Idea from drinking a beer.

**easyrecycle** · 12-18-2011, 10:38 PM

As the title says...I am drinking a beer an idea just hit me...and this is something I think I will look into and talk with this one person who I know how is a fab/welder that I am friends with...maybe get it to work...

I have an pretty big issue...I get alot of aluminum..it takes up a HUGE amount of space...and so I have to take it in even tho I want to hold onto it until I have a larger amount.

I have thought about casting my aluminum before but tossed the idea out for a few reasons...you need to melt them pour being one of the biggest ones..the other big issue is the small amount you can fit into it at a time..so it takes alot of fuel to heat and melt...small pour amount unless you have a BIG setup but even then you can only melt so much at a time....

So here is my idea...

Do what the big refinery companies do an do a non stop pour...well how would that be done....well aluminum dose not take a huge amount of heat to melt...so if you used a metal pot thats 1/4think or so maybe even made of SS steel....have a hole made in the bottom that has a small pipe that comes out that will pour onto a "box" of sand (encase of over pours) and have your molds under the pipe..

all you have to do is keep feeding the aluminum into the top (into the pot) and as it melts it will come out and auto cast it self....it will take less time...you can add more into the melting pot at a time and it auto casts....now...if you can have a slide valve that you can "close off" the whole so that you can move the molds around if you need to but keep melting/adding...that should not take much time...high amount of casting with less fuel needed...so thats more money saved from fuel to labor.

Now if this will work with aluminum it could work with anything below the melting point of steel or what ever you are using as the pot item. So a high temp steel would be good if you want to up the temp of the melting pot.

I will have to think about this...this next coming week if I don't forget..but I think it could be a great idea...I could then stack the aluminum MUCH better than putting it in 55gallon drums

with copper melting point up in the 1900F steel around 2500F

And..thats all...bed time.

**Mechanic688** · 12-18-2011, 10:48 PM

Why not do what my yard does, bale the aluminum and then band it. Make one of those smaller "cotton balers" that someone supplied a link to. A baler would allow a 3-1 or 4-1 compression thus saving space, and fuel, and you could use a forklift to stack them on pallets. A good resource with out a lot of investment.

**eesakiwi** · 12-18-2011, 11:50 PM

For the amount of time & effort it'd take to melt down all your aluminium, I wouldn't bother.

First is the time it'd take to make a furnace, then the fuel, then the work involved...

Then when you take it to the scrappers, they won't want anything to do with it, they'd think you casted the Ali around a lump of steel or something.

They have no idea where the ali came from, so they don't know what its made from (most Ali is a alloy, with added magnesium, silicon or such) so they are going to have to do a assay on it.
So they won't pay you till they have the assay & are sure its not full of iron parts to 'make it heavier...'

If you take your metal in, within a few days they will put it thru the press & crush it into a big cube that holds together, only a little larger than a cube made from molten Ali.

If you cast it into a cube, its never gonna be the same size as the one they make, so it gonna need more work for them.

Don't do it. Waste of time. You get the same $$ anyway.

**PistoneScrapProcessing** · 12-19-2011, 12:03 AM

hold that thought while drinking. do you have an epa certified sweat furnance if not forget about it. its illegal as making moonshine. you are releasing dioxins and furons into the air think about the environment for once before u recycle like that some people on this board amaze me.

**gustavus** · 12-19-2011, 12:18 AM

Negative thinking will get you no where fast, this forum is to help folks not discourage.

Your idea of building a furnace is a very good one, especially if you have access to plenty of irony aluminum and what to capitalize by cleaning it up. First red flag I see is the scrap yard is going to hesitate on buying your sows, simply bring a drill to drill anywhere into the sow the yard owner would like. The have him bring out the XRF - done deal.

Large sows are poured into large cast iron molds, not stainless steel pots. For the small copper anodes I use a cast iron frying pan, oil it up lightly is that the hot metal makes instant carbon on contact this helps to release the anode when cooled down. You could use your acetylene torch to smoke the surface of the mold, buy hey I'm thrifty.

To make this economical you should find an alternative fuel to heat your sweat furnace.

The attached pdf file may give you further ideas.

http://www.mediafire.com/?znrh279ntc9hsnw

**drozenski** · 12-19-2011, 12:55 AM

so if you get $500 in scrap alum, then spend 8 hours melting it all and $100 in fuel. I don't see any profit.

Only way you will turn a profit is to sell higher up the ladder. Possibly directly to a outfit that will use the alum.

**BiggerHammer** · 12-19-2011, 01:14 AM

Originally Posted by easyrecycle

As the title says...I am drinking a beer an idea just hit me...and this is something I think I will look into and talk with this one person who I know how is a fab/welder that I am friends with...maybe get it to work...

I have an pretty big issue...I get alot of aluminum..it takes up a HUGE amount of space...and so I have to take it in even tho I want to hold onto it until I have a larger amount.

I have thought about casting my aluminum before but tossed the idea out for a few reasons...you need to melt them pour being one of the biggest ones..the other big issue is the small amount you can fit into it at a time..so it takes alot of fuel to heat and melt...small pour amount unless you have a BIG setup but even then you can only melt so much at a time....

So here is my idea...

Do what the big refinery companies do an do a non stop pour...well how would that be done....well aluminum dose not take a huge amount of heat to melt...so if you used a metal pot thats 1/4think or so maybe even made of SS steel....have a hole made in the bottom that has a small pipe that comes out that will pour onto a "box" of sand (encase of over pours) and have your molds under the pipe..

all you have to do is keep feeding the aluminum into the top (into the pot) and as it melts it will come out and auto cast it self....it will take less time...you can add more into the melting pot at a time and it auto casts....now...if you can have a slide valve that you can "close off" the whole so that you can move the molds around if you need to but keep melting/adding...that should not take much time...high amount of casting with less fuel needed...so thats more money saved from fuel to labor.

Now if this will work with aluminum it could work with anything below the melting point of steel or what ever you are using as the pot item. So a high temp steel would be good if you want to up the temp of the melting pot.

I will have to think about this...this next coming week if I don't forget..but I think it could be a great idea...I could then stack the aluminum MUCH better than putting it in 55gallon drums

with copper melting point up in the 1900F steel around 2500F

And..thats all...bed time.

WOW!!! Only if beer made my brain work like that!!!

**TheHoss** · 12-19-2011, 02:41 AM

Originally Posted by PistoneScrapProcessing

hold that thought while drinking. do you have an epa certified sweat furnance if not forget about it. its illegal as making moonshine. you are releasing dioxins and furons into the air think about the environment for once before u recycle like that some people on this board amamaze me with the stupidty they think up to make a buck. some peddlers make me puke sometimes.

REALLY? Someone wake up on the wrong side of the bed or something?

I'm bettin' yer a dirt worshiper anyway.

**Mechanic688** · 12-19-2011, 04:10 AM

I'm bettin' yer a dirt worshiper anyway.

Personally, I like to hug a tree occasionally, but don't tell anyone.

**PistoneScrapProcessing** · 12-19-2011, 06:59 AM

I am not a tree hugger at all just tryimg to save someone a 100,000 + fine from the epa plus jail time. Why do I know this because we used to the same thing back in the day. Until one day when the EPA enforcement officer showed up and asked us what the f we were doing. I specifically remember It because he said if he came back and even saw our homemade furnance running that they would haul us off to jail and fine us so much we would never be able to pay it. Dioxins and furons are a strictly regulated hazardous material and a daily record must be kept of everything u do with your sweat furnance and u have to have a license to.operate one. So go ahead build it and find out. I would love to know where are u going to get rid of your dross at to? A scrap yard won't buy it and neither will a land fill. You can find sweat furnances for sale at allan ross machinery and they come with an afterburner which the epa requires you have. I didn't wake up on the wrong side of bed just trying to save a person some jail time thats all.

**easyrecycle** · 12-19-2011, 10:06 PM

Mind you I was drinking and I have not looked into the idea.

My issue is this....I get Al in all kinds of shapes from Heat-sinks to whole server towers and many other times. So if I was able to melt them down they would stack up better than the way we are doing it right now...I will take photo of my AL stack tomorrow and post it to my twitter page just to show you how much I have and how fast I get it.

The fuel I was going to use was waste oil (veg) and so the cost to run it would be free. The metal that would need to be used to build it...pretty much free as well...mind you..I am a small scrap yard and ontop of that..we all know where to go look to find X type of metal when we need it on the cheap.

I will have to look into the legal issues and heath issues. We wont do anything that will harm the air, water, dirt or my own bottom!! What I am about tho...is finding new ways to do something to make a better profit...load more up so I am burning less fuel to make X amount of runs.

So PistoneScrapProcessing you don't need to get your underwear in a ball over it as we wont do anything "dumb" because thats NOTHING like how I have built my whole company...Like..witching all of our trucks to 100% green fuel (Bio Diesel)

**easyrecycle** · 12-19-2011, 10:07 PM

Originally Posted by BiggerHammer

WOW!!! Only if beer made my brain work like that!!!

No you don't...My mind never stops thinking...just when I start drinking..I start to think of weird things on how to do this or that....I wish I could just sit back...drink a beer and relax...never works like that.

**gustavus** · 12-19-2011, 10:10 PM

Originally Posted by easyrecycle

No you don't...My mind never stops thinking...just when I start drinking..I start to think of weird things on how to do this or that....I wish I could just sit back...drink a beer and relax...never works like that.

Try Canadian beer if that doesn't make you goofy nothing will.

**easyrecycle** · 12-19-2011, 10:16 PM

Originally Posted by gustavus

Try Canadian beer if that doesn't make you goofy nothing will.

I will try one some time...but..I am just a tab far from Canada

**jonnyjeb** · 12-19-2011, 10:25 PM

I've melted plenty of aluminum before. My suggestion is that if you try a continuous pour, you will have to have a way to constantly remove the dross or else it may clog your tapping hole.

**PistoneScrapProcessing** · 12-19-2011, 11:05 PM

Easy have u thought about just buying an alligator shear and chewing it up into one foot pieces and putting it in a gaylord box?

To do a continous pour u need to have a pipe running from the furnance and a way to rotate the ingots kinda like a round rotating table. You also need the cloth type refactory plug that looks like a cork in case there is ever a problem u need to be able to stop the flow or you end up with a floor full of aluminum thats burns up everything in its path. Once u start cooking u cant stop and leave it unattended or u could have this problem. You also can't load cold material into a hot oven it will explode the same with oil or water filled material. BOOM. You can blow up youre furnance and yourself and shower your shop or yard with molten aluminum and anyone that has ever burnt up AL knows what a spark of aluminum feels like imagine that times a hundred. Theres also companies that process dross they pay practicaly nothing for it though and u have to pay to ship it to them. Contact your local EPA office and ask what the process is and what paperwork would have to be filled out in order to apply for a permit to operate one. Just keep in mind the can of worms u are opening by basically giving them access to your records and storage of material u have.

**TheHoss** · 12-19-2011, 11:43 PM

PSP no harm no foul, i get what you were saying to him, ya just sounded like a prick doin' it.

Of course i'm sure i come off that way too, most of the time.

Hell, it's beer thirty.

**easyrecycle** · 12-19-2011, 11:47 PM

Originally Posted by TheHoss

PSP no harm no foul, i get what you were saying to him, ya just sounded like a prick doin' it.

Of course i'm sure i come off that way too, most of the time.

Hell, it's beer thirty.

I will buy your beer can...but you have to mail it to me...please send me a full can as well =)...Sorry...I am starting to run out of drinks here lmao.

**TheHoss** · 12-20-2011, 12:01 AM

LOL easy. What would happen if, in say 4 or 5 days you ACTUALLY got that in the mail? All you see in the return address area is "Tater salad"

**easyrecycle** · 12-20-2011, 12:05 AM

Originally Posted by TheHoss

LOL easy. What would happen if, in say 4 or 5 days you ACTUALLY got that in the mail?

I would do what any smart man would do...place the un-open beer into the cooler lmao...if someone mailed me a beer...I would have to sit down and say WTF

and..the last part I don't get..but thats not to shocking...anyway I need sleep...long day tomorrow.

Idea from drinking a beer.

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