Melting (with a view to casting eventually!) silver and gold

Hi

I have just about managed to melt an old 925 cufflink probably 3grams with a view to eventually casting something, and I will start with silver and then do some gold.

Problem is, is that I can't for the life of me get it to melt again! I melted it with a cheap ebay blow torch which connects to a 6kg propane bottle (it took a while, but it pooled, but I messed it up so it cooled a but and then couldn't get it to melt again, so I thought it may have not been hot enough, so bought a bullfinch 2100 blowtorch (again running it of 6kg propane with a 4.8mm hose) and I can't melt it again at all. It gets red/white hot, but won't melt. I have it in a scorifier, on a whip handle, which sits on a soldering board, and then fire bricks around and above the scorifier.

What am I doing wring please? any cheap recommendations for a refillable butane or bottle propane torch which will definitely melt a few grams?

any help is much appreciated.

Thanks

It should melt. Maybe not enough borax. Use plenty of scrapings from a cone, or borax powder. Or maybe it's not solid silver. Dennis.

If it’s just marked 925 it could be anything. If it’s a cuff link was there solder involved?

It was an old Tiffany cufflink, so yea there was some solder. Nearly got it melting again over the weekend, think I need a better torch to be honest

It won’t be clean silver if you’ve melted it with solder so that may also have made a difference