home made oven to melt stuff..?

Have seen many videos on YouTube showing how to make home made ovens to melt down metals. Has anyone done this? Iv thought about it because i have tons of brass fittings with built in sensors from cars. Some are chunky and the sensors/other metal bits would decrease value would it not?

I have the resources to build one, and all the time in the world to melt stuff down. Saturday afternoon "bonfire" anyone?



All joking aside, has anyone done this or thought about it? Or am I just over ambitious...LOL

True enough.

They are fairly easy to build, you can make small ones out of paint cans, you can make larger ones out of 55 gallon drums. There is tons and tons of information all over the internet on this subject, there are forums that have to do with building furnaces, melting metals, etc.

Even if you are just melting Aluminum, you are making more once you melt and pour into a bar than you would if you tried to sell them as aluminum scrap.

A melt furnace changes everything. But it is dangerous, after all you are dealing with molten metal. if example, if there is any water in the furnace cement, it could crack or worse. You cannot operate one of these furnaces on cement, because it will literally make the cement explode, pouring isn't as easy as you might think. I can remove a pour a size #20 crucible, but it's heavy and difficult to control, when I first started I could only handle a #10, so it too me awhile before I built up the strength and coordination to be able to handle the larger crucibles.

Anyway, it's totally doable, and if this is your first furnace I would encourage you to build a small one to start so you can get the hang of it. You can build larger ones later and sell the smaller one if need be, but you will serve yourself better starting smaller, spending less, deciding how you want to modify your next furnace before jumping into a shallow pool with a blindfold on.

Scott

How would you make more if its in bar form? Do yards pay more for that? If I.decide to make one, it'll only be small. I have experience working around fire and extreemely hot things.

In California, if you take Aluminum cans into a recycle plans, they pay CRV value, CRV = California Redemption Value which ends up being something like .6 cents or whatever the CRV value is, same for plastic, etc. If you take heat sinks that are anodized into a recycle center, you get dirty aluminum prices. If you melt your Al and cast into bars, you get clean Al price, not dirty, not CRV value, you get the actual value of the metal.

Scott

Whenever i turn in my heat sinks, wether they are anodized or not, as long as there is no screws attached i always get clean aluminum price. Maybe some yards are different? Post # 1000 for me

Maybe i am wrong but if you melt your metals into bars, i think you may have a problem selling them to a scrap yard. They wont know if any other metal is in that bar. I know a few people have had the same thought with copper and brass and the answer is always the same. I wonder if anyone has tried this or asked their yard if they could sell metals in bar or ingot form? Have to remember to ask next time i go to the yard.

Melt them into a bar and sell to a refinery, I should have made that distinction. I don't really deal with scrap yards myself except when I'm offered some type of scrap the big refiners don't like to process. You could make a very lucrative business melting your metals and casting into bars to sell to refineries. They would probably melt it over again, take a pin sample and pay out on assay, or they might drill the bar, assay and pay. If you do the initial melt though, and are dealing with a good refiner, you will make more money selling your metals this way, than to a scrap yard.

Your local scrap yard is a middle-man, anytime you can cut them out and deal directly with a refinery you will make your profit, and theirs.

Scott

I suggested a melt furnace because if you are doing volume, it's far more cost effective, faster, easier, etc. You are right though, an oxy/ace torch can do the trick. I use one myself for small melts or to keep metal molten when I pour it so it has a nice finish, if I am casting a bar for a customer, etc.

Scott

Originally Posted by MattInTheHat

how much weight do you need to even consider contacting a refinery?

I was about to ask the same. I have hundreds of pounds of scrap aluminum from cars sitting in a trailer out back, if I can melt it and sell to a refinery I may consider that... Or maybe just my yard if its easier, our shop deals with them a lot and have been for a while. We've built a nice reputation with them, enough that hopefully they'll trust us if we bring In bars.