How to make Cast Iron Bronze - Bronze with Cast Iron 

1. Is it weldable? 2. is it hardenable? 3. is it forgeable? I ask because some metal alloys are not

I declare the name of this bronze Bosco Bronze!

Might should have cut Ingot down the center to see how metal mixed. Also, I think your a couple hundred degrees cooler than the metal should have been for the poor. You might have a better Ingot poring a little hotter. Do you think this would be a good metal for engine blocks? Could do a video about casting a small 4 stroke or 2 stroke Weedeater motor with rods and pistons just to see how Thermal cycling would effect metal. Just a thought. Thank you for the upload.

I'm just beginning the video, but from what I know about the phase diagrams of the metals involved, you will likely get an alloy with two main phases, one iron rich and one copper rich, both containing some aluminum. Copper and iron don't mix well in large amounts, particularly on the copper-rich end. I am curious to see how much the aluminum aids in the mixing of the copper and iron, but I still predict you won't get a single phase.

Is it possible to substitute tin in the place of aluminum? I'm not into metallurgy, but I kind of want to know if bronze can be taken to the next steps. I mean if iron can be taken to next level like steel, why can't bronze be evolved. Also, when I did a small check about the Goujian Sword, aka the Chinese Excalibur, it had copper, tin, iron, lead, and even arsenic in it. This composition follows the amalgamation of 5 metals into one from India, also known as Panchaloha, an alloy that is exclusively created to cast worshipping idols.

That is some beautiful looking metal!! I can't believe I wasn't subscribed!!!! Best believe I am now though!!! So excited to see what comes of this metal compound. I seen someone suggest Danieluminum. That is a genius name suggestion!!

does it harden when heat treated?

can you use rebar instead of cast iron in this process?

Lookup ISO 428 Wrought Copper-Aluminium Alloy

My suggestion: Give that ingot to Alec Steele so he can try to forge it into something.

Guy made a dwarven metal ingot like we wouldn't notice.

Interesting but way too much looking at the ingot at the end. How about some testing? Hardness? Salt water corrosion? Is it machineable?

Cheers! Thank you for taking the time to document your experiment. Your efforts motivated me to research and peruse sources to see if there might be other elements or additives that could be included in small amounts to help this alloy pour better. C63000, Nickel- Aluminum Bronze has eight elements in it including Cu, Sn, Zn,Fe, Ni, Al, Mn and Si, except the Fe and Al are switched around in their ratio to each other. C63000 is a good metal corrosive resistant applications. I worked for four years as a R&D machinist, before College but never got to play in a foundry. Thank you again for Sharing. DK, dsalesguy.

Our ancestors used to think metalsmiths were magicians. They were right.

When I've made aluminum bronze in the past, I started out by melting my heel of aluminum and then dissolving the copper into the aluminum(which it does quite readily) i would also keep a cover of somewhat fine charcoal on the melt to consume the oxygen. But from there, it seems like one could simply add the iron to that and raise the temperature and avoid throwing aluminum into a crucible of molten metal at a temperature so far above it's own melting point.

When you get done stirring to you ever get the urge to lick the stirring stick?

105% is 105%, even if 5% is lost. If I have a litre of whiskey, 40% alcohol, and I drink half of it, there's still 40% alcohol in the remaining quantity. In other words, when you account for the 5% loss to dross, what is the composition in terms of iron, copper and aluminium?

Alec Steele wants to know your location

General question: When you melt different metals together to create an alloy, does the order in which you add each metal to the crucible have an effect upon the final properties of the alloy when finished?

Now that you have made Daniel's alloy, you will need to run some tests and see if it works well for casting, forging, machining, and welding. That will let us know what applications Daniel's alloy is good for.

Could you have the result tested to see what actually survived into the alloy? Really looks like a thermite like reaction going on when you add the AL and am wondering if that results in this just becoming an aluminum bronze.

Some of those reactions when clearing cross look a lot like thermite reactions... You've got all the makings, be careful.

I'm sorry, but with how old of a technology smelting is, there's no way this is an entirely new alloy. Maybe a variation of a different alloy, at most. With how long smelting and smithing has been around, and for how long science has understood basic metals, there's no way this hasn't been tried before. The problem with claiming you've invented something is that history is incomplete, and will always be incomplete, there's no way to tell what has and hasn't been done before unless history specifically states it has been done. If you do any amount of searching, you'll find that alloys made from copper and iron are very common, usually master alloys for brasses and bronzes, and aluminum bronze is an already named alloy. While this specific alloy doesn't have a name, as most alloys do not, does not mean this is a new alloy. If you also search by element symbols, for example Al-Cu-Fe, or Al-Cu-Fe-C as cast iron contains more carbon than other steels, you'll find a ton of research into alloys that are either Al-Cu-Fe or Al-Cu-Fe-X, with X being additional elements. Going along this, Al-Cu-Fe is also the first discovered naturally occurring quasicryastal, though this was discovered within the Khatyrka meteorite, which means it's structure requires the specific environment of space to form; point is, it's a naturally occuring alloy, which means it's literally impossible to 'invent' this alloy. Basic math tells you, assuming no carbon loss, and assuming you're in the higher range of carbon content being 3% carbon in that cast iron, you'll end up with 0.75% carbon in the final product, at most. Which that small percentage essentially means it could easily be an Al-Cu-Fe alloy that isn't pure, and not an Al-Cu-Fe-C alloy, and again, with the discovery of this naturally occurring, it's literally impossible to invent the alloy. Even then, I highly doubt throughout history nobody has tried to make an Al-Cu-Fe alloy, it's highly improbable, to the point of being borderline impossible. Like I said earlier, most alloys do not have proper names, but instead have names based on their chemistry, and even then there are a ton of alloys that are obscure enough to not be commonly listed in easy to find sources. By our age, if a simple alloy like this doesn't 'exist', there's probably good reasons as to why. If anyone wants to look up the naturally occurring Al-Cu-Fe alloy and wants to argue about alloys, it's Al 63, Cu 24, Fe 13. Yes, the formula isn't exactly the same as the alloy shown here, but that doesn't necessarily make it a different alloy, but rather a variation of the same base alloy. This also doesn't mean the alloy doesn't naturally exist with varying compositions, as this specific alloy was discovered in a single meteorite, we do not know if other variations naturally exist. Point is, people shouldn't claim to invent something with little research. I don't care how long someone claims to study a field of science, or how much they claim to know about that field. The papers discussing that meteorite and it's quasicrystal was from 2014, which means it was well published within the time frame of this person claiming of being within the field of metallurgy. If I can find a paper within a minute of google searching, you would thing someone studying or professing in a field would have found this also. Not to mention this is a relatively simple alloy, which again, makes it highly improbable that it hasn't been done before. If someone claims something as bold as this, take it with a grain of salt. Ask for their research, and do your own research. If I can find what I did within a few searches, so can you. Also use some basic logic, like how an ancient technology has supposedly never had an Al-Cu-Fe alloy attempted, it doesn't make logical sense. Again with logic, if this supposedly new metal is so amazing, why does it supposedly not exist yet, when we have had generations of industry of smelting? The'res a logical reason why this alloy isn't a common thing, more than likely cheaper and better materials exist for the same purpose. You don't even need to be a student of metallurgy, or even science and engineering in general, to do this.

Would have thought the iron would go into the pot first as the melt temp is higher. Can't really call it 'iron bronze' can you? After all bronze is non ferrous. Can't imagine what would make this worth the effort to be honest. I would have thought that during the evolution from bronze to iron 2000 odd years ago the metal workers of the time would have come up with this and made a use for it id it was any good. I'm not trolling, just my honest reaction. It's cool to experiment non the less.

The reaction when aluminum was added looked a lot like thermite. Maybe there is some oxide in there from reaction of molten iron with air in the furnace before aluminum is added?

UPDATES: Will be posted in this comment as I learn more, please read on for latest advice: In this video I make a type of bronze. It's called Cast Iron Bronze and was provided by of one of my subscribers, Daniele Bosco from Italy. This is an extremely hard bronze, well suited to weapons, hammers tools etc. This metal should also hold an edge well. Hope you enjoy the video, it's a bit longer than normal and shows the entire process from start to finish. Hit me a sub if you enjoyed it and would like to see more, like and comment if you wish to discuss anything in this video. UPDATE 1: Turns out I made a few mistakes making this, you shouldn't get the bright white light or the smoke, so something was amiss. It could be the aluminium wasn't pure. This recipe calls for pure aluminium of at least 99% UPDATE 2: The correct method of adding the metals is melt the copper and cast iron together. When the copper is molten add the aluminium. This cools the metals somewhat, keep the heat on. When molten again stir vigorously. This causes a strong chemical reaction which increases the heat to rapidly rise in a few seconds which in turn melts the cast iron. Stir everything again and mix thoroughly then pour. Daniele says it's a crude process but it works, but is still to be perfected. More updates as I learn more.

Pre heating the grabbers is so obvious when you see it....but its a trap I would have picked it up with cold tools and ruined the pour...thanks for showing me a new thing

It does look like an interesting take on aluminium/scrap-bronze, would be nice to see what the ups and downs are. I'd guess that the iron content is so high that it again reduces its corrosion-resistance.

Al will burn much like Mg if hot enough

It sure has a beautiful color/tone!would be nice to see the grain pattern and atomic structure if it is a new alloy!!

First you say it's extremely strong, but then say it's extremely hard, so which is it? They are entirely different properties. Not trying to troll, I'm genuinely interested in its material properties.

Erh suitable for weapons ? You should try to remelt it and make a kind of chisel with it to test the brittleness, hardness etc.. Also, "as hard as steel" doesn't mean anything. As hard at what steel ? Mild steel ? 1030 steel ? Hardened steel ? tempered steel ? Tempered spring steel ? Or just as hard as cast iron ? The advantage of steel over bronze on weapons is that steel can spring back. It allows for more elongated shapes, and for very thin swords that can be handled effortless while being strong and flexible not to break. But this alloy is intriguing, you should test it !

A lot of the hardness will have come from the carbon contributed in the cast iron, surely could have been heated a lot hotter and placed in a much hotter mold for a smoother, more perfect cast, but I suppose for just a bar, it is fine, and if the idea is to re-melt it for better mixing, then its definitely fine.

Just curious, in her book, Atlas Shrugs, Ayn Rand has a character named Hank Reardon, and he makes steel, he made a very light weight alloy that included copper and steel. Now I know that the book is largely political in nature and thus fiction, but since steel is iron +carbon, if you added carbon to this mixture, maybe you would end up with the metal she described as greenish silver, light weight and extremely strong. She was from Russia and who knows, maybe was drawing upon some lost technology from her ancestors... or just using her imagination. When I was taking a course at KSU called, Machine tool technology, I wrote a paper for that class that looked at Akkadian bronze which was claimed to be an alloy that had some silica in it which was almost as hard as steel and metallurgists claimed it had never been duplicated in modern times...Just some thoughts.

Wow, very nice. Thats a good experiment. I was sure bronze has more potential then tin and alu-bronze. I cast mostly alu-bronz for durability. But cast iron bronze got my attention. After your tests, when its positive i will give it a try. Thank you for sharing :)

It's an odd mix, but polishes up nicely. Before using it for anything, I'd consider testing it's crevice-corrosion properties. Ancient metal-workers would have made this alloy at some stage and found it wanting in certain areas, which is why we don't see it in everyday use. (A bit like hexagonal wheels; look good, very strong, but not fit for anything other than decoration) This alloy has zero scrap value, as it would cost more to separate the metals than they are worth.

I had a look at the video and I hope you are not offended by my comment. This alloy is a total waste of time. Seeing the ingot and how much has been wasted in the slag there is a very poor recovery. If you remelt that ingot it will produce a lot of slag because looking at the video there is so much slag and oxides mixed in the ingot. If you pour it into a sand mold that same problem with slag/oxide will give you dirty castings.

Now we just have to see if it is worth making a frying pan out of.

Your Aluminium doesn't look cast. It's either extruded or rolled.

It doesn't make sense to write 105% because you expect 5% loss. You can only add 100%, because that's all there is. You can't add more than there is! What you MEANT to say (or at least you should mean that) is 70 parts Copper, 25 parts Cast Iron and 10 parts Aluminium with a loss of 5 parts, leaving you with 100 parts in the end. The whole thing will result in 66.66667% Copper, 23.80952% Cast Iron and 9.52381% Aluminium aproximately (because we can't really calculate beforehand how much is lost from each type) => before creating it. But 105% is just wrong on so many levels...

Mmm. Daniele's Alloy, and Nordic Gold. That's _two_ new alloys~

At last! The secret to Skyrim dwarven metal comes out!

One only has to take a single glance at the background to know this person is the type of man that has the capability to smelt metals.

Here...let me just pick up this 66lb block of metal like its a cotton swab...lol. He was just handling it like it weighed no more than a wallet. I complain when I have to pick up a 50lb bag of dog food. Crazy!

Andy, this was the reason I subbed to your channel, it seems you like to try new alloys. Would like someone to do an analysis of the final just to see the final pickup of copper and aluminum just to see what percentage was lost to boil off. Good show keep them coming. Thanks mate.

Probably could make a good bearing material too...usually bearing are made by all of this things...idk... may be... but we'll see....btw tq for the experience sir...

Aluminum bronze (the real stuff, not the homemade mystery versions seen so often on youtube) has a few percent of Iron in it, but not nearly this much! I'm curious to see how it performs...

You said it's hard. It might be rather rust resistant? Is it brittle? That would largely kill it for some uses.

Very interesting, subbed, I would be interested in its other properties as well though such as conductivity and compressive strength?

With all the weight and expense of copper and some of the strength of steel😂

I have been looking into Bronzes to make and had actually thought about and looked for Iron based Bronze and indeed could not find much about it. This looks very interesting, looking forward to see what will come out of these experiments 👍👊

Without something like an XRF analysis, I'm dubious of the claim that this is anything other than aluminum bronze. Copper Iron alloy (AE Alloys) are used as a grain refiner for aluminum bronze, that's about the extent of what I see going on here. Commercial Aluminum Bronze commonly contains approximately 9-14% aluminum and 4-6% iron . Even with the iron percentage increased to ~20% I think you still just have aluminum bronze and there is no knowing how much of the iron was lost to slag. Really need something like XRF XRD or OES analysis to verify that this is something other than one of the many alloys in the aluminum bronze family.

Send it to Abom79 and let him machine it on the G&E shaper to true it up into a nice square brick, it’d be awesome when it’s polished up!

Your "Daniele's alloy" is one of a class of quasicrystalline intermetallic compounds that has received intense theoretical scrutiny for the last 30 years. www.britannica.com/science/quasicrystal#ref506560. The observed hardness is accounted for by absence of regular crystalline periodicy. This has the effect of building large amounts of atomic stress into the bulk material. For the same reason I would expect to find high brittleness, associated with irreducibly high numbers of "lattice" defects (the structure isn't periodic so there isn't a true lattice).

I think we finally found out what the Dwemer metal from the Elder Scrolls is made of!

Nice job, but maybe cut it open and add some analytic data to backup what is in the bar.

We are witnessing history being made

almost certainly making aluminium carbide and degassing the Cu Fe mix by killing with the Al. in terms of microstructure im pretty sure there would be no actual mixing of the Al and Fe so its not really an alloy its likely a blended mix of aluminium bronze and iron impurities rather than an alloy of all three. to understand whats going on with it it needs to be cut ground lapped and etched with a study under the microscope. id guess the hardening is from precipitation of cast iron. as a side note judging by the weight of the dross and the final ingot there is some significant proportion which is not included in the ingot. would be easy enough to deduce if we had the volume of the ingot aswell. and finally "cast iron" is a catch all term and it seems that the actual composition of the cast iron you used is unknown. this is significant as very small quantities of things such as Pb, Si and Va can have a massive impact on its reactivity, physical properties and processability. so everyones results would be vastly different based on changes in cast iron used alone

You better make an axe out of this alloy in the near future, if you want your channel to grow

Hate to say this but CW 305G = CuA110Fe1 CEN number = ISO symbols. I'd hand stamp the approx alloy in the end for the user.

Sir, please measure the alloys thermal expansion characteristics, if it's like Berylium Steel it will be minimal.

I have made something like it before but it was rely rely hard about as hard as tool steel the deference was that i added zinc to the composition

The way you pick that bar up at the end, and its size it sure does not look as light as the scale says! Seems like instead of 60 lbs it may only be 6 lbs! You must be really strong!

Now do Copper and Iron with a Hydrogen flame from Sea Water. Be sure to Vent!! HHO from Salt Water will produce Chlorine.

Is it just me or does this sound like Henry Reardon's creation? From the book Atlas shrugged.

What to name it. How do you go about naming metals anyway? Having cast iron mixed with it, this alloy could make good apex seals in a rotary engine. LET THE TESTING BEGIN!

I hope this Alloy is both New and Useful! I would LOVE to see people making all sorts of cool things out of it!

if you send it to some smith. in respect off the inventor send the material to some known smith like alec so this material gets the biggest chance of succses

Has anyone broke it to see structure or tested hardness...

My only concern is the slag inclusions in the bar. I wonder if it would be more put if you added some borax to the mix.

What would be the outcome if poured in an inert gas environment, the mold in a box containing the inert gas?

Does it rust? What is its magnetic abilities since copper and iron and aluminum is so different? Does it work harden

Refinery brass. Looks like brass/bronze, but will kinda stick to a magnet. Also, the aluminum is MLC. A cheap but decent variety of aluminum.

Aluminum and copper is Aluminum Bronze, and that is very hard if the percentages are kept as needed so he just added a little iron? If you take nearly any molten metal and stir it with a higher temp metal, it will dissolve into it. I guess he failed to notice the tin solder on some of those fittings, that will change the alloy.

Well. I have always been curious about copper ferris alloys; I knew that they are generated (hopefully in very small quantities) at braze sites. I would have never thought to add carbon to get a good alloy.

Him: plink, plink, plink, plink... Me: plink, plink, plink, SHIT... now what? 😂

DAMN that was cool... he’s boiling his cast iron in a pot of bubbling liquid copper! It reminded me of cooking hot dogs! 😂

call it Boscoloy D

Aluminum bronze is said to be as strong as steel while being light as aluminum, so I'm wondering what the iron will do to alubronze.

Would it be a cleaner ending nugget if it was on a Vibrator to get all the air and flatten it out evenly ? Looks pretty doe

You’re basically making thermite when adding/mixing the aluminum in the end

What abot the inclusion of powder steel? 1080 or something similar.

21:10 The money shot

304 Stainless-aluminum. Used in hydrogen production.

i wonder how good/bad its thermal conductivity is.

I wonder how this would work for a bearing material, I bet it works good in high speed high radial loads

Love this Andy! You are like a master chef! I’m definitely going to try this stuff out thank you so much to you and Daniele. It has a lovely colour, almost golden. I have an old fashioned broken BT phone box in the bushes I can use for the cast iron. Awesome video mate, really brilliant.

Do something with it. Give it to a knife maker. Forge it and test the blade

The bar look great, pretty close to the color of Aluminum Bronze. I was hoping to see some strength tests. I might have to give it a try one day. The reaction when you added the AL was close to about the same as when you added the ZN to the copper a while back, I guessing it was because it was over its boiling temp. How magnetic is it with the cast iron added in?

This will end up ruining a big batch of brass a some foundry some day.

Let’s see how strong 💪 this is

I watched again MeltandCast Dude Andy, You're amazing-keep going- you are like the *Curious Droid* of at home foundry work. You're my damn hero mate 😂 but for real. You got 3k subscribers now, but soon to have 100k if you keep going (or even more) Study, and make a plan are your next move. Keep making videos as often as possible. Thank you, and thank Daniel, this is great.

Sorry to be the only sceptic to comment but I am highly dubious about this mixture. There were clear signs of a wispy, grainy structure before polishing and I will be very interested to see how a slice cut from the ingot performs in bend, shear and tensile strength. That said, full credit for actually doing something and sharing it with us. Well done. Great videos, please keep them coming ! Cheers, Mike

I thought bronze was an alloy of 90% copper and 10% tin

I would love to see how this forges I still new to blacksmithing and bladesmithing but I would love to forge this it would make beautifull swords that would be strong. I was wondering if you could give it a temper or not tho and how well it takes to a quinch. Id love to see some testing videos of all this

OMG! Always First In The World, LOL, All These Things Where Done While You Guys Hadn't Even Born.

I'm guessing the Chinese would take umbrage with your use of the word new:

You probably could get a more even crystalline structure of metal if the mould was warm/hot while the metal was being poured so you have less waste material

This guy reminds me of “turbo yoda” from McM/ skid factory

I am really curious how hard it is and how it would hold up in a real world application, example, as a bushing. I restore old cars as a hobby. a lot of them used bronze bushing in the door hinges. the factory bronze was fairly hard, but would wear out after about 10 years of use. the aftermarket replacement bushings are imported from china are made out of butter metal and wear out extremely fast. I found this video because I was searching for different bronze alloys. it would be a lot of work to create my own bushings, but I might look in to this. great video.