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Silver Contacts

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  1. #1
    NoNiceTime started this thread.
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    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


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    That is one large contact! Anyone that has those would not be to ready to just give them up. I am sure they would be hard to come by.

    How did you stumble the ones you have now? I would love to stumble onto some of those myself.

    You say you had it assayed, what did that cost? I hear it is not cheap! I take it you have a good lot of them if you spent the money for the assay .


    Oh welcome to the board, interesting choice of user name.


    Joe
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    Ballymoss's Avatar
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    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

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  5. #4
    NoNiceTime started this thread.
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    @Injunjoe I work for a company that recycles silver oxide watch batteries. We call up jewelry stores and buy their batteries back from them. One of my customers had these. He had about twenty of them. After I had it assayed I bought them from him for $20 a contact. I want some more. My refiner did the assay for free because we do a lot of business through them.

    @Bally Thanks for the heads up about the forklifts. I will look into that! And I wouldnt refine them myself. Something like that I would leave to the pros
    Last edited by NoNiceTime; 11-11-2011 at 07:26 PM.

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    Thanks for the answers. What a great connection being able have an assay done for free.

    Well good luck. I still look to stumble onto such. luck.... perhaps I need to swill a bit to get my stumble on!

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    gustavus is offline Metal Recycling Entrepreneur
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    Quote Originally Posted by NoNiceTime View Post
    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.

  9. #7
    NoNiceTime started this thread.
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    Quote Originally Posted by gustavus View Post
    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.

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

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    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..


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    Quote Originally Posted by jdawg View Post
    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..
    Post them.
    Everyone one of you is 2 minutes too late.

  13. #11
    NoNiceTime started this thread.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ballymoss View Post
    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?

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    Quote Originally Posted by WeWillPrevail View Post
    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


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    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

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    Ballymoss's Avatar
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    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

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    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

  19. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ballymoss View Post
    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
    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.

    Quote Originally Posted by PartTimeScrapper View Post
    A pound of silver is 12 troy ounces. Just so you know.
    Actually, there is 14.583 troy ounces to the lb, 16 andopolis ounces per lb (what we know as "ounces")

    Scott
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    Quote Originally Posted by NobleMetalWorks View Post
    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!

  21. #18
    NobleMetalWorks's Avatar
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    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

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    Quote Originally Posted by NobleMetalWorks View Post
    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

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    Quote Originally Posted by NobleMetalWorks View Post
    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
    Well if that's the case, why not update your buyer-sellers thread from way back when.
    http://www.scrapmetalforum.com/scrap...ver-scrap.html


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