daydreamer - 4-5-2004 at 23:28
I hate to ask this but would anyone know were I could find or purchase palladium or platinum ingot or electrodes. I have searched everywere and cannot
find this.
Any info would be appreciated.
Esplosivo - 5-5-2004 at 00:16
Jewelers do have some fine Pt wire, which is rather an alloy. If I remeber correctly it shoulf be some Pd/Pt alloy of some sort.
Have you checked chemical suppliers. They will surely find no objection for you buying Pt, especially if it is a wire.
Axehandle might provide a lot more help. He's the one, of the few I think, around here who really loves metals. Especially expensive ones 
Just kidding
axehandle - 5-5-2004 at 12:20
Well, I am a bit of a metal fetishist, I admit it....
Edit1: OK, I admit it! I love metals! All metals! They are lush and heavy and light and shiny and precious and castable and... where was I?
Well, daydreamer, who you want to contact is not a jeweller, but the next middleman up the chain: a jeweller supply wholesaler. Then you can order
exactly what you want, the precise type of alloy, in whatever shape you want (wire, plate, square rod, etcetera).
What I did was opening the yellow pages and calling a couple of jewellers. The kind who actually MAKE jewellry, not only sells it, and ask for the
phone number for their raw materials supplier. After a few phonecalls I struck gold (lliterally). Now, the reason for the difficulty of finding
jeweller's suppliers is that they don't advertise because they're (understandably) afraid of getting robbed. E.g. the one I bought my
Pt and Ti from had their office behind a small door in a huge industrial building in a wierd area of town.
Then call the wholesaler. Check if they sell to individuals (they normally do, at least here, since it's a very lucrative business -- if Pt for
example costs them 50 Euro/g and they take a 20% commision and you order 4g, they've made 40 Euro). Then ask for exactly what you want. The
wholesaler I contacted deals in Au, Ag, Pt, Pd, Rh, Ti and some other odds and ends, like graphite stirring rods, crucibles, ovens, platinized Ti
mesh, chemicals for electroplating etcetera.
It's a bit of in-front-of-phone work, but you should be able to succeed.
I think that's what I have to contribute. Any more questions; feel free to ask.
[Edited on 2004-5-5 by axehandle]