Silver Contacts

Hello first time long time.

I am a career scrapper and I recently stumbled some of these:



I had it assayed at a refiner and its 90% silver and 10% cadmium. I know its a contact used in swithes and relays and other high voltage applications. My question is how do I get more of them? What industry should I concentrate on? Thanks

A friend of mine is a forklift truck engineer and he swaps out similar contacts regularly.

He used to just bin them but he saves them for me and he gets beer money in return.
Maybe there are a few fork lift maintenance companies near you?

A word of caution.....be very careful if you decide to melt these down into a bigger bar, the Cadmium is very poisonous when it vapourises.

Ballymoss

Originally Posted by NoNiceTime

Hello first time long time.

I am a career scrapper and I recently stumbled some of these:



I had it assayed at a refiner and its 90% silver and 10% cadmium. I know its a contact used in swithes and relays and other high voltage applications. My question is how do I get more of them? What industry should I concentrate on? Thanks

For free, I'm assuming your refiner shot the sample with his XRF. My scrap yard will shot any sample I bring in for free, if you want a more precise assay performed contact your local university. They can not accept payment only donations.

I think you over paid, when you process them your going to find that the silver was soaked ( sweated ) into a porous wafer of tungsten lowering the actual silver content.

You can research silver contacts at http://goldrefiningforum.com another great forum.

Originally Posted by gustavus

For free, I'm assuming your refiner shot the sample with his XRF. My scrap yard will shot any sample I bring in for free, if you want a more precise assay performed contact your local university. They can not accept payment only donations.

I think you over paid, when you process them your going to find that the silver was soaked ( sweated ) into a porous wafer of tungsten lowering the actual silver content.

You can research silver contacts at http://goldrefiningforum.com another great forum.

Maybe. My refiner said I an recover 70% silver from the contact and its 2.2 ounces. I did pretty well. We(my company) arefiguring out how to pay for these contacts. If 8 of these contacts equal a pound I can recover 70% of the silver investing $160 a pound it's a sick investment. Still learning about these things though.

A pound of silver is 12 troy ounces. Just so you know.

i have all sorts of these in my office...if anyone wants to see pictures i have tons of copper silver contact points uncleaned i need to clean still...i buy them by the 5 gallon bucket from a local contractor for copper prices lol..

Originally Posted by Ballymoss

A friend of mine is a forklift truck engineer and he swaps out similar contacts regularly.

He used to just bin them but he saves them for me and he gets beer money in return.
Maybe there are a few fork lift maintenance companies near you?

A word of caution.....be very careful if you decide to melt these down into a bigger bar, the Cadmium is very poisonous when it vapourises.

Ballymoss

What is the silver content in forklift contacts?

Originally Posted by WeWillPrevail

Post them.

i just grabbed a few off the top...i have bigger ones and smaller ones but these are about average sizes..you have to be careful when buying these...some have a criss cross design on the "silver" and those ones arent actually silver lol

What is the silver content in forklift contacts?

My friend services two different makes of forklift trucks (Komatsu & Hyundai) and I get the contacts from both types.

One type comes out at around 90% (Hyundai), the other a bit less and seems to vary for some reason, between 70% and 80%.

These numbers are based on my own refining skills, i'm a part time backyard hobby refiner, so i may not be getting all the Silver.

I think Gustavus has some experience with Silver contacts, maybe he has some percentages too?

Ballymoss

i just grabbed a few off the top...i have bigger ones and smaller ones but these are about average sizes..you have to be careful when buying these...some have a criss cross design on the "silver" and those ones arent actually silver lol

The ones with the criss cross pattern do contain Silver but at a much lower percentage, probably in the 25% range.
The pattern indicates that the contacts have Tungsten in the alloy.

I have not refined any of these yet as i only have a few.
I'm saving them up until i have a couple of KG's.

Ballymoss

what i meant by not really silver was it makes the good stuff lower quality if you mix them and try to sell them as a whole...even though tungsten is a great metal to mind and is worth quite a bit..it will still downgrade your silver lol

Originally Posted by NobleMetalWorks

You are absolutely correct about the Cadmium, if you do not know what is alloyed with the silver contacts, you should have it assayed prior to any attempt at melting. If you have no prior experience dealing with these types of alloys, it's best to sell it or have it toll refined by someone who does know. NTR Metals will not touch silver/cadmium contacts, I actually get a good bit a business from them because of this fact.



Actually, there is 14.583 troy ounces to the lb, 16 andopolis ounces per lb (what we know as "ounces")

Scott

What made ya dig up this 2011 thread??
VERY cool contacts that guy had though! I def wouldnt pay 20 per... but I do want some!

Originally Posted by NobleMetalWorks

I process a lot of silver, so I thought since there were no precious metals posts, or post that pertained to refining, I would dig up something old and moldy and talk about it. Honestly, I was hoping to find a huge lot of silver for sale, or something along those lines. In short, selfish, self interest.

Scott

No matter the reason...good to see you back around.

Sirscrapalot - Never underestimate the power of human stupidity. - Robert A. Heinlein