Press Aluminum Cans into Ceiling and Wall Tiles

Step 3 Melt aluminum

I'm not going to detail everything about casting here but I'll list some good links on metal casting and safety. Most importantly do this outdoors.

Casting Aluminum at submarineboat.com
Home Foundry
BackyardMetalcasting.com ...Melting and casting metal yourself

Gather aluminum from everywhere; lawn chairs, stereo amps, computer hard drives, beer cans, lawn mower and weed trimmer engines. It'll take about a pound of aluminum per die half, melt down more than what you think you'll need.

Make a charcoal fueled aluminum melting furnace, link to my quick and cheap aluminum melting furnace setup instructable for details on the information below.

Using the 5 gallon bucket furnace, and depending on the amount of aluminum to be melted it can take from 10 minutes to 25 minutes to have a pool of molten metal.

The pictures below show a metal 5-gallon bucket, a piece of stove pipe, hair dryer, and some duct tape for cheap a foundry furnace. A hole is cut in the bottom side of a metal bucket to fit the stove pipe. The bottom of another metal bucket is cut off about 2 inches from the bottom; a lot of holes are punched in that piece and its inserted into the main bucket as a burning grate. Keep bucket lids, one lid should have a vent hole in it for burning and the other lid should be left unchanged for snuffing out the fire. The hair dryer needs to have the "cold" button taped to use it just as a blower; tape the dryer into the stove pipe.

For a crucible, a 14 oz propane bottle was used; the top was cut off and some bolts were added for grabbing the crucible with the tongs. I made some basic tools with some scrap steel from an old bed box spring. You'll need tongs for the crucible, some kind of shepard's hook to tip the crucible, and a plain rod with a little bend at the tip for poking things and skimming out the dross (impurities in the aluminum).

To operate this, fill the furnace 1/3 full with charcoal and light it like you're going to cook some hot dogs. Wait until the coals start to turn grey on the edges, now fire up the blower and set the crucible in there with chucks of the aluminum. Cover the furnace with the vented lid, then grab a chair, a drink, and wait. When the aluminum is liquid, skim the floaties off the top with a hooked metal rod until the molten aluminum looks like a shiny pool of mercury. Now it's ready to pour.

Have all the safety gear on, turn off the blower, remove the lid and use the tools to grab the crucible and pour.

Comments

[didgitalpunk]

watchout for what your cans are made of. not all cans are aluminum . ther mostly of stainless steel so test games .