Silver?!?

[RoadWarrior]

I caught my Mother in Law throwing some 20 forks and spoons in the garbage "because they are all tarnished...."

Anyway, after spending all day online looking up silver marks and such, after initially hoping a couple might have been solid silver, it looks like they're mostly plate. However, a few pieces seem to be a kind of extra heavy plate. So I'm wondering now if I can get any amount of silver out of them that might be useful for anything.

So, is there really not much point in plating the bottom of a sink??? Since I guess the easiest thing would be to use them as sacrificial electrodes in a weak nitric acid solution or something to directly plate something.


Also wondering about chemical recovery methods that might leave me with some silver sludge I could usefully employ as heatsink compound. Been reading some old photographic chemical recipes for ideas. Just wondering about ideas there for what sort of grease type base that would need if I could get some silver sludge off them.

What kind of electrochemical mess would I be getting myself into if I used them to plate areound the pins of a sink constructed in the manner I was thinking here...

http://forums.overclockers.ws/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=51753

And if I was thinking of plating a heatsink base some, like just a masked area on it above the core, say an inch round, what thickness of plating would I have to achieve to have any significant effect???

Hope there's some silver and chemisty experts out there that can give me a few pointers and suggestions.

I realise that I probably won't be able to recover anywhere near enough silver off them to do anything like case a slug for a base. But figure I might be able to plate something quite well, or get a useful (3 CPU) quantity of sludge for heatsink thermal transfer compound
Thanks,

Road Warrior

[Silversinksam]

http://www.kitconet.com/images/sp_en_8.gif


I honestly dont know why you would want to go through all the trouble to recover a negligable amount of silver when you can buy an ounce of it for $4.31 thats a whole lot more than your going to recover.

Silver plating is a complete waste of time, effort and money when your dealing with Heatsinks, with the exception of silver plating older Kanie Hedgehog heatsink pins, which from what Ive read sometimes come loose from the base and the silver plating make them steadfast increasing the performance of that particular hsf.

"Also wondering about chemical recovery methods that might leave me with some silver sludge I could usefully employ as heatsink compound. Been reading some old photographic chemical recipes for ideas. Just wondering about ideas there for what sort of grease type base that would need if I could get some silver sludge off them."

That sounds interesting and if you come up with a recipe better than Arctic Silver I want some :)

[Greedy Guido]

Be careful when playing with silver (in raw state). Most people don't realise that it is one of the heavy metals that you do not want in your system.

[Yodums]

Originally posted by Silversinksam
http://www.kitconet.com/images/sp_en_8.gif


I honestly dont know why you would want to go through all the trouble to recover a negligable amount of silver when you can buy an ounce of it for $4.31 thats a whole lot more than your going to recover.

Silver plating is a complete waste of time, effort and money when your dealing with Heatsinks, with the exception of silver plating older Kanie Hedgehog heatsink pins, which from what Ive read sometimes come loose from the base and the silver plating make them steadfast increasing the performance of that particular hsf.

"Also wondering about chemical recovery methods that might leave me with some silver sludge I could usefully employ as heatsink compound. Been reading some old photographic chemical recipes for ideas. Just wondering about ideas there for what sort of grease type base that would need if I could get some silver sludge off them."

That sounds interesting and if you come up with a recipe better than Arctic Silver I want some :)


Sam how about a gold base for your blorb mod :p

[RoadWarrior]

Because thermally, the only advantage between gold and say, an egg salad sandwich, is the gold doesn't start to smell after 24 hours.

:)

Road Warrior

[Sonny]

Originally posted by tsunami
Sam how about a gold base for your blorb mod :p Gold sucks for thermal conductivity:rolleyes:

[Wa11y]

Plating a heatsink probably wouldn't be worth crap. Sure, the silver would conduct well, but what about the metal that the silver is plated to? That's your bottleneck.

If you could make a whole heatsink out of silver, THAT would be something!

[Silversinksam]

If you really were hardcore you would build a Heatsink out of CUSIL, as Cusil is the best! I USe more readily available Sterling silver which is 92.5% silver 7.5% copper.

Cusil is somthink like 80/20 (Silver/Copper)


And like Sonny said Gold really isnt good as a theremal conduid.

[BillA]

you WHAT ???

"I USe more readily available Sterling silver which is 92.5% silver 7.5% copper."

I sure hope you're not selling cold plates made of Sterling silver
- but then, if your customers are so ignorant as to buy Sterling - so be it

go ahead,
please post the thermal conductivity of Sterling silver
(and from where you got it)

(trying to) be cool

[flounder43]

What is wrong with sterling?

[funnyperson1]

Originally posted by BillA
you WHAT ???

"I USe more readily available Sterling silver which is 92.5% silver 7.5% copper."

I sure hope you're not selling cold plates made of Sterling silver
- but then, if your customers are so ignorant as to buy Sterling - so be it

go ahead,
please post the thermal conductivity of Sterling silver
(and from where you got it)

(trying to) be cool

you do realize the Silver and Copper are the two best thermal conductors right? and CUSil is proably the best....and an alloy (Sterling Silver) of the two would be a really beastly conductor?

[BillA]

as the author of article 305, and the guy who introduced CuSil to the OCing community,

yes, I do know quite a bit about materials

go ahead fellows, don't blabber about what you think
just look up the numbers

be cool

[flounder43]

Originally posted by BillA
as the author of article 305, and the guy who introduced CuSil to the OCing community,

yes, I do know quite a bit about materials

go ahead fellows, don't blabber about what you think
just look up the numbers

be cool

I am not blabbering, I just asked straight out, and will ask again, what is wrong with sterling?

[Silversinksam]

Billa, Thats blasphamy :)

Heres a test to keep you busy (http://scnc.tps.k12.mi.us/~eferwer/AP_quiz/mc-10-30-61c.htm) Get all the answers correct and I'll think you are pretty smart :)


Cusil is a great alloy and Dont worry about me, I've attained decent results with the mods I make, albeit not with Cusil which ive said is a great metal alloy

[flounder43]

Originally posted by Silversinksam
Billa, Thats blasphamy :)

Heres a test to keep you busy (http://scnc.tps.k12.mi.us/~eferwer/AP_quiz/mc-10-30-61c.htm) Get all the answers correct and I'll think you are pretty smart :)


Cusil is a great alloy and Dont worry about me, I've attained decent results with the mods I make, albeit not with Cusil which ive said is a great metal alloy

Ok we all seem to be agreed on CuSil. However, how does it compare to sterling? BillA seemed so convinced that it was not good...

Why?

[Sonny]

Originally posted by BillA
as the author of article 305, and the guy who introduced CuSil to the OCing community,

yes, I do know quite a bit about materials

go ahead fellows, don't blabber about what you think
just look up the numbers

be cool 1. Can you give a link to article 305? I would appreciate another point of view to this material controversy.
2. Did you really introduce CuSil to the community? If so when?
3. What numbers do you have that has you convinced of sterling silver being not such a good choice?

Thanks in advance:beer:

[BillA]

sorry for the slow response,
but I've spent hours looking for that Sterling thermal conductivity written on a scrap of paper a year ago
- without finding it

the article is Cold Plate Materials and Thickness (http://www.overclockers.com/articles305)
and I stumbled across CuSil in doing the research for the cold plate materials

pure metals (99.999% eh) will exhibit the highest thermal conducitivity, the SOLE EXCEPTION being CuSil
I've seen several explanations for this anomaly, but it has to come from an inorganic materials scientist - which I am not
(my field is composites and testing)

look at the various silver alloys on this table from Wesgo Metals (http://www.wesgometals.com/physdata.html) (a principal supplier of CuSil, which I believe is their tradename)

believe me, Sterling silver is worse than "not such a good choice", it is a bad choice
copper (C1100) is better than Sterling

Silversinksam, if he's the one I'm thinking of, was/is selling "silver" - and SHOULD be the one to be answering these questions
but apparently he is as ignorant as his customers
(what is that cute quiz link about ?)

remember, vendors will sell anything that someone will buy
and if he's been selling Sterling without saying so, that's dishonest

be cool

[flounder43]

I think that silversinksam is a stand up guy, and isn't doing anything dishonest.

I would like to hear more about this...I did some research, but nothing really came up on point. I would enjoy hearing more about this, including some specific numbers about thermal conductivity, etc.

[Sonny]

Thanks for the link to Wesgo.

SilverSinkSam made it clear to us that he uses sterling silver so he is not being dishonest to anyone.

I think we all need to see the real numbers on how silver & silver alloys perform.

[Silversinksam]

Originally posted by BillA


Silversinksam, if he's the one I'm thinking of, was/is selling "silver" - and SHOULD be the one to be answering these questions
but apparently he is as ignorant as his customers
(what is that cute quiz link about ?)

remember, vendors will sell anything that someone will buy
and if he's been selling Sterling without saying so, that's dishonest

be cool


Just so you know, when I was selling coldplates I sold fine silver as well and I got a sheet of sterling,in which that link to wesco gave no comparison to copper and sterling. I'm currently going to have cusil smelted,Im actually going to do it myself at a friends jewlery store. I'm not a retail vendor nor do I do this for profit, its just a hobby so try to relax. Anyone that asked me for a Cold plate was aware it was Sterling, you really should relax a bit as Sterling does and excellent job.


PS:Nobody is arguing that Cusil isn't a great alloy.

[BillA]

fair enough, certainally no dishonesty where actual matl described

I think you will find casting with copper to be a challenge

be cool

[flounder43]

Nobody answered my question...and I did my research, to no avail...

What is the the difference between pure silver, sterling (i understand that there is the Brit standard and the American standard) and other alloys?

I really want to know, just to know...!
Thanks...

[Silversinksam]

Flounder ask 5 Jewelers what sterling is and you'll get back 5 different answers/
Reason being is that Sterling although described as 92.5% Silver and 7.5% copper does usually have a negligable amount of Nickel

Now Nickel just downright s$cks in the thermal conductivity dept.

But Sterling is still a good thermal conduit.. But Cusil is the way to go if you have to have the best.





Thermal Conductivity, W/cm-K
Aluminum 2.165
Copper 3.937
Gold 2.913
Iron .669
Lead .343
Nickel .906
Platinum .734
Silver 4.173

[flounder43]

Ok, it just seemed like that other fellow was so convinced that sterling was so bad, which did not make sense to me, but I know little about such an alloy...

Thanks.

[Sonny]

To anyone that can answer this questions & linkS to supporting data,

What are the thermal properties of Sterling Silver?????