Get the Most Aluminum From Melting Cans 

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this is easily one of the most interesting casting vids ive seen. NO ONE addresses the difference in pure vs not, and what its missing, or how to adjust it. great vid man!

Heart disease in our metals is a real problem. Thank you for being so good to your metals!

Some of the old timers used to put a thick layer of charcoal in the crucible on top of the metal working on the theory that as it burns it creates a layer of CO2 on top of the liquid metal to keep the oxygen away and prevent oxidation. The man who told me has been dead for decades now so I can't ask him what metals he used it with or how thick a layer but it might be worth experimenting with.

Mate thanks for the tip. I admire your dedication to smelting aluminium while it was so cold where you were!

Glad you've progressed beyond this stage!

Im glad to have seen this video, thank you for posting it. I have just started forging and using the salt on my last 4 videos i was able to reclaim ALOT of alum from my dross. Also included my first attempts of sand casting... learning alot

I thoroughly enjoy watching your videos. Not only am I learning something but I am very entertained while doing so.

I haven't watched any "Paul's Garage" for a while... I forgot how cool it is.

Only two and a half years late to your vids, but better late than never! I'm going to try the Lo-Salt tip tomorrow because you're right - the amount of dross from cans is horrendous. In fact today I ended up with a smaller alumuffin (oooh, I like that!) than the one I STARTED with, despite adding a bucketload of cans: the amount of dross (and aluminium bound up in it) was greater in volume (if not weight) than the alumuffin. Love your channel - have a sub! :)

Useful video for beginners. Thank you.

after MANY hours of serching,(literally just 5) I have found my favorite RU-vidr for melting mettle. your hilarious

Hey Paul, I just found your channel and your metallurgy tips are quite helpful. Now I will look around and hopefully find how you built your furnace. Thanks, Kenn

nice video man i'm getting started in aluminum casting and really you give me some nice tips that i didn't know any thing about keep up the good work

Thanks Paul! This a great tip! I have been collecting aluminum cans for awhile waiting for spring to start casting but was having doubts about using them because I kept hearing the same: they are a good cheap source of alumimum/they are garbage, don't use them. Relieved to know I can use them for casting projects. BTW, I enjoy many of your videos and the information you share. Thanks!

This was very informative. Thank you

I really like your humor and your videos are good And interesting Thank you

the lines you talked about comes from gasses in your mix, i've seen people use baking soda to combat that with reasonable outcomes. and the shrikage in the center of your ingots comes from having no silica (and also i think in part from the gasses)

You are really funny man! Totally enjoyed watching your videos. Keep creating awesome content:) You deserve more subs!

Amazing video! Was actually surprised, I subed and liked your video!!

Been looking for a alum flux. Thanks for sharing. We are now subbed.😎⛏⛏🔥🔥

That was really cool and great info. Thanks

This was fun, like the muffin pan mold,😊 forgot the Pam😊 hair dryer❤ Love your Proper English, you must be related to me we have our own family dictionary 😅 good job

Another good video Paul. If you find out what the can alloy actually is and what the silicon content of 356 aluminum is you can crush up the right amount of silicon and toss it in to improve the casting properties of the can metal. You can do the same thing by adding some aluminum from pistons because they're very high in silicon. Burning teflon is super poisonous.

Finally the answer I was seeking. Off to remelt that shiny dross with some salt. I plan to use an ugly ingot to establish my pool for can melting. Look into fireplace gear for stirrers and grabbers. My "store" bought furnace kit came with some but not nearly as durable as my old fireplace tongs.

Paul you can make a really good cheap propane burner just look up "how to make an aluminum foundry" by the backyard scientist. mine got hot enough to melt copper easily and you wont have to deal with refilling the charcoal every few minutes and you wont have a bunch of ash to deal with when your done melting to. fair warning make sure you have a thick and durable crucible because i have all ready burned holes in some of mine. good luck.

Awesome. Thank you.

You're the best Paul

Borax makes an amazing flux for this process.🤠👍😁

Thoughtful comments on how to reduce aluminum dross!

Is it silicon carbide that's in cast aluminum? You can see it in the grain structure when you observe a broken piece. Shiny little specks. The shrinkage is natural and occurs in all molten metals to differing degrees as they cool.

Awesome Video Paul - Thanks. Really liked 1) The Flux Experimentation - was cool that you fluxed the dross & squeezed out a bit more Aluminum and 2) Very interesting how to gain a better quality of Aluminum by adding %5 copper. For a while I was scrapping & collecting copper. A lot of the newer electronics save on the cost by using a super thin Copper coating on Aluminum wire for electrical conductivity. So I have quite a bit of Copper coated Aluminum wire that I thought was basically crappy Aluminum. However Thanx to your video the Copper coated Aluminum wire might just melt into a slightly better quality Aluminum!!! The one thing I wandered about was the dross in the crucible - if you had thick gloves or a better pair of tongs I wandered if you turned the crucible upside down & tapped it on the cement if the dross would fall out??? Thanx Again: Shawn

when you ram up the furnace lid prop the steel band up 1/2 inch above the bottom face of the refractory. this will keep the steel hoop cooler and it won't expand so much.

Cut up cans, ring-pulls, tops & bottoms of cans, & the shards covered In paint dross wise, this I just got to try, aluminium seems to be the easier to start off, so looking for electric smelter 3-4 kilos yes I have plenty of beer cans, all cut up & ready for smelting any advice you could possibly offer would be gratefully appreciated, many thanks, yours truly! P/S, thanks for the flux Info.

Yup I’m definitely happy I kept a goodly amount of old 400mh lamp ballasts Tonnes of aluminum and a tonne of copper Sad I sold the first batch of copper rather than melting it to pure but atleast I kept all the aluminum shades and ballasts 😊

So you can fish the crap off of the top before you pour it, I've been doing that and it's made pouring much easier. I just smashed some scrap steel to make a spork type thing with a long handle to fish it off. Plus it's fun to play blacksmith and hammer stuff. I've never done the lite salt, but that is pretty great. I'll have to do that with my next batch.

That's a really nice big chunk of silicon you've got there!

Hello Paul! Im just getting into forging but I dont know what to hold the crucible in, any tips?

Hey Paul - Paul here... good tip with the copper addition to the aluminum. I'm casting sculptures, and was wondering how to do away with shrinkage... mostly notice it in the Sprue, not the cast pieces below. I'd hate to find out the hard way. Subbed.

your self commentary is brilliant

Why didn't you remove the crap before you poured... lol

Hey Paul, love the video and the humor! I kind of follow the same procedure you recommend for melting cans. I need to try adding the flux during the melt, that seemed to help pull more AI out from the dross. Thanks for the tip.

Space laser sound effects at 09"30! So, what was your yield in terms of weigh of cans in vs weight of cans out?

This is the Perfect YT Video. How many years have I thought about it, wondering about it

instead of salt you could use borax.

Look out for cans with ANY moisture in them, cause if you put a can with moisture in a pool of molten aluminum you'll get a REALLY interesting explosion!!!

Thanks bro

Paul, new subscriber, love your style and knowledge. Question: how did you affix the blow dryer to the pipe for air induction? The diameter of the blow dryer I purchased is much larger than the 1" pvc. Just screw it and tape it or what, Paul? Great videos. Thank you!

Best way to Start a Video charmx would love it

flame are from plastic and suger leftover in the cans :D why not removing dross before puring? PS: flame the non stick treathment from the pan with a torch, before puring the ingots. Less risk to inhale the fumes :D

thanks for the flux tip, i have some large chunks of aluminumy dross i might try to reheat later

A longer mixer might be a good idea!!!.

Very informative vid, thanks. did not catch the name of the flux you used though - can you please comment on the name and is there other fluxes we might use, seen candle wax and sawdust used with lead - might those work for aluminum too?

I always thought silicon is added to the aluminium for casting to make it flow better. So Question: Why is the silicon from the casting a problem when you're going to use the aluminium for casting?

love the new video i wonder if you chemically treated the cans before to remove the paint and plastic if you'd end up with a lot less dross the pans i use are extruded and im 90% certain pure aluminum and i generally get very little dross. i think surface area has alot less to do with it and its mainly the vinyl paint, and plastic coating that is responsible for the dross.

Paul, would you know if you could successfully use your foundry as a black Smith forge to make knives and such?

Great video and tips. I was just about to melt some aluminum. Do you know about how many cans you melted and what was the recovery rate. Is it smarter to get the 5 cent deposit or melt it. (Melting is more fun) Just thinking return rate even though I will probably still melt because I love having ingots. Thanks!

If u add sulfur to ur flux it makes an unstable explosive please keep this in mind when doing scrap melting if their is sulfur in ur mix up can get explosive bubbles to full out bang. Use borax instead of salt if u think there might be sulfur present.

Subscribed to your channel as well, I suspect you will be a channel well worth watching. Mark

Thank you for being entertaining. Now to see if you have anymore videos....

I've been saving all my aluminium-y dross looking for a means of "refining" it.... I'll flux the crap out of it next weekend.

Thanks!

would using borax done the same thing? Getting ready for my first pour!

to filter the crap on the top try cutting a steel plate to sit on top to strain the stuff

great videos, Adding the copper to it doesnt help it machine better, it helps it flow better into the molds. Your ingots show it alot better between the cans/extruded aluminum to the cast where as the extuded/cans ingots were rounded at the top due to the surface tension, and the cast ingot has more of a sharp top to it where it flowed out more into the shape of the ingot tray. Adding copper to extruded aluminum does help it flow alot more, but you do get the same amount of shrinkage, and in sharp corners, you may end up with what's called hot tears, where the metal shrinks in tight corners and splits, making for a weaker part, but to overcome this, just add fillets to everything, which is common pattern making practice anyways. Also they look different because the cast ingot has had time to oxidize alot where as the new ones havnt, eventually after sitting a few months, they'll both look the same. I usually just use a sharpie to write on what each is, or just throw them in seperate buckets.

Dope thanks

can you just use regular table salt? I don't know where to get potassium chloride.

Hey ! I really liked your video and content in general, but I've got a question : what kind of gloves are you using ? Because where I live there are no ''high heat'' resistant gloves for sale (or at least I couldn't find a store wich did sell them...) so I wondered if it was that big of a deal if I hadn't these ''high heat'' gloves (I do have other gloves, but they can't withstand these kind of temperatures). So what would you recommend ? Should I order ''high heat'' resistant gloges on internet, or will the gloges I already have do the work ? (I do not plan to get my hands inside the furnace of course, just to get the lid on or off and to refuel)

I love your videos.

i have this bucket full of aluminum i also found this in the woods also in a old building with so much more i have to go get its like a 3hr walk tho so yayay lol

Really cool videos, I'm in the same process of learning this stuff right now. I did get to do a little sand casting in high school but, the instructor handled the furnace. I've been gathering the things to make one much like yours, do you plan on using gas with this one?

Stamp a C on there for "Cast" and one for "Can" so you can keep track which is which

Can you clean your crucible with hydrochloric acid when you're done?

Does mixing salt into the aluminum change its properties much?

well you just got a new subscriber

Cans are made out of 3004, so it's an Aluminum Manganese alloy. Largest share by volume of aluminum that's produced industrially.

Percent cannot be calculated by weight but by volume because the wieghts are very different!

Oxygen turns iron into rust, and yet we breath it. 8)

Aww man I was hoping it had caulk in it. I thought thats what binded it all together lol

Awesome video! I'm very surprised how many aluminium bars you were able to create with this amount of cans. Has the area in front of your garage turned into a place for ice skating after you've emptied the bucket? :-D

Hello Sir, I am from the Ivory Coast in West Africa. I live in another country called Mauritania. One of my activities is to buy used aluminum cans, plastic cans and bottles with a view to sell them to a Chinese company, which transforms them into various finished products. I want to become like them and like you by making large-scale finished products myself. What advice can you give me to achieve this?

Mad Max reference!

Did you try plunging soda ash into the aluminium?

What happens when you drastically overheat aluminum can it be remounted and be good

Hey paul and paul watchers ever gonna come back to the charcoal foundry? More inportantly does anyone know what kind of fumes come off of this kind of foundry setup? And how to possibly avoid those fumes?

Hey good videos! I just made a dual propane set up. I took an 8 gallon bushel tub and used a 5 gallon pale for the center hole. I cast the propane torches right into the cement. My crucible is an old steel firefighter scba (self contained breathing apparatus) tank cut roughly in half. I use a soup strainer/ladle to scoop the crap off the top. Never used flux though but I will start. With the charcoal set up (same as propane but with one hair dryer) I could melt 400 cans (based off of weight) before I had to pour. I did this twice before there was too much ash in the bottom...would run through two bags of charcoal though. That's why I switched to propane...haven't melted any cans with propane yet, I could let you know how it turns out. I'd like to melt brass too. Keep up the good entertainment!

Paul, if you take a look at the 7000 series of aluminum (the hardest) you'll see for 7075 grade that it has a zinc content of between 5.1% and 6.1%. This, apparently, makes it more workable (harder?!) despite it having a lower melt point than aluminum... It also has a low % of silicon, a max of 0.4%, and only 1.2% - 2% of copper. The 7075 grade is aero spec for "highly stressed structural parts". Most of these higher grade aluminums have small amounts of titanium (max 0.2%) and chromium (0.18 - 0.28)%. Why these small amounts are included is, I guess, for added hardness, strength and workability. And read somewhere that the tops of soda cans have significantly more magnesium in them than the sides and bottom - you might want to check this out and figure your next project against the numbers. My interest in this area has been stimulated by the fact that I ride only ally bikes and have found myself wanting to cast my own mech hangers. Its amazing the amount of material you are sort of obliged to sift through so you don't have to fall into all the pitfalls that 'beginners' are prone to make...

Does this salt method work with all metals?

I make my initial pool with bits of cast aluminium.... don't know if that helps much at all but it's what I do.

What are you using the ingots for? Either way cool video!

The most important question and one that I haven't seen asked is: where are you finding the throwback MTN DEWS?

I use a pound cake pan and make like big bars out of them

Yes

another funny vid! I used wood & used hair dryer on medium. Also used vegetable oil, or fat! gives it a boost! Got the idea from vegeoilguy from yt

Note on aluminum can alloy Typically it's 3003 From Wikipedia The alloy composition of 3003 aluminium is: Aluminium: 96.8 to 99% Copper: 0.05 to 0.20% Iron: 0.7% max Manganese: 1.0 to 1.5% Silicon: 0.6% max Zinc: 0.1% max Residuals: 0.15% max

With the copper, would a layer of oxidation be an issue like with the aluminum do you suppose?

Paul, your washing machine ingots are probably some percentage of zinc. there are many alloys of zinc and aluminum. Our friend Gingery talks about this in one of his books.

Have you tried adding a bit of charcoal or coal to the crucible in order to consume the oxygen and prevent oxidation, or do you think it would just add to the impurities?

Is your poking rod a hollow tube, like conduit ? If so, it will heat very quickly as hot air runs up the inside like a chimney. A solid rod like a chunk of re-bar or an old fashioned tire iron will stay cool longer and remove fewer fingerprints. Keep on cookin' .

I advise you to remove the dross before you cast