What do you all say about making ingots?

I wouldn't due to the labor time and cost involved. It'd eat up your profit.

Welcome aboard mate, sorry been doing fiberglass on my boat all day.

I have thought about this a great deal just never to act on nor ask questions about it.


Thanks

Thanks Parrothead. Good to know that it will be taken, of course depending on the yard.

The cost will be negligible. I am doing the forge for metal casting, so the cost of the forge I am forwarding to the metal cast side. Fuel is going to be used motor oil, which I have in abundant supply. Ingot forms are old bread and muffin pans that were given to me for scrap.

I figured that after a metal cast run, leave the forge going and then pour some copper ingots so I no longer have buckets of copper everywhere, and hopefully make it to #1 price range.

Along that line I have found out that I will lose some copper to oxidization. Which should be turned around by selling at #1 price.

Thanks.

I wouldn't bother with it. #2 isn't that much lower than #1 and you could spend your time doing more worthwhile things

Originally Posted by Patton

While building my forge for metal casting I had the epiphany (or brain fart) of taking my non ferrous metals and making them into ingots.

Less space, easy handling and storage, quick and easy weigh outs, and getting #1 price for my #2 copper.

i thought the whole idea of casting your own molds was to make more money... a lot more money.
i read one of gustavus post awhile ago about casting aluminum molds to sell on ebay for $10+/lb. (or so i thought)

ok, i know a mold isn't exactly an ingot but if you're going to go through the trouble of melting metal then why not produce something many people will want.

It all depends on who you are selling your metal to, and how they are set up to check the composition of the metal.

For precious metals it's a no brainer, you recover, refine, cast into bars and sell it for more than otherwise you could.

For other metals, it depends. Most scrap yards do not seem to be equipped to analyze metal composition. This is why most scrap yards don't accept ingots. If you find a scrap yard that uses an XRF gun to test metals, they will probably take your bars. However, if you skip the scrap yard all together and take your bars directly to the end user, like a foundry or refinery they will not only be able to take your bars, but you will have removed a middle man and make more from all your hard work and labor.

I'll use this as an example because I actually know a couple that went into the recycling business who did exactly this. They started accepting cans at a location, that's all they started doing, 4 years ago. The husband decided, because the cans are bulky and took up a lot of room in their small location, that melting the Al and casting into bars would better serve their purpose. They could make fewer trips to the people they sold the Al to because they were able to load far more in Al bars than cans. In they state they live in, they pay the recycle value their state government has set for Al cans. Once melted into bars however, the metal is worth more, it's sold as clean Al instead of cans.

Generally speaking you can get around .50 cents per lb on Al cans. You can get over $1.00 dollar per lb on ingots.

So if you spend the little extra time, sell to the right people, you can make twice your money just on Al cans.

The couple I am using as an example did exactly this. They now have a 15,000 sq ft facility and are repurposing, remarketing, and recycling all kinds of metals and machinery. They landed a big Land-O-Lakes account and are doing very well for themselves. When you talk with them, they both will say it's because they started casting Al ingots and selling them for more.

So to answer the question is it smart? If you are able to sell directly to the end user, and remove the middle man, that's is always smart, you make more profit. Casting metals into ingots and selling to the correct end user, smart, you will make more money. Is it feasible? Only if you live in an area where there is an end user, a foundry or refiner who is close enough to make it cost effective to truck it to them, and skip the scrap yard.

I imagine the next question would be "who to sell to" I would google people in your area who purchase scrap, ingots, are foundry or refiner who also have the ability to analyze your ingots either by XRF or ICP, etc. Many scrap yards now also lease XRF units to check for alloy composition so I wouldn't totally discount them. If you cannot find a foundry or refiner close by, scrap yards that can analyze your metal composition should pay more for ingots just because they get more for ingots.

And as one person has already mentioned, if you are melting and pouring, might as well go one step further and cast something artistic or useful, you will get far more taking your item from recycle to retail product than you would selling as scrap. You wouldn't have to scrap so much, and would make more money in the long run. That's what I do with a lot of the precious metal I recover and refine, I turn it directly into retail products and sell sometimes, for twice the actual value of the metal.

Anyway, that is my two centavos. I hope it helps

Scott

If you are smelting metal into ingots, you shouldn't be taking it to a scrap yard. You should be taking it to a refinery. Most refineries will Assay and pay you out a percentage, usually 80% on that assay and the rest once processed. Best way is to represent your material and be paid out in full on all values. Regardless, you shouldn't be selling ingots to scrap yards as they will not pay you the value, even if they do purchase the ingots. They are not usually equipped to re-melt and almost never to properly assay.

I cast and sell ingots of different metals, and alloyed metals but I have an established relationship with customers who request metals of specific alloys or purities. Al (Aluminum) ingots can easily be sold to backyard sand casters. Many people sell ingots on ebay at a premium, for example there are many examples of copper ingots being sold at x3 the scrap value.

Scott