Anyone know about making Silver/Gold Coins?

[Lethn]

I've been learning about casting along with my handmade stuff lately and I can easily find everything on how to make silver/gold ingot bars, even the moulds for them but I have no idea about doing small scale coin casting. I found this video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hyh9SI5UhnY&feature=player_embedded  but this one is for an industrial process, I need to find something much more small scale, since you guys are obsessed with Silver and Gold I figured I could ask you lot if you knew anything about this

If you stumble across anything let me know!

I just found out this and it's a classic case of needing to know the vocabulary - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coining_%28mint%29 - looks likes I need to find out all about how to make coin dies now.


hurray! - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6T_ZutXzNQ

I found a video that shows what I need to do with delft clay casting which is what I've been using too.

[ShireSilver]

Here's some slightly embarrassing fun from 5 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AA584XBkP0s You can even use something like this with a sledgehammer. But its a damn pain and very slow to do it this way.

Gave up on the idea of small scale minting, and created the Shire Silver card model. Much better, IMHO.

[johnniewalker]

Any refinery usually has a minimum of 500 oz if you want to get a custom design made..and you have to pay for the dies (expensive!). I make a lot of my own silver bars/rounds/shapes (out of junk 925 silver refined with a bit of 999 shot) and sell them on ebay (people love hand-poured stuff for some reason). Ingots are easiest-I use wood molds out of small toy chests from the craft store (one time use obviously but A LOT easier-and cheaper-than graphite).

I use stuff called daft clay (or "greensand"-you can buy it at lows) when I want to cast specific shapes/things. I made a silver piece of garlic the other day. You'll also need something called a casting flask. But basically its as easy as packing the flask as tight as you can with the clay/sand, pressing the object inside (the flask is two pieces) and then making a channel to pour the silver down. The results are always good. I imagine it would be easy enough to make some kind of a mold of a custom coin w/wax or something and then just use that as your object with the clay/sand. You should check out some videos on YouTube.

As far as the actual melting (if you don't know this already) its easiest to use a "poor man's crucible" and a MAPP Gas (Propane doesn't really get hot enough) torch w/some Borax as a flux.

Good luck!

**Edit: Just read your entire post (*face palm*). I would just work on perfecting the daft clay method because once you get into making dies its a whole different ball game.

[counter]

I was gonna suggest asking Johnniewalker as I remembered reading a post by him about making coins I believe in the past on this forum.  And Also Silver Shire had some interesting offerings also so I think you will find the answers you see from these two.