavy copper, and some nice copper springs (another one to remove also).
Not sure if the bumps are silver right through, will sand them to see.

B - (1) white switch, very thin electroplate (they got good at saving money whenever these came out), might sand it a bit - I'll not bother too much with these in the future. Interestingly the base is Bakelite. The bump on contact was just embosed (stamped) through from other side.

C - not sure how this bit worked just sort of smashed the long switch to bits (2), only way to get in, appears to be some kind of heat sink, and has a kind of cardboard heat shield holding the plates. Alumium heat vent, some kind of copper coil, very interesting, nice little bits of brass for future engineering projects (I make micro scale things).
D - massive Silver buttons, nearly thought E was silver too (wishful, only Alumium) the weight was from the button!

From the Switch box, quite a nice button of silver, copper is riveted on so will take some work to separate these.

Well that's my day so far. Happy Hunting.

**eesakiwi** · 12-21-2016, 08:23 AM

Nice pics. I have found that (C) the little metal plates with the V in them, are Copper plated Steel.
I get the idea its some sort of passive heatsink for the contactor.
Its easy to check for with a magnet.

Now the arm with the round disc Silver contact, seem to be Copper.
Those contacts will snap sometimes when you break them off. I think its that sort that has the Cadmium alloyed in with the Silver.

The switch contacts, I find that by using side cutters and snipping across the Copper strip, across the contact at the same time, but leaving most of the contact on the side of the larger part of the Copper strip, you will feel as the Copper strip breaks, at that point I use nail clippers yo pull out the Copper/Silver contact.
This seems to work for almost all contacts like this.

**TheCreator** · 12-21-2016, 04:59 PM

Originally Posted by eesakiwi

Nice pics. I have found that (C) the little metal plates with the V in them, are Copper plated Steel.

Great, I'll check all my copper bits before I segregate them.

Originally Posted by eesakiwi

I think its that sort that has the Cadmium alloyed in with the Silver.

Good to know that. I'll need to do some reasearch on how to separate - Cadmium is a bit nasty, then again silver oxides and nitrites/nitrides fairly dangerous also.
Glad I'll be experimenting with tiny amounts. Hopefully the Cadmium will lower the melting point of the silver, making electrolysis easier.

**alloy2** · 12-21-2016, 06:37 PM

The longish copper with the silver contact, the copper is an alloy that contains barium another nasty.carcinogenic.

**alloy2** · 12-21-2016, 06:45 PM

Here's what prolonged exposure to arsenic can do to the human body, and this is a mild case.

After seven years of refining some platinum group metals I have become sensitized to palladium, I have become a human metal detector, when ever I'm near palladium my skin burns as if it were on fire.

I'm not going to keep watch on your posts to see what mischief you've been up to, some of the junk you've shown certainly qualifies as hazardous.

My advice to join the gold forum was not given lightly.

**TheCreator** · 12-23-2016, 05:38 PM

Not to worry. I won't be smelting in open air - all closed system with scrubbers. Everything will be contained, recycled, reprocessed.
I'll be doing very tiny quantities, 10 grams. I will begin with simple amounts, and work my way up to complex alloys/impure slag.

Was talking to a person that uses mercury to recover gold, and he said to be very careful as his small chemistry set exploded on him one day.
I will be doing a lot of research before attempting things like mercury/cyanide/acids.

Read this just before joining. I do understand your concerns, thank you.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6449a4.htm

**TheCreator** · 12-23-2016, 07:28 PM

Found this diagram of a circuit breaker - explains what was inside of the switch I smashed - the coil is the solenoid to separate the contacts if there was a high voltage overload.
The alternating plates might be an arc separator/divider. Very complex yet interesting stuff. (My Electrical Engineering interests are mostly low voltage DC).

**alloy2** · 12-23-2016, 09:56 PM

Originally Posted by TheCreator

Found this diagram of a circuit breaker - explains what was inside of the switch I smashed - the coil is the solenoid to separate the contacts if there was a high voltage overload.
The alternating plates might be an arc separator/divider. Very complex yet interesting stuff. (My Electrical Engineering interests are mostly low voltage DC).

The silver contact from circuit breakers has the silver impregnated in a tungsten sponge.

You should have read some of my very early forum threads from which I gave a whole list of items having silver and or gold contacts that I feed through a hammer mill then use a shaker table to separate the silver from the rest of the pulverized junk.

My first hammer mills were 5 hp and 7.5 hp. small in compassion to my recent hammer mill requiring a minimum of 60 horse power to operate efficiently.

Once were into spring weather I have a couple thousand pounds of insulated copper wire to process through the new hammer mill then over a table, similar to what Steve is doing in the youtube video below.

I have also included a couple of Steve's videos processing computer circuit boards.

**alloy2** · 12-23-2016, 10:51 PM

I can hardly wait to power up the new to me hammer mill.

After I have clean copper granules I'll be using my 15 KVA induction furnace to turn those granules into ingots.

This dude is milling wiring harness from automotive scrap in the first video, second is a gold melt using induction furnace.

Looks like he's using about 5 hp on his hammer mill, for my larger 60 hp mill that bucket of looms would be a small snack.