As others have said, I think how they are melted is important. I always melt an ingot of aluminum first to generate a pool of molten aluminum, and get much higher yield on each can by plunging it into the molten aluminum. I assume it reduces oxidation because the can melts while shielded from oxygen. I agree, the drink can alloy doesn't make for a strong casting. I've been wanting to experiment with adding 10% silicon to make it more similar to a quality casting aluminum alloy and see how much difference that makes. Cheers Lucky.
With thin material like cans you might get less oxidation if you ensure that as you add cans to the melt, they are immediately submerged to reduce air exposure as they melt. Otherwise they may tend to sit on top, with more air exposure as they melt. This would be especially true if you had a flux protecting the molten surface.
I went back and watched the old video. The melt was done using a different furnace which was more open on the top and it was done on a windy day. My guess would be that you lost more to oxide because the wind driving across the top of the crucible exposed the melt to more oxygen. The most recent melt was done using a more enclosed furnace and without wind. The melt would be exposed to a lot less oxygen.
The thinner it is, the more surface area to make one Kg. So more paint, vinyl, and AlO. So less yield. But you also think that as it melts, it forms more AlO. Maybe a material scientist in the audience could say something more as to what’s going.
That's the only aspect of this experiment which isn't well controlled. I doubt there's more than 80% Al by weight given the paint and how heavy oxygen is.
There may indeed be a discount in the weight of aluminum due to the weight of paint/varnish. That said, it’s academic to consider anything other than the materials as they come. Nobody’s going to strip varnish before melting, so yield per kilo of cans as received is the most useful knowledge.
Hi Luckygen. I've been following you for years now and always enjoy your material and especially your experiments. I have been reading about aluminum alloys for years since my original materials engineering course. Something you might wish to try and we'd all enjoy is trying to add copper to these soft alloys. I think aluminum cans have most of the alloying elements besides copper. 3003 aluminum has up to 5 weight percent copper in it. Electrical wire is apparently virtually pure copper and easy to measure off small increments. I'd love to see an experiment where you added 4-5% copper to one of your aluminum can ingots. Apparently copper will dissolve readily in molten aluminum well below the melting point of copper. Keep up the great videos. You are a really fun niche on youtube.
I did try to add copper wire to molten aluminium and it would not dissolve. Maybe it takes longer? I will have to try again in the near future. When I will try it again I will use the heatsink metal because I know exactly what is in it and it is pure aluminium. The 4-5% is exactly what I had in mind for these experiments.
@luckygen1001 Interesting. I would think the copper would sink in a crucible. My copper tipped soldering irons get dissolved in solder at much lower temperatures. If you have a rolling mill perhaps rolling the weight percent copper wire flat could increase the surface area and speed up disolving speed. Many thanks again for your practical experiments. My own foundry operation has not run for many years due to a lack of "round tuits". I really appreciate your sharing.
I do a lot of soldering and the same thing happens to me., could it be that the tip is rubbing on the solder joint that makes the tip wear out? The next time I will stir the copper in when adding it to the aluminium.@@ianjefferson9518
When I did a lot of aluminium melting temperature made a lot of difference. As in over temperature. Out of ignorance I let the temps get to high and it caused a lot of troubles. Not sure if you observed the same temps in this melt series as you did years ago. Nice to see you back. The drawn cans are near pure aluminium and useless for machining. I agree that the heatsinks could be tempered and heat treated. Why not give that a go as a further experiment?
The alloys used for beverage cans do not respond well to heat treatments (for hardening). Manganese (body) and magnesium (lid and tab) are the hardening alloy elements.
@@tinayoga8844 Yes you are correct.The 1000 series aluminium is not hardenable at all. 6000 series it is possible. Most everything that is extruded deeply like a can for drinks will be nearly pure aluminium. And most other extrusions will also be terrible to work with aluminium. If it is cast you have a decent chance of producing a good casting.
I don't think that the heat sink sheet metal will respond to heat treatment. I took a sample of that sheet metal to a place that analyzes metals and the report showed that all other metals and silicon were in trace amounts. The only metal that in alloy was 0.5% iron. So it is almost pure aluminium. When I cast that sheet metal in the past it is so soft and easy to bend just like it is before melting.
This probably explains the use of twin chamber furnaces and controlled atmosphere for recycling thin aluminum commercially. They have ways of cooking off the contaminants and maintaining an oxygen free furnace environment. Do You think you could possibly increase the yield just by burning off the paint and lacquer first?
@@luckygen1001 I was doing some quick reading on recycling thin goods, and it looks like a big part of their process is the oxygen free furnace environment, and they maintain a liquid pool of melted stock that recycle parts go into, so they melt very quickly, so the minimal oxygen that enters when they open the furnace does not have time to oxidize the thin parts. The only part of this that is *easily* replicated is feeding cans into a pool of melted aluminum, although if you are real good at tuning your burner, you can probably keep the furnace a pretty low oxygen environment.
Just curious, after watching a countless number of videos concerning aluminum fluxes have you ever come across a flux that works? Good to see you back on CZcams...
As a child that was into pinewood derby and was accustomed to melting fishing weights for adding weight to the cars. We used an inverted cast iron fence post cap as a crucible, with a propane torch for melting the fishing weights, which were lead back then. I tried to melt aluminum cans. I had tried smashing them up as small a volume as I could make them, along with trying to melt them whole, both within the crucible and with the torch directly, they just burned, rather than melting. At that point I realized that I wasn't, as an eight year old, going to be able to melt cans into ingots.
The first tries to melt may have had too much heat input and oxidised heavily. The cans may have been a different mix of brands maybe. At 10 c refund a can or plastic bottle I prefer to use that money to subsidise buying a alloy with the properties I want for a project. Have you tried HSS tooling to machine the ingots ? Eric
Great to see this review. When I did my beer can cast to make a house number plaque I can remember the amount of dross and the smell was colossal. But, having said that, yes it's not structurally strong and not as fluid but you can make something from it 🙂 Great to see you again.. cheers!
Very interesting as always. Given the 8 year time difference, it may not have been something you did, but are today's cans different ? Different formula, quality of the aluminium etc.
The heatsink materials do not have HPB which is like that varnish coating....for foodstuff containers....To use the metal from the drink cans, you may have to add zinc or tin to the alloy....but, you probably already knew this.
When I melted the heat sink metal there was no burning sooty flames coming from it unlike the drink cans and that maybe the reason why it got the highest recovery rate
Thanks for the great video! I learned a lot. I like your oxide growth theory! If you took the mass of the ingot plus the the mass of the slag, you might be able to estimate the amount of oxygen gained by the additional mass over 1 kg. Course you'd have to account for the paint and coating burning off or strip it first. Seems like a lot of trouble... :)
Video request (I hope this isn't rude.) Several people make aluminum copper bronze out of scrap and it comes out really poorly. Cavities, finish, etc. If you were going to cast scrap aluminum and scrap copper wire how would you do it for best results. I assume one problem is the oxide on the copper wire. No one mentions flux. If you have any ideas or are just curious I think a lot of people would appreciate a recipe for aluminum bronze with good results. BTW, great to have you back.
Heat sinks have no need for strength, pressurised containers do. Ergo heat sink is made from ( virtually ) pure aluminium hence the 'gummy' tendancy when machining, cutting fluid and high fead rate help prevent gauling. Drinks cans, lower pressure contents are two part comtainers, the base and side are aluminium alloy with I believe 1% manganese for strength, the cap is a 3% manganese. It is a simple job to seperate top from base and melt them seperately. also the base of the can is far thicker than the sides. for best results seperat top, base, and sides and stack together as tightly as posible then melt (keeping the top in a seperate melt). I suspect higer pressure cans, deodourant may have a higher manganese content likely 3%, (if Im correct then melting the drink can tops seperately will give similar results as your DC sample.) As stated by others an inert or oxygen scouring covering flux will reduce oxidation in the cruduble, try charcoal granules. For an alternative to melting and machining poor quality drink can alloy, add some zinc (old auto wheel ballance weights, new ones are alluminum alloy) into the mix and make a zamak alloy of your choice for the cast/machining properties you require.
Great experiment. 👍 How would this compare to a a small engine aluminum remelt or an extrusion aluminum remelt? I've melted a number of different aluminums and I notice a big difference in the amount the ingots shrink.
Aluminium cans are NOT 100% aluminium. The base of the can is comprised of small amounts of other metals including magnesium, manganese, iron, silicon and copper (which can change the properties a lot) so that will give you a different alloy compared to pure Al, that would explain the different machining results.... also, Aluminium melts at about 660C so melting it at over 900C (which is what your furnace looks like) would burn off a lot of Al.... to do proper tests and get consistent results you need to control your temp and alloy selection.
By constantly adding more metal the temp never gets too high and when the last piece has been added the furnace is switched off to prevent overheating.
Cans are not made of the correct alloy for casting. They have additives for extruding! Only use scrap castings to acquire casting material. Alloy wheels, crankcases & pistons are way better.
Hello Lucky! I'm a lunatic who hopes one day to be retired so I can mess around in shed full-time. I've got a bunch of 6cyl BMW cylinder heads which the scrappy won't give me peanuts for cause it's mixed metal( seats, studs and guides. The studs are a mongrel to remove. I get my kicks building stuff outta stuff I get outta bins. I'm a beginner machinist too but I'd like to have a crack at casting one day.(and let me take a moment to thankyou for creating your excellent vids, watched 2 so far.). Anyway I want to build a furnace that will take a cylinder head and form an ingot and if possible spit out the unwanted bits in a semi auto manner. Prolly start with gas with view to go waste fuel. Cylinder heads when overheated can become soft: will my very high quality German alloy be garbage after smelting or might it retain some it's strength ofterwards? Am I drinking too much? Warm regards Craig Walker Have I been drinking too much
It is not that simple, a new phone means I need new software to edit the video and that new software can have problems with my old computer. So then I have to spend up big just to improve my videos which I do not get a cent from.
@@luckygen1001 Unlike a lot of other youtube channels, your average viewer doesn't come for 15 min of entertainment. Most come to learn from your experience and experiments. We will keep coming back to watch regardless of the video quality as long as the content is interesting and useful. Its good to have you back.
As others have said, I think how they are melted is important. I always melt an ingot of aluminum first to generate a pool of molten aluminum, and get much higher yield on each can by plunging it into the molten aluminum. I assume it reduces oxidation because the can melts while shielded from oxygen. I agree, the drink can alloy doesn't make for a strong casting. I've been wanting to experiment with adding 10% silicon to make it more similar to a quality casting aluminum alloy and see how much difference that makes. Cheers Lucky.
After I melt a crucible full of cans there is a pool of molten aluminium in it so each can is plunged underneath to minimize oxidation.
That's a good idea. I wonder also if a covered crucible might help.
With thin material like cans you might get less oxidation if you ensure that as you add cans to the melt, they are immediately submerged to reduce air exposure as they melt. Otherwise they may tend to sit on top, with more air exposure as they melt.
This would be especially true if you had a flux protecting the molten surface.
Adding some boric acid helps a lot. It's essentially flux.
This is what I did in the video.
Good to see you back man
Thanks.
Big hello !!!we want you to show us more details with the construction of the oil burner.....
I would like to see more details as well.
Its on the to do list.
@@luckygen1001 thanks !!!
Very interesting. Next time could you put your calipers on the outside of the billets to see if the shrinkage is different between the various alloys?
I went back and watched the old video. The melt was done using a different furnace which was more open on the top and it was done on a windy day. My guess would be that you lost more to oxide because the wind driving across the top of the crucible exposed the melt to more oxygen. The most recent melt was done using a more enclosed furnace and without wind. The melt would be exposed to a lot less oxygen.
I agree everything was the same but I used two different furnaces.
The thinner it is, the more surface area to make one Kg. So more paint, vinyl, and AlO. So less yield.
But you also think that as it melts, it forms more AlO. Maybe a material scientist in the audience could say something more as to what’s going.
That's the only aspect of this experiment which isn't well controlled. I doubt there's more than 80% Al by weight given the paint and how heavy oxygen is.
As the sheet metal gets thicker that oxide layer is less a problem.
There may indeed be a discount in the weight of aluminum due to the weight of paint/varnish. That said, it’s academic to consider anything other than the materials as they come. Nobody’s going to strip varnish before melting, so yield per kilo of cans as received is the most useful knowledge.
Hi Luckygen. I've been following you for years now and always enjoy your material and especially your experiments.
I have been reading about aluminum alloys for years since my original materials engineering course. Something you might wish to try and we'd all enjoy is trying to add copper to these soft alloys. I think aluminum cans have most of the alloying elements besides copper. 3003 aluminum has up to 5 weight percent copper in it. Electrical wire is apparently virtually pure copper and easy to measure off small increments.
I'd love to see an experiment where you added 4-5% copper to one of your aluminum can ingots. Apparently copper will dissolve readily in molten aluminum well below the melting point of copper.
Keep up the great videos. You are a really fun niche on youtube.
I did try to add copper wire to molten aluminium and it would not dissolve. Maybe it takes longer? I will have to try again in the near future. When I will try it again I will use the heatsink metal because I know exactly what is in it and it is pure aluminium. The 4-5% is exactly what I had in mind for these experiments.
@luckygen1001 Interesting. I would think the copper would sink in a crucible. My copper tipped soldering irons get dissolved in solder at much lower temperatures. If you have a rolling mill perhaps rolling the weight percent copper wire flat could increase the surface area and speed up disolving speed.
Many thanks again for your practical experiments. My own foundry operation has not run for many years due to a lack of "round tuits". I really appreciate your sharing.
I do a lot of soldering and the same thing happens to me., could it be that the tip is rubbing on the solder joint that makes the tip wear out? The next time I will stir the copper in when adding it to the aluminium.@@ianjefferson9518
When I did a lot of aluminium melting temperature made a lot of difference. As in over temperature. Out of ignorance I let the temps get to high and it caused a lot of troubles. Not sure if you observed the same temps in this melt series as you did years ago. Nice to see you back. The drawn cans are near pure aluminium and useless for machining. I agree that the heatsinks could be tempered and heat treated. Why not give that a go as a further experiment?
The alloys used for beverage cans do not respond well to heat treatments (for hardening). Manganese (body) and magnesium (lid and tab) are the hardening alloy elements.
@@tinayoga8844 Yes you are correct.The 1000 series aluminium is not hardenable at all. 6000 series it is possible. Most everything that is extruded deeply like a can for drinks will be nearly pure aluminium. And most other extrusions will also be terrible to work with aluminium. If it is cast you have a decent chance of producing a good casting.
I don't think that the heat sink sheet metal will respond to heat treatment. I took a sample of that sheet metal to a place that analyzes metals and the report showed that all other metals and silicon were in trace amounts. The only metal that in alloy was 0.5% iron. So it is almost pure aluminium. When I cast that sheet metal in the past it is so soft and easy to bend just like it is before melting.
Interesting comparison. Really glad to see you back on CZcams! Thanks for sharing!
Joe
Thanks for watching my video.
Wonderful to see a new video after the last and the absence. 👍👍
Thanks.
This probably explains the use of twin chamber furnaces and controlled atmosphere for recycling thin aluminum commercially. They have ways of cooking off the contaminants and maintaining an oxygen free furnace environment.
Do You think you could possibly increase the yield just by burning off the paint and lacquer first?
I could try to run my melting furnace really low to burn the paint,varnish off first.
@@luckygen1001 I was doing some quick reading on recycling thin goods, and it looks like a big part of their process is the oxygen free furnace environment, and they maintain a liquid pool of melted stock that recycle parts go into, so they melt very quickly, so the minimal oxygen that enters when they open the furnace does not have time to oxidize the thin parts.
The only part of this that is *easily* replicated is feeding cans into a pool of melted aluminum, although if you are real good at tuning your burner, you can probably keep the furnace a pretty low oxygen environment.
Interesting experiment, thanks Lucky! 😊👍
Thanks for watching.
Good to have you back mate!
I feel like I am out of prison.
Heh, people call it CZcams jail for a reason
Just curious, after watching a countless number of videos concerning aluminum fluxes have you ever come across a flux that works?
Good to see you back on CZcams...
Foseco makes a good one But I have forgotten the name of it. Thinking about it the name is coverall and is followed by a number.
@@luckygen1001 thank you.
They shred and then wash the AL here before melting. This is at huge recycling center.
Lots of good information (as usual) good job.
As a child that was into pinewood derby and was accustomed to melting fishing weights for adding weight to the cars. We used an inverted cast iron fence post cap as a crucible, with a propane torch for melting the fishing weights, which were lead back then.
I tried to melt aluminum cans. I had tried smashing them up as small a volume as I could make them, along with trying to melt them whole, both within the crucible and with the torch directly, they just burned, rather than melting. At that point I realized that I wasn't, as an eight year old, going to be able to melt cans into ingots.
It is harder than you think.
The first tries to melt may have had too much heat input and oxidised heavily.
The cans may have been a different mix of brands maybe.
At 10 c refund a can or plastic bottle I prefer to use that money to subsidise buying a alloy with the properties I want for a project.
Have you tried HSS tooling to machine the ingots ?
Eric
Great to see this review.
When I did my beer can cast to make a house number plaque I can remember the amount of dross and the smell was colossal.
But, having said that, yes it's not structurally strong and not as fluid but you can make something from it 🙂
Great to see you again.. cheers!
Thanks.
Thanks for sharing 👍
Very interesting as always. Given the 8 year time difference, it may not have been something you did, but are today's cans different ? Different formula, quality of the aluminium etc.
Would have been useful to do a simple durometer test.
Thanks for sharing. Very interesting.
Wheeliminium (as the Olfundry man say) prove to be cheap ($10 per Mag Wheel at wreckers) and good for home casting. 👍👍👍👍👍👍
So true.
@@luckygen1001 Lucky, at the end of Sep I will be in Melb and dream to have opportunity to take my 15yo grandson to see your foundry?
I do not have people around my place anymore because of some in the past have caused some problems so a few spoil it for the rest.@@VladekR
@@luckygen1001 Thanks, sad.
Lucky, for third test you use heat sinks from many Microwave Ovens. I wonder what you done with Berilium?
The heatsink materials do not have HPB which is like that varnish coating....for foodstuff containers....To use the metal from the drink cans, you may have to add zinc or tin to the alloy....but, you probably already knew this.
When I melted the heat sink metal there was no burning sooty flames coming from it unlike the drink cans and that maybe the reason why it got the highest recovery rate
Thanks for the great video! I learned a lot. I like your oxide growth theory! If you took the mass of the ingot plus the the mass of the slag, you might be able to estimate the amount of oxygen gained by the additional mass over 1 kg. Course you'd have to account for the paint and coating burning off or strip it first. Seems like a lot of trouble... :)
No one melts aluminum cans here in Oregon USA as they're worth 10 cents each 😀
Unless they get run over, then worthless. They need to read the barcode to verify it was sold in Oregon...
Video request (I hope this isn't rude.) Several people make aluminum copper bronze out of scrap and it comes out really poorly. Cavities, finish, etc. If you were going to cast scrap aluminum and scrap copper wire how would you do it for best results. I assume one problem is the oxide on the copper wire. No one mentions flux. If you have any ideas or are just curious I think a lot of people would appreciate a recipe for aluminum bronze with good results. BTW, great to have you back.
I have never cast aluminium bronze or tried to make it so I am clueless about these things.
Heat sinks have no need for strength, pressurised containers do. Ergo heat sink is made from ( virtually ) pure aluminium hence the 'gummy' tendancy when machining, cutting fluid and high fead rate help prevent gauling. Drinks cans, lower pressure contents are two part comtainers, the base and side are aluminium alloy with I believe 1% manganese for strength, the cap is a 3% manganese. It is a simple job to seperate top from base and melt them seperately. also the base of the can is far thicker than the sides. for best results seperat top, base, and sides and stack together as tightly as posible then melt (keeping the top in a seperate melt). I suspect higer pressure cans, deodourant may have a higher manganese content likely 3%, (if Im correct then melting the drink can tops seperately will give similar results as your DC sample.) As stated by others an inert or oxygen scouring covering flux will reduce oxidation in the cruduble, try charcoal granules. For an alternative to melting and machining poor quality drink can alloy, add some zinc (old auto wheel ballance weights, new ones are alluminum alloy) into the mix and make a zamak alloy of your choice for the cast/machining properties you require.
The drink cans were the best machining out of the three alloys I tried.
Interesting experiment....I melted a few kgs of cans,but always end up with porous metal,so just stuck to aluminium scrap.
Great experiment. 👍
How would this compare to a a small engine aluminum remelt or an extrusion aluminum remelt?
I've melted a number of different aluminums and I notice a big difference in the amount the ingots shrink.
It should get a better recovery rate than what I melted in my video. So have I, the more shrinkage usually means less gas in the metal.
I suspect it is probably worthwhile temperining the billet aluminum alloys before machining. Pure aluminum is pointless.
Aluminium cans are NOT 100% aluminium. The base of the can is comprised of small amounts of other metals including magnesium, manganese, iron, silicon and copper (which can change the properties a lot) so that will give you a different alloy compared to pure Al, that would explain the different machining results.... also, Aluminium melts at about 660C so melting it at over 900C (which is what your furnace looks like) would burn off a lot of Al.... to do proper tests and get consistent results you need to control your temp and alloy selection.
By constantly adding more metal the temp never gets too high and when the last piece has been added the furnace is switched off to prevent overheating.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
Thankyou 👍
that is why we compress the cans before melting
I see that you did not notice that the cans were compressed before adding to the crucible
I'm surprised that you got 58% from the soft drink cans. I thought it would have been much lower.
Regards,
Mark
In my old video I made years ago I only got 40% using soft drink cans.
Cans are not made of the correct alloy for casting. They have additives for extruding! Only use scrap castings to acquire casting material. Alloy wheels, crankcases & pistons are way better.
Yes you are right cans are not a casting alloy.
Your materials, did you find a bitcoins miner’s dumpster?
Hello Lucky! I'm a lunatic who hopes one day to be retired so I can mess around in shed full-time. I've got a bunch of 6cyl BMW cylinder heads which the scrappy won't give me peanuts for cause it's mixed metal( seats, studs and guides. The studs are a mongrel to remove. I get my kicks building stuff outta stuff I get outta bins. I'm a beginner machinist too but I'd like to have a crack at casting one day.(and let me take a moment to thankyou for creating your excellent vids, watched 2 so far.).
Anyway I want to build a furnace that will take a cylinder head and form an ingot and if possible spit out the unwanted bits in a semi auto manner.
Prolly start with gas with view to go waste fuel.
Cylinder heads when overheated can become soft: will my very high quality German alloy be garbage after smelting or might it retain some it's strength ofterwards?
Am I drinking too much?
Warm regards Craig Walker
Have I been drinking too much
Bad idea to melt the head with all the steel bits because aluminium aborbs steel and becomes very brittle and less strength.
boss I think its time for a better camera. Even a new Iphone would increase your quality drastically.
It is not that simple, a new phone means I need new software to edit the video and that new software can have problems with my old computer. So then I have to spend up big just to improve my videos which I do not get a cent from.
@@luckygen1001 Unlike a lot of other youtube channels, your average viewer doesn't come for 15 min of entertainment. Most come to learn from your experience and experiments. We will keep coming back to watch regardless of the video quality as long as the content is interesting and useful.
Its good to have you back.
Thanks.@@nrml76