Refining Metal As A Jeweler

In today’s episode, I will be discussing the importance of refining precious metals as a jeweler. If you are working in silver, even in small amounts as a hobbyist or student this episode will have very important information. Collecting metal dust and scraps will prevent you from losing the money you’ve invested into those materials, it is more environmentally responsible and if you use some of the tips I’m about to share it will make your workspace safer for you to work in.

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FIND A REFINER. Link to my blog article “Guide To Refining Scrap Metal”: https://metalsmithsociety.com/a/blog/metalsmith-societys-guide-to-refining-scrap-metal

Tip for gathering silver dust from your bench drawer from @mageofmetals: https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cr3RQa6rz_7/

Tip for getting steel out of your sweeps from @sawyerrileyjewelry: https://www.instagram.com/p/BhG4CmQhe7R/

Tip for saving metal from tumblers and the ultrasonic from @craigdabler: https://www.instagram.com/p/B7nrh7ohveu/

Mini vacuum for collecting metal dust shared by @rustycreekdesigns: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CmwWMZtrEcP/

Link to mini vacuum : https://amzn.to/4b1jYmo

I use the Foredom System to collect dust at my bench pin, you can see it in action here: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CeTaue4F7gS/

My dust collector: https://www.gesswein.com/dust-collection/dust-collectors/bench-dust-collectors/foredom-dust-collector-115v-dust-collector/?ref=metalsmithsociety

The dust collector attachment that connects to my bench pin: https://www.gesswein.com/dust-collection/replacements-parts-accessories/foredom-fishmouth-with-shield/?ref=metalsmithsociety

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Music attribution: Stock Music provided by RomanSenykMusic, from Pond5

Transcript

Corkie Bolton: 0:01

Welcome to Jewelry Making Tips with Metalsmith Society the ultimate podcast for anyone passionate about the art of jewelry making. I'm your host, Corkie Bolton. Metalsmith Society is a community on Instagram that has over 240,000 individuals, from professional jewelers to small business artisans, hobbyists, students and even those curious looky-loos eager to learn about jewelry making. Together, we share tips, kindness and support. In this podcast, I will discuss tips from the Instagram page, provide deeper insights, address questions and share bonus tips that often surface in the comments section. So, whether you've been making jewelry for a while or you're just starting your jewelry making journey, this podcast is your go-to resource for all the jewelry making tips. So grab your tools, dust off your workbench and join me. In today's episode, I will be discussing the importance of refining your precious metals as a jeweler. If you're working in silver, even in small amounts, as a hobbyist or student, this episode will have very important information. Collecting metal dust and scraps will prevent you from losing the money you've invested into those materials. It's more environmentally responsible and, if you use some of the tips I'm about to share, it will make your workspace safer for you to work in, tips I'm about to share. It will make your workspace safer for you to work in.

Corkie Bolton: 1:26

Before I get started, I have a confession and it's actually a little embarrassing, but prior to starting Metalsmith Society, I would always collect my bench sweeps you know my metal dust that was produced by sawing and filing, and of course I would save all of my scraps. But I was throwing away precious materials and I didn't even realize it. For one thing, I was working at the time in this older studio space that had lots of cracks in the old wooden floors and I essentially never vacuumed directly underneath my bench pin. So who knows what amounts of silver and gold dust still remain there to this day. But on top of it, whenever I used sandpaper or polishing bits got completely burned out, I would simply toss them in the garbage, because I didn't realize that spent sandpaper is completely embedded with precious metals. Now, I'm not saying that we never went over this in college. Maybe I wasn't paying attention, maybe I'd simply forgotten, but early on in starting Metalsmith Society, I requested a dirty sweeps bucket. I requested a dirty sweeps bucket. A dirty sweeps bucket is a container that you can place your spent sandpaper, spent bits. You can empty the contents of your vacuum directly into it. If you're wiping the inside of your bench with a paper towel and that has metal on it, you can put it in your dirty sweeps container. So if you're listening and you've never got one before, you're going to head over to the show notes after you listen to the pod and I will have my blog article Refining Metal, and it has a list of companies that take dirty sweeps and clean scraps. So let's start at the beginning.

Corkie Bolton: 3:18

Typically, as a jeweler, you're working at your bench pin and you have a bench drawer that pulls out underneath or you have some sort of catch that is collecting the silver dust and all the scraps that you're producing as you're sawing and filing and doing all of your other jewelry making magic. You will ultimately want to collect all of those materials and refine them or recycle them in your own studio materials and refine them or recycle them in your own studio. So the first tip I want to talk about was a video shared by Mage of Metals and she shows her entire process, start to finish. So the first thing she does is she looks in her bench drawer and she picks out any sandpaper or broken bits and she puts them directly into her dirty sweeps bucket. Then she uses a dustpan to put all the metal into a pile, which she then runs a magnet over. So here's the deal with the magnet. When you're sawing you're probably breaking some saw blades and as you're filing, little bits of the steel file can actually come off and get mixed in with your silver dust. So by using a magnet you can make sure that you're pulling out those little bits of stainless steel, and this is important, especially if you're going to melt down silver yourself. You don't want it mixed in.

Corkie Bolton: 4:35

Next she takes all of her metal and runs it through a kitchen strainer, like a mesh kitchen strainer. This is really satisfying to watch, and what that does is it separates the larger pieces. She mentions that she likes to go through those larger pieces and sort them out later on. Maybe there might be some components that she could still use clean scrap, because there's no solder on it, there's no mixture of metals, it's just pure metal dust, and you do get a higher rate of return on those materials and you can recycle them yourself and melt them down. So it's a good idea to keep them separate from scraps that you might have solder mixed in or other types of metal. If you aren't planning to recycle it yourself, you can certainly put some pieces that have some solder into that quote-unquote clean scraps, because it's still clean. It's just the solder isn't pure silver and so that will get separated out during the refining process. So it's not a worry, but if you do like to remelt your own stuff, you'll want to separate out anything that is completely pure metal. This next tip builds off that previous one, and it was shared by Sawyer Riley Jewelry, and what they do is, when they put the magnet over their metal, they first enclose the magnet inside of a paper towel. The paper towel is certainly thin enough that all the metal is still going to get pulled towards the magnet, but now there's a barrier of paper towel in between those tiny steel particles and the magnet. And then what they do is they just drop it over a trash bin, and that way they don't have to pick those tiny, tiny bits off the magnet, which I've done, and I think this is brilliant to save you the time of having to do that.

Corkie Bolton: 6:38

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Corkie Bolton: 7:57

Another important consideration is that your rotary tumbler and your magnetic tumbler, and even your ultrasonic, has little bits of precious metal that are left over after you tumble or clean off your polishing compound, and so you want to save those materials, and it's better if they don't go down the drain, because it's going to be environmentally better to be able to collect them, and so you can use this tip shared by Craig Dabler. What he does is he takes all the water from every time, he uses his magnetic tumbler or a rotary or his ultrasonic and he places it into what looks like a two-gallon jug of milk, with the milk removed, obviously and he fills it and fills it, and when it's full, he waits for a sunny day, he pours the water and metal into a pan and he allows the water to evaporate out until there's a sludge left over that he can then add to his refining bucket. I should note here that I use this same technique for evaporation with my spent pickle, and so I store my spent pickle in a separate bucket, and spent pickle also has metal in it, right and so I let it evaporate out in the sun and then I also put that into my refining bucket. Another technique that I've used in my studio is placing a bunch of coffee filters over my drain before pouring metal down, and all the coffee filters also collect, and then when they dry out or even you could throw them into your bucket wet, and then they'll eventually dry out that's another way to at least collect most of the materials, right? I don't know, you know, I haven't studied it in a lab to see if any you know micro bits have gone down. That could certainly be the case, but it's definitely better than doing nothing and pouring your tumbler water straight down the drain.

Corkie Bolton: 10:02

So the next consideration for your studio is you are going to want to vacuum, you're going to want to vacuum your floors and you might also want to use this tip shared by Rusty Creek Designs. In it, she shared this mini, adorable vacuum that she uses on the top of her bench, in her bench drawers and anywhere else, that quickly picks up any of that metal dust and then she can open it and dump it right into her sweeps. At the time of this recording, this exact mini vacuum is available on Amazon for $13, and I will link it in the show notes. I think I also mentioned this at the top of the podcast, but just want to reiterate here when you're doing your spring cleaning, when you're wiping down counters, every paper towel should also be collected. If there's any chance that it has precious metal dust on it, when in doubt, put it in the bucket.

Corkie Bolton: 10:59

I have heard stories of you know jewelry companies in New York City that sent in a rug that they had been working over for 20 years and they got like $10,000 back. And it's just a. It's a fun story. I mean, it's a true story, but it's also just like a good consideration to keep in mind. Right, like you know, are you getting metal dust on your clothing? Should you vacuum your pants and apron before you leave the studio for the day? You absolutely should. Should, because every little bit that you collect is going to count. So the last thing I want to talk about is how to make your studio space a safer work environment for you and be able to collect the dust, and that is, you should consider investing in a dust collection system. I totally understand that when folks are on a budget, it might not be in the cards, but I think that this is something you should put at the top of your wishlist and make it happen as soon as possible.

Corkie Bolton: 11:58

So, as I sit at my bench and I'm using my flex shaft and, let's say, I'm sanding something or even polishing it, it is kicking a lot of particles into the air. It's kicking a lot of dust into the air and, quite honestly, into my face, and so what I do is I use a dust collection system from Fordham and it has, on the bench pin, a vacuum that is collecting and pulling all that dust away from me. It additionally has a shield and for further protection I can wear an N95 mask so that I can ensure that I'm not breathing any metal in. This system collects into a clear canister, which I love because you can take it off in five seconds and then I can look and see what's inside and I can easily put it in my refining bucket. At the end of the day, all this dust and the money that you get after you refine, it's really just getting the money back that you've already spent. And it's an important aspect of running a jewelry business, because if we are losing all of these assets by throwing out bits of metal here and there, it's money that we can't reinvest back into our business. So if a tool like this dust collection system, while it is an investment, if it's helping prevent the loss of materials and money back into your business, I would say it's well worth it.

Corkie Bolton: 13:26

I will link the one that I use in the show notes so you can find my entire list of companies that do accept dirty sweeps and clean scrap on my guide to refining metal, which is on metalsmithsociety. com blog. I will link it in the show notes and you know, before you select a company to refine with, you can see if they accept dirty sweeps because not all companies do, and you can also look at their rates. But a lot of them are very competitive. So if you reach out to a company and you say, hey, this company offered me this rate, can you match that? Typically they will say yes, a customer of yours might bring you an old piece of jewelry that has no sentimental value and they just want the credit of whatever the precious metals are worth. You can totally send those pieces to a refining company, but I strongly recommend that you personally remove any precious gemstones before sending it to those refining companies.

Corkie Bolton: 14:26

I really hope you found today's episode about refining metal helpful. Thank you so much for tuning in. Your support means the world to me. If you enjoyed today's episode and you want to keep the podcast going, there are a few ways you can support my show. Please follow along on your favorite podcast platform. I'm seeing that a lot of our listeners are following along on Apple Podcasts. If you go ahead, follow the show, leave a rating and review. It would mean so much to me. You can also consider becoming my Patreon. You can head over to patreon. com / metalsmithsociety where I am now offering free memberships just to get your foot in the door and make that connection. But you can also look at my paid memberships as a small but mighty way of supporting this podcast and Metalsmith Society as a whole. Thanks a lot and I'll see you next time. Bye.