How to melt beer cans into an ingot. How to melt aluminum cans at home. Smelting furnaces

Aluminum cans appeared on the shelves about fifty years ago.

Since then they have become one of the the most popular tare for storage:

• lemonades;
• sodas;
• low alcohol drinks.

There is none grocery store, which would not offer its customers to buy a jar of cold drink on a hot summer day.

The popularity of aluminum modern marketing quite clear. This metal has good stability to organic acids contained in carbonated drinks and fermentation products. Add to this the light weight, and you have the perfect metal for making cans for soft drinks.

When aluminum cans came into use, a serious problem arose street clogging and even whole cities. After all, many people do not think about the surrounding cleanliness at all and throw the cans right on the ground. However, to date, this issue has been completely resolved. Banks can be handed over to collection points and, what is most remarkable, receive for that money.

Read about it below:

• how to choose the right banks for sending for processing;
• how much are aluminum cans accepted;
• how to earn more.

Aluminum cans compare favorably with other types of containers in the following ways: benefits:

• save the initial qualities of the drink are better than plastic containers;
• fully protect content from influence environment, and the metal itself does not have a negative effect on it;
• aluminum cans are beneficial to manufacturers due to easy transportation(they are light enough and do not fight);
• banks are especially good for buyers because cool quickly and are able to "hold" the cold for a long time;
• it is a reusable product and it may be subject to further recycling.

Such enterprises are resellers and offer enough favorable prices upon delivery of non-ferrous metal scrap at retail, that is, by kilograms. The cost per kilogram in some points may increase due to the number of cans handed over. Before delivery, inquire about the availability of the reception point for the implementation of this activity.

Many of the organizations offer not only the removal of scrap, but also the following services:

• cleaning;
• sorting;
• metal pressing.

True, the price of this varies.

If it is possible to sell banks in bulk from several thousand kg, it is better to cooperate directly with metal base or processing plant.

They can also organize self-delivery of the product, and the price will please.

The only difference will be that the banks will have to on one's own:

• cleanse;
• sort.

Recently, in Russia, the third option for the "realization" of aluminum cans has become more and more famous.

This is a special machine for receiving aluminum cans ( vending machine), which carries out the reception by the piece. In big cities, such miracle machines are usually shopping malls. The average cost of receiving one aluminum can in such a machine is about ten kopecks apiece, and any enthusiast of any age can return it.

Though this system just starting to develop in our country, it is safe to say that it is the future of scrap metal collection.

Admission conditions

A huge plus for the delivery of aluminum cans is that the seller receives the money immediately after the delivery of the container. However, it is worth noting that in each type of enterprises and private companies terms recycling may vary.

Not all collection points accept aluminum cans by the piece.

The minimum weight is usually one kilogram, and in large enterprises and processing plants - one ton.

If you want to hand over banks piece by piece, then it is better to contact resellers.

They can find through:

• janitors;
• sellers in the store.

But their prices are right too. You can’t hope to rent a bank for a lot.

It is more profitable to hand over one aluminum can to a special machine for receiving them, but keep in mind that they are still only in large cities.

They only accept banks that meet the following criteria:

• clean;
• whole;
• with intact barcode.

It is easier and more profitable to donate kilograms.

Private reception points take banks of any:

• type;
• forms;
• quality;
• destination.

Even crumpled dirty beer cans stained with earth.

Such companies carry out:

• cleaning;
• sorting;
• remelting

If you would like to receive more money per kilogram, it is better to hand over banks:

• clean;
• sorted.

Each organization determines the sorting conditions itself.

Most often, they ask distribute container according to:

• volume;
• appointment.

Less often - by chemical composition.

Also, if possible, they are asked to place cans in pressed bales for optimal loading into vehicles ( upon order pickup).

As for processing plants, they usually buy already pressed an aluminum can from several hundred kilograms.

Reception is carried out according to regulatory documents regional scale, and the seller must have an identity document with him upon delivery.

Scrap is accepted only:

• in pure;
• sorted by varieties and groups.

To the composition of non-ferrous metal scrap on large enterprises there are certain important requirements:

• the metallurgical yield must be at least 90%;
• paper, iron and dirt are not allowed;
• it is required that the mass of the metal be 95% aluminum, other metals are allowed, but they must be the smallest fraction;
• radiation pollution is unacceptable.

Prices for aluminum cans at collection points

To form average prices, consider the cost of receiving aluminum cans at three types of enterprises:

• those that accept banks with a total weight of several tens and hundreds of kilograms;
• enterprises buying scrap from a kilogram;
• places where you can rent cans by the piece.

From 10-100 kg

At this point, we took four large enterprises that either themselves are engaged in the processing of scrap metal, or directly cooperate with such plants.

Mostorma

This enterprise is engaged in the reception of raw materials of various types. One of them is aluminum cans. The company's website states that they accept weight not less than 0.5 tons. Minimum price is 45 rub./kg.

The price increase depends on three parameters:

• weight characteristics(the more you rent, the more the cost of raw materials per kg becomes);
• raw material purity(lack of dirt and impurities);
• possibility self delivery goods.

The company also notes that the reception of cans is possible only compressed.

SecondResource

One of the largest enterprises of the cultural capital of Russia offers the purchase of aluminum cans from 50 kg by price from 65 to 75 rubles per kg when using your own transport.

The price varies depending on the purity of the offered raw materials.

Its cost will be lowered by 5% if the scrap contains:

• dirt;
• impurities.

If the seller cannot deliver the goods on one's own, the price of aluminum cans will vary from 40 to 68 rubles per kilogram.

MDM VtorMetal

Moscow enterprise accepting aluminum cans at a price 64 rubles/kg.

For this price, you can only sell scrap metal that meets the following criteria:

• clean;
• compressed;
• free of foreign metals and dirt.

Also company offers a surcharge 10% when accepting payment by bank transfer.

Ecopolis

Here, for a kilogram of scrap aluminum cans, you can get from 20 rubles. The company emphasizes that the price will rise depending on the amount of scrap delivered. However, the company's website does not provide accurate information about the price increase.

From kilogram

Here are the five most popular private reception points of the three largest cities in Russia.

MetalExpert24

The Moscow company offers the purchase of aluminum cans at a price 68 rubles/kg. Terms of price increase or decrease not specified, but proposed calculation cost goods according to the photo.

Metal+

Moscow-based Metal+ lists two prices per kilogram for aluminum cans. 45 rubles per kilogram will be received by those who rent cans at retail, that is from 1 to 99 kg. And those who decide to sell over 0.1 tons receive at a time 50 rubles for one kilogram. At the same time, in the cost export is included raw materials enterprise.

Mosvtormetall

Here the price is 64 rubles/kg, but does not include pickup. Also, the company's website notifies that the price of large quantities of goods may increase markedly.

OOO Resurs

This company has a price from 40 rubles per kg of aluminum cans. The cost can rise to 42 rubles for cashless payments and up to 45 rubles for the delivery of scrap from one ton.

Riten Metal

The Novosibirsk enterprise "Riten Metal" is ready to buy scrap aluminum cans for 59 rub/kg. Here, accepting payment by card is also beneficial: the cost will increase to 60 rubles per kg.

The company only accepts the following banks:

• clean;
• sorted.

The price may increase depending on the weight of the item.

By the piece

Neither large enterprises, nor small collection points will not accept aluminum cans weighing up to one kilogram.

Piece by piece, banks can only be handed over to resellers or found in your city vending machine- machine for receiving aluminum cans.

At piece by piece acceptance of aluminum cans, the price per piece varies, but on average they are from 30 to 50 kopecks.

The average price of aluminum can scrap is presented in the table:

How to get a higher price?

To get as much profit as possible from the delivery of aluminum cans, you need to prepare a favorable ecological environment

Aluminum is one of the most common metals on earth. It is present even in the human body, so what can we say about the surrounding reality. In every house or private car there are aluminum functional elements, parts or assemblies, which, alas, break quite often. These are furniture and window fittings, guides for doors and shutters, lock latches and other necessary little things.

They can be replaced with purchased new products, repaired or made independently. In the last two cases, you may need to melt aluminum at home.

Aluminum characteristics

It is not necessary to know all the characteristics of metal for homemade products. But there are a few things that can become significant or even dangerous at work.

Aluminum lends itself well to casting, melts at a relatively low temperature of 660 ° C. For reference: cast iron begins to melt at a temperature of 1100 ° C, and steel - 1300 ° C.

Therefore, melting aluminum at home on a gas stove is difficult to implement, since home gas appliances cannot provide such a temperature. True, domestic "kulibins" can do everything, but more on that later.

The melting point of aluminum can be reduced by grinding it into powder or by using a ready-made powder product as a raw material. But here another property of aluminum becomes important. It is a fairly active metal, which, when combined with atmospheric oxygen, can ignite or simply oxidize. And the melting point of aluminum oxide is more than 2000 ° C. During melting, the oxide is still formed, but in small quantities, it is he who forms the scale.

The same activity can play a bad joke if water gets into the molten metal. When this occurs, an explosion occurs. Therefore, if you need to add raw materials during the melting process, then you need to make sure that it is dry.

Raw materials for smelting

If aluminum is to be melted at home, due to the complexity of working with powder metal, it is not used as a raw material.

You can purchase an aluminum ingot or use ordinary aluminum wire, which is cut into small pieces with scissors and pressed tightly with pliers to reduce the contact area with air.

If a particularly high quality of the product is not expected, then any household items, tin cans without a bottom seam or profile trimming can be used as raw materials.

Secondary raw materials can be stained or stained, this is not a problem, the extra components will leave in the form of slag. Just remember that you can not inhale the vapors of burnt paint.

In order to obtain high-quality aluminum smelting at home from secondary raw materials, fluxes, the task of which is to bind and bring all impurities and impurities to the surface of the molten metal, are best purchased ready-made. But you can make it yourself from technical salts.

The coating flux is prepared from 10% cryolite and 45% sodium chloride and potassium chloride each.

An additional 25% of the total mass of sodium fluoride is added to the refining flux to obtain aluminum without porosity.

Personal protective equipment for melting

Melting aluminum at home is an unsafe process. Therefore, personal protective equipment (PPE) must be used. Even if such melting is needed once per minimum equipment, then at least you need to protect your hands, for example, with special welding gloves, which perfectly protect against burns, because the temperature of liquid aluminum is more than 600 ° C.

It is also desirable to protect the eyes, especially if melting occurs often enough, with glasses or a mask. And ideally, you need to work in a special suit of a metallurgist with increased resistance to fire and high temperatures.

If you need very pure aluminum using a refining flux, then you should work in a chemical respirator.

Casting shape

If you only want to cast pure aluminum for soldering, then a mold is not needed. It is enough to use a steel sheet on which the molten metal will cool. But if you need to cast at least a simple part, then you need a mold.

The casting mold can be made from sculptural plaster, namely plaster, and not alabaster. Liquid gypsum is poured into an oiled mold, it is allowed to harden a little, shaking periodically to release air bubbles, a model is inserted into it and covered with a second container with gypsum. In a convenient place, you need to insert a cylindrical object into the plaster, so that as a result a hole appears in the mold, the so-called channel, into which molten aluminum will be poured. When the plaster finally hardens, the two parts of the form are separated, the model is removed, and the form with the finished cast is connected again.

It is also possible to make a casting mold from a mixture of 75% molding sand, 20% clay and 5% coal sand, which is poured into a special box of boards and rammed. A model is pressed into the rammed earth, the resulting print is sprinkled with talc and graphite ( coal dust) so that the cooled aluminum part can be easily separated from the mold.

melting crucible

Melting aluminum at home requires a special container with a spout made of refractory material. This is the so-called crucible. Crucibles can be porcelain, quartz, steel, cast iron, corundum or graphite. At home, you can use a purchased crucible or make it, for example, from a piece steel pipe large enough diameter. True, for this you need a grinder, welding machine and skills in using these tools.

The dimensions of the crucible depend on required amount aluminum to be melted. This bucket must be evenly heated, and its heat must be transferred to the raw material.

Smelting furnaces

The technology for melting aluminum at home is quite simple. In a special ladle, aluminum scrap is heated to a temperature exceeding the melting point of this metal, the melt is kept in a heated state for some time, slag is removed from its surface, then pure metal is poured into a mold for cooling. The melting time depends on the design of the furnace, that is, the temperature that it is able to provide.

If a blowtorch or gas burner is used, they heat the aluminum from above. True, at the same time, the furnace is still made up of bricks in a well without a binder solution, inside which coals will burn through to heat the container from below and keep it warm.

The design of the furnace looks approximately the same if the crucible is heated from below with the help of ordinary firewood and a hair dryer. Only in this case, firewood is laid in a brick well not on the bottom, but on a grate located on the first row of bricks, and in this row a hole is left for a metal pipe put on the neck of the hair dryer and fixed to it with electrical tape. The crucible in this case is a tin can, of course, not aluminum, in which diametrically opposite through holes are made at a small distance from the top. A steel bar is threaded through these holes, for which the can should be hung in the furnace. A hair dryer is needed to force hot air into the space between the bricks and the crucible. Sometimes a metal barrel is used instead of bricks.

If melting should take place quite often, then you can make a muffle furnace with a vertical crucible loading with your own hands or buy a ready-made one.

Melting with a blowtorch

Melting aluminum at home with a blowtorch should not take place indoors. In addition to raw materials, a blowtorch, crucibles and bricks, you need to prepare firewood, pliers and a steel bar.

So, a small well was made of bricks so that a ladle with aluminum and a small steel sheet could be installed on top. A fire is kindled in the well, which must burn out a little to form coals.
Further, in fact, the melting of aluminum takes place at home. Step-by-step instruction process:

A container with raw materials is installed on the bricks. It needs to be heated for about 15 minutes.

After that, the blowtorch burner is turned on at full power and the aluminum is heated from above.

The process begins within a few seconds, but in order for the heating to be uniform, the metal in the container must be gently mixed with a steel bar, holding it with pliers (while not forgetting to put on gloves). You can do without a rod, periodically shaking the bucket with the same pliers, but very carefully.

When the liquid becomes homogeneous, you need to take a container with pliers and pour the contents onto a calcined steel sheet so that all the scale formed remains in the ladle, and only pure metal gets on the solidification sheet.

This is how pure aluminum is usually obtained from secondary raw materials, if aluminum parts are to be soldered with it.

Smelting on wood or gas

Melting of aluminum at home on firewood takes place in lightweight collapsible furnaces. The disadvantage of this method is the uncontrollability of the process. It is not possible to increase or decrease the heating temperature. It is possible to intervene in the process only by removing the container with aluminum from the fire.

Melting aluminum at home on gas is the only possible variant for an apartment. It is necessary to heat the container for a long time, periodically draining the molten metal. In this case, the casting is performed in layers. For work, you will need two metal containers of such diameters that one is put on the other. The smaller one serves as a crucible. It is placed with a crowbar, for example, cut aluminum wire, on a burner, from which it is necessary to remove the flame divider, a household gas stove. Larger capacity will have to be worked on first. About a dozen small holes are made in its bottom. Bolts are screwed into two or three of them, which act as handles, for which the red-hot container can be lifted with pliers.

This container is placed upside down on the crucible. This design allows you to warm up aluminum. Periodically, the upper container must be removed and scrap is mixed with a metal rod or knife. Before draining the molten metal, slag must be removed from its surface.

Melting aluminum in a muffle furnace

A muffle furnace is already quite serious equipment for obtaining high-quality molten metal. Therefore, when melting, a flux is used to clean aluminum from impurities. And it's almost manufacturing process rather than melting aluminum at home.
Step-by-step instructions also include several points for the preparation of raw materials:

• First, the flux is melted in the crucible, which must be taken in an amount of 2 to 5% by weight of aluminum, and then scrap is added to it.
• How active the flux can be determined by the surface of the melt - it must be mirror-like. If this is not the case, a little more flux is added to the melt, then it will need to be added before the end of the melt, so that the slag can be more easily removed from the metal surface with a steel spoon.
• Melting should be carried out at approximately 700-750 ° C. This is the temperature of the red glow.
• During the melting process, it may be necessary to add raw materials to the crucible, as the molten metal is greatly reduced in volume.
• Refining flux is added, if necessary, at the end of the melt in an amount of 0.25% by weight of the molten metal. Maintaining such a proportion at home is not an easy task. After adding the flux, the melt must be stirred with a spoon, let stand for about 5 minutes, then remove the slag.
• When, as a result of heating, aluminum has turned into a homogeneous shiny drop, the crucible must be kept in the furnace for some time so that the metal becomes more fluid.
• Then aluminum from the crucible through the spout (at this moment it becomes clear why such a ladle is needed) is poured into the mold in a thin continuous stream.
• After complete cooling, the mold is carefully divided into halves, the finished part is removed from it, which still needs to be finalized: drill holes, if necessary, clean and sand the surface with sandpaper. That's all. Process completed.

So do not be afraid in advance if you have to melt aluminum scrap at home in order to get clean metal or make a part to replace the broken one. Serious professional skills to organize such foundry not needed at all. The desire and skillful hands of an ordinary amateur craftsman can work wonders.

Aluminum casting at home is quite affordable, the main thing is to follow the technology and know some important nuances. Of course, this is not a banal lead casting, which many have tried to do using battery scrap.

The melting point of aluminum is twice as high and reaches an average of 660 degrees Celsius, it all depends on how pure the metal used was, so aluminum cannot be fully melted on a fire.

How to bring aluminum to a temperature when it starts to melt? This can be done in different ways, for example, using coal or coke, but in this case it is necessary to supply air with bellows, thus increasing the temperature of the flame.

You can use natural gas burners installed in a homemade furnace, a muffle furnace or acetylene torches - the choice is yours.

The technological process of aluminum casting is as follows:

• the raw materials are washed, various impurities are removed, and then they are crushed to the desired "fraction" and melted (they take care of the removal of combustion products from working area using, for example, a fan);
• when the metal becomes fluid, the slag is removed and aluminum is poured into prepared molds. They can be unnecessary steel containers or special forms made of alabaster or gypsum, in the latter case they are broken after the poured metal has cooled. The future part itself is made of foam or paraffin, which is then covered with plaster. Molten aluminum burns out the "blank", repeating its volume.

The best material for the base of the workplace is steel sheet, it will help protect against accidental spillage of molten aluminum or splashes.

For casting small products, so to speak, in a "piece" way (weight of raw materials - no more than 0.15 kg.), You can try the following technology:

• take a small empty jar of tin, put pieces of prepared aluminum into it;
• this jar is inserted into a larger jar (on stands) so that a kind of thermos is obtained - the surfaces of the jars should not touch, the gap should be up to 1 centimeter;
• in the bottom of the larger jar, an inlet (several centimeters in diameter) is formed to supply the flame of the burner. The top of the jar is covered with a ceramic lid with adjustable holes for the removal of combustible gas;
• position the burner so that the flame goes inside the large can and melts the scrap in the small can. Cans can be used in this way only for one heat.

For multiple use, you need to make a crucible with a chute for pouring molten aluminum.

Typical mistakes:

• insufficient heating of the metal mold, aluminum can solidify unevenly and non-uniformly, since it cools faster at the "cold" surface of the mold;
• a lot of moisture in plaster and foam molds. When evaporating, it forms cavities and shells, so the workpiece is thoroughly dried;
• slow pouring of metal into molds, when it simply does not completely fill the mold, so aluminum needs to be heated more strongly, and poured into molds faster;
• cooling the casting with water. Yes, I want to admire the fruits of my efforts as soon as possible, but in this way, invisible cracks form in the metal, which, when processed, can lead to its destruction.

It's no secret that the recycling of human waste is practically a gold mine, and it is rather problematic to objectively assess the volume of this market, in particular in our country. But, in order to understand at least in general terms the existing volumes, it is enough to consider a simple example. Have you ever, throwing another can of soft drink into a bucket, thought about how many people do it at the same time as you around the globe? Simply put, there are millions of them, which is why recycling of aluminum cans is not only a profitable business, but also makes a significant contribution to environmental protection and the rational use of natural resources.

General view of the problem.

According to statistics, the capacity Russian market aluminum cans is estimated at approximately 2-3 billion. Considering the weight of a can of even a small volume, which is about 15 grams, we get the amount of aluminum spent, which is approximately 30-40 thousand tons of pure metal. And if we take into account the energy resources necessary for the production of metal from primary raw materials, the prospects for the development of the processing industry become obvious.

This option will also have a positive impact on the environment. As an example of the effective application of recycling technologies, the North American company Novelis can be cited, which already in 2009 was able to recycle more than 39 billion aluminum cans, which made it possible to obtain more than 530 thousand tons of pure metal during remelting.

Processing technology for aluminum cans.

The current level of development of recycling of secondary raw materials allows the use of several methods for obtaining pure aluminum from cans. The most common are the following:

• The simplest, and therefore most commonly used, is pressing. The source material is subjected to primary sorting and cleaning from household waste. After that, the raw material is crushed with simultaneous cleaning from various iron components using an electromagnet. The resulting substance is subjected to pressing, forming briquettes of a certain weight, and sent for remelting to a metallurgical plant. The disadvantages of this method include the high content of various impurities due to imperfect cleaning methods.
• Another, more advanced method, providing better cleaning, is based on similar principles. Its difference lies in the use of multi-stage grinding and removal of impurities. As a result of processing, aluminum powder, or material in the form of small metal flakes, is obtained. Despite the higher quality processing, it has a significant disadvantage. For the organization of such chains of this type, the presence of extensive production areas is required. Also, the use of a multi-stage cycle significantly increases the cost of the product.
• The recycling of aluminum cans based on pyrolysis is the most efficient technique. The additional costs required for the associated equipment are offset by the cost of the resulting material.

The initial processing steps are similar to existing steps for other methods. Secondary raw materials are washed, sorted, and various impurities are removed. Small pieces of aluminum obtained during grinding are subjected to pyrolysis in special installations.

The essence of this process is to heat the elements of crushed cans to a temperature that is 100 degrees or more higher than the melting point of aluminum, up to approximately 750 degrees. During the heating process, all organic and some inorganic impurities are decomposed, and the resulting liquid aluminum is poured into pre-prepared forms. The product obtained in this way is distinguished by the minimum presence of various inclusions, and can be processed at metallurgical plants without additional purification, which makes it a highly competitive material.

Considering the economic feasibility of processing such raw materials, we can conclude that the organization of enterprises of this type is quite a profitable undertaking. The only problematic issue, due to the peculiarities of the mentality of the majority of the inhabitants of our country, is the issue of sorting garbage by each person. In most countries, this method of waste collection has already proven effective, and it is considered unacceptable for a resident, for example, in Japan, to throw an aluminum can into a food waste container. The introduction, and most importantly, the adoption by the population of such a separate method of collecting waste, will significantly increase economic efficiency processing of any secondary raw materials.

Today we will look at how to melt aluminum cans using a simple small melting furnace at home. This time we use our high-tech backyard and a bucket of soda or beer cans. To make crafts from aluminum, or rather from cans, let's start by getting ours, which has already been made earlier, and a large bag of coal briquettes. They are usually used for barbecues. When a few coals have been distributed at the bottom of the smelter, a crucible made from a steel fire extinguisher can be added.

Just take a look at what they sell in this Chinese store.

If you place the crucible on a layer of coal, they will melt faster. Now let's attach the steel tube through the air inlet. This will provide a temperature sufficient for melting, but we still need to find a way to force air inside. For this, a household hair dryer, which can be bought at any store, is perfect.

Connect the hair dryer to a piece of PVC tubing, using two three-centimeter sleeves to attach the steel tube on one side and on the other to make it easier to detach the hair dryer. The whole structure is very easy to disassemble and place in a 20 liter bucket.

The blower is at the right angle, it does not hurt to prop it up so that it does not move away. This way you keep the walls intact and significantly increase the life of the smelter. Now that the smelter is ready, let's fill it to the top with coal. You can use a propane torch because it heats up everything very quickly. The coals are burning, so let's turn on the hair dryer on low power and send oxygen to the coals to heat everything up properly. As you can see, the lid we made retains heat and the temperature rises. The crucible and holes in the center of the lid fit perfectly.

Now let's take aluminum cans prepared for melting down and steel tongs. After 10 minutes, the smelter is extremely hot. It can be seen that the steel crucible glows orange, which means that everything is ready. The crucible is 8 centimeters in diameter and therefore great for melting cans of drinks and at temperatures over 500 degrees Celsius they melt in just a couple of seconds. We will bring the power of the smelter to full in order to melt everything as quickly as possible. The productivity of the device is on average 10-12 cans per minute.

The nice thing is that cans can be both dirty and painted, with leftover soda. It doesn't matter, as we'll see shortly, the mini-smelter absorbs everything and produces pure liquid aluminum. From experience, 35-45 cans are enough to produce 450 grams of aluminum. If you first crush the cans, then you don’t even have to remove the lid, which means that even less metal will oxidize during melting. After melting 50 cans, the crucible is full, but there is a lot of waste inside that we don't need.

A good way to insulate aluminum is to take a steel mold. To begin with, carefully pull out the crucible, making sure that it is firmly grasped with steel tongs. Then very slowly pour the melt into a steel mold. As you can see, the slag stays in the shade or acts almost like a filter, preventing solid particles from leaving it. After separating what we need, we can tap the crucible on a piece of cement and remove the slag. After cleaning the crucible, we can immediately use it again.

For fun, a few more cans were melted down to fill new form for cupcakes. The goal is to give the bars a beautiful unusual appearance. A form of steel, but sometimes a fire breaks out. This will burn off the non-stick coating. But this will only be the first time. After a few minutes the ingots begin to harden but they are still terribly hot, so hot that the paper instantly flares from them. It will be good to stock up on a bucket of water to cool them. Dropped into cold water, the ingots are still hot to boil it instantly, but after about 10 seconds, they cool down and can already be reached by hand.

Use a mini cupcake mold to make smaller ingots. The result is some very cute little cupcakes. The purpose of ingots is to have pure metal ready when you want to do something. Now, if necessary, you just need to throw a couple of ingots into a clean crucible. With this configuration, the ingots will melt in 5-10 minutes. When using ingots, we do not need to get rid of slags, except for a thin film of aluminum oxide, which means that the crucible is full of liquid aluminum ready for casting.

Let's pour aluminum into the sand, in which a special form is made, which burns out, absorbing 900 grams of liquid metal. After 10 minutes, the metal is hard enough to hook with tongs. We can break the mold and pull out our castings. At the link at the beginning of the article, you can see how the sword was cast in more detail.

When the job is done, all the accessories can be conveniently placed in a 20 liter bucket, and when the smelter has cooled down, you can easily shake out the ashes by holding the handle. Cleaning is quick and when you put a plant pot inside, the smelting furnace turns into a decoration.

Well, now you know how to turn empty soda cans into shiny metal muffins at home. You can just be proud of them and admire them, or you can use them to cast everything that comes to mind.