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Hello from Niagara

T

Twiggy

New Member
Hello,

so I have thought for a while about just getting into the can melting thing, as I always have tons of aluminum and tin cans.

I have looked into it, the process seems simple enough, a crucible, and a container to heat it up in that can also withstand the temperatures.

I'm thinking cast iron pot, to use as the furnace itself, and just buy a crucible off amazon.

I'll be excited to do my first melt and mold, when I get everything required. Maybe later I'll try the sand casting thing.
 
Welcome aboard.
There's a bunch of casting folks here who can provide advice on how to do this safely.
 
Welcome from Ottawa.

Regarding melting tin cans. Not worth it, IMO. As an experiment of getting you furnace working - may be, as something practical - close to zero. Tin cans ( aluminum, I guess) are made from very very thin aluminum -almost foil; during melt in the open air furnace it will be oxidizing like crazy. Ratio by weight will be less than half. Add huge amount of time spent on crashing and packing those cans and then getting sludge out...
 
Welcome from over south of Chatham.

I always look at all those cans we bring to the recycle center and wish I could use them too. I dream of machining parts from big free ingots of aluminium. But like @Gennady says, I always back away from it cuz the dross issue is terrifying.

There must be a way though. As far as I know recycling aluminum is actually profitable.
 
Susquatch said:
Welcome from over south of Chatham.

I always look at all those cans we bring to the recycle center and wish I could use them too. I dream of machining parts from big free ingots of aluminium. But like @Gennady says, I always back away from it cuz the dross issue is terrifying.

There must be a way though. As far as I know recycling aluminum is actually profitable.
Click to expand...
Apparently the approach to using cans is to crush them to the point where there is minimal air trapped inside. I think a minimum of 30T or maybe more.
 
Twiggy said:
I think I'll have a lid on the cast iron pot, I use.
Click to expand...
I am not a guru in metal casting by any means possible, but I did several dozens of aluminum melts with various results - from perfect to fail. Warning - lid will not help, actually make things worth and might be dangerous to close red-hot pot with something. Opening/closing will be a tedious task and O2/H2 will get in there anyway. More experience folks are using mix of KCl+NaCl salt as a liquid cover. I never did it (yet) . Also , as a general rule, avoid using extrusions for melting - try melt what was already die-casted or sand-casted. No profiles, pipes, angles and alike - it is a wrong checmical composition.
Finally - there are many special youtube channels and specialized forums just for home casting. I can recommend this one - https://forums.thehomefoundry.org/index.php
 
Gennady said:
Finally - there are many special youtube channels and specialized forums just for home casting. I can recommend this one - https://forums.thehomefoundry.org/index.php
Click to expand...
I've just tried to join. Waiting for my confirmation email.
I've melted and cast window extrusions. Yes. Very soft for machining. But often that doesn't matter and if you are replacing all the windows it's still free metal.
What we've done in the past is added some copper and heated the aluminum hot enough to dissolve the copper. Then cast them as ingots and remelt and cast. Makes for better machining. Doesn't require a lot of copper.
 
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