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Melting Copper!
Sikarian
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Is there any relatively easy way someone with a fireplace at home may be able to melt down copper? I've come across a bunch of copper that I'd like to try to melt down into an ingot...no real purpose, just thought it would be cool to polish up my own copper bar and have it.
Is it possible to generate the kind of heat necessary with a fireplace? Any recommendations if I can on how to make a mold I can melt it into?
Is it possible to generate the kind of heat necessary with a fireplace? Any recommendations if I can on how to make a mold I can melt it into?
Sikarian on
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EDIT: In what form is the copper you possess? If it is in wire form, you can do it with a concentrated flame. It just won't be perfect looking like an ingot usually is.
You'd need to find a crucible though.
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
Copper melts at nearly 2000 degrees F, depending on the alloy and purity. You could, however, build a primitive furnace into the ground, where it will be thoroughly insulated. But you would have to build a bellow leading beneath the fire.
Your mold needs to stand the temperature of the fire. Rock would be best for a in ground furnace type fire. However, you can use a cast iron pan or mold. The problem is, however, the copper brazing to the pan, making the ingot impossible to retrieve.
Without any APPARENT previous experience with metals...let alone pouring casts and molds, I would just try to find a bar/chunk of copper, if all you want to do is polish some copper. Hell, I can send you a small one if you want.
If you do this be VERY careful, as you can imagine Hot is an under statement. We were lucky because one of my friends is a metal worker and brought a bunch of heavy leather welding gloves/aprons.
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
I'm interested in making a ring. What I thought I could do is either purchase a plain band and work with that or mold my own somehow. I want the ring to be just a plain band with a small seashell at the top.
How would I go about setting the seashell onto the ring and making it sturdy? Is this possible with little to no experience working with metals?
There are about 10,000 ways you could do that. Most involve equipment the average person does have laying around. Theres PMC which requires a torch or kiln, lost wax (centripetal casting, sling casting, vacuum casting), wire work, etc etc etc.
Well, to forge a ring you have to trick the elves into helping you. Then forge the band in the fires on Mt. Doom while infusing it with your greed and malice of all things. The rest just happens naturally.
In reality - you need much of the same equipment above. Ingots, Crucible, Furnace/Forge, Mold, and all the matrerials to polish and trim the ring when you're done. If you're just wanting to add stuff on to a pre-exsisting band then you could possibly do this with a jeweler's blow torch.
As a side note - a common practice in jewelry is to put your ingots into a good ceramic crucible then blast the fuck out of them with a blow torch. It would definatly be able to melt your copper too. But as said before, wear proper protective gear.
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
Picture of a simple furnace, similar to the one I am building for a research project.
Its a common practice in jewelry to put casting grain to a ceramic crucible then gently raise the temperature of the metal with an Oxy-Acetylene torch. This is of course after adequately fluxing the crucible, and heating it up to a light plum. Also, fluxing the metal prior to it turning molten.
"blasting the fuck of of them" will only burn your metal and remove crucial base metals that stabilize the metal. IE: Creating a brittle or incomplete cast.
As for the copper smelting, I've got just a bundle of copper wire is all. I live in an apartment so making a backyard furnace isn't an option. Ah well. I have a hookup at a local college that may have a furnace, she's going to see if they can melt it for me
PMC is expensive, and prone to drying out. PMC shrinks, as well, because of the water boiling out during heating.
It isn't something I would work on without some sort of carving/forming experience, as you need to be fairly precise in your measurements. If you are interested in casting, simple sling casts can be built from a chain and a dowel rod, or a steam casting handle, all you need is a crucible and a torch.
And instantly burn through the investment/whatever you were casting into?
Thermite doesn't melt through everything, man... It only gets to like 5,000 degrees. You just use the thermite to instantly melt whatever metal you want to cast. Although, I guess you'd end up with an alloy of aluminum oxide and whatever metal you had, but, hey, it gets to like 5,000 degrees, so you don't need that much. Not to mention it would be more fun to do it that way, and totally, completely safe.
5000 degrees F is enough to melt a steel or cast iron mold.
I never said it would be a good idea, I said it would be fun and look cool.
The first one details how to make the furnace you melt stuff in, and the second has tons of information on how to use green sand (this is the name for sand used to mold things, it's essentially just sand, clay and water) to actually mold and cast things. This is all for aluminum, though, not copper. Aluminum melts at a lower temperature and is more readily available, and it's a ton of fun to do.
Need other options. Possibly digging a hole, loading it with wood, igniting it, fashion a home-made or buy a blower to blow underneith with a cast-iron pan sitting above the hole? Chizel out the copper later...would lose some but would still get me some progress.
And I realize the thermite idea is out as stupid, how about Magnesium strips? I've had to fight that stuff in vehicle arson before, but never looked into exactly how hot it is. Will it melt copper? Will it melt a cast-iron pan? Put a strip of magnesium in the pan with the copper, ignite, wait until complete, copper++?
I may be reaching here, would hate to see this copper go to waste just sitting around my home looking dumb. I could always bring it to a recycling place, but the closest recycling place isn't close enough to warrant gas for the little price I'd get for it
Aside from being mean (
That diagram I drew for you is pretty much what you just said. The 'furnace' is just a hole in the ground lined with rocks. Read please.
As far as blowers go, you can use a leaf blower, or fashion a primitive bellows out of a garbage can, a garbage bag, a rubberband and a pipe.
The idea of melting down metal is to keep it in a reducing atmosphere, meaning, to let little oxidizing substances in. Borax or another type of 'flux' will help remove impurities, but keeping the metal under torch flame or within a confined furnace type set up will reduce the inclusion of impurities. So the magnesium is a bad idea.
Before using the cast-iron pan, get it nice and dirty! Heat the pan up and douse it with old motor oil. Or rub charcoal ash into it, and get a nice thick coat of dirt on it. This will keep the liquid copper from joining with the cast iron, in what is called 'brazing', where the liquid copper diffuses through the molecular structure of the iron. Essentially joining the two, making it impossible to remove the ingot.
I'm majoring in metalsmithing, so if you need anymore help please ask.
Forbe!, that backyard metasmithing guy has a torch that you light with an open flame on a pan full of alcohol. This pan full of alcohol creates enough heat to boil the gasoline inside the torch. The gasoline comes screaming out of the regulator, and burns.
This seems like a good way to die.
I take it oxy-acetlyene is the way to go? Is there anything I can get set up with that would be more on the hobbyist level without, you know, boiling gasoline?
I did read, I meant no disrespect. I was pretty much restating for my own musings.
I've been checking around a lot on amazon and ebay, been able to find some fairly cheap graphite crucibles for around $20 or so, and then some ingot molds for around $10-15. I think pretty much this should work well. I just need a blower and some tongs, but again easy to come by stuff.