Fast Aluminium engine Breakdown and steel separation.

I have been playing with my scrapping furnace again and gave it a run with a practical application, Melting a cylinder head.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBhOAiipyZg

Here is Oz steel is worth nothing although non ferrous is still holding well. For an engine that has aluminum manifolds, casing and heads, they still only pay steel prices which to me is a crock. The idea with the scrapping furnace is to have a fast and low cost way of separating the ally from the steel so the max profits can be gained from each.

As there were no complete engines at the yard when I was there, I bought back the biggest bits I could find being a couple of quad cam Heads. They weighed 11KG each and only took 5.5 min to melt all the ally off. I could have done it much faster had the oil been flowing better ( I intend to do a twin feed on my tank) and I positioned the head more upright to catch more of the burner output.
I have a bunch of smaller stuff saved up so when I get a chance to bring it down and hopefully a whole engine, I'll do those as a big melt and make another vid.

A side benefit of melting these bits down is that it also gets rid of all the waste oils from the wrecking yard that the collectors charge plenty to come and take away.

Thanks for posting, I thought that was really cool.
Question does an oil burning furnace put out a lot of smell of burnt oil while operating, Hopefully not?
I like the idea I would not want to freak out my neighbors and have them call the county on me.
Sure seems like a cheap way to separate aluminum.
Is there any problem recycling your home made ingots with a scrap metal yard?
Thanks David

Awesome videos and I always look forward to your safety tips.

not bad and not much is lost either

That is awesome. Warning: Contents may be hot!

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Originally Posted by davidarlen

Question does an oil burning furnace put out a lot of smell of burnt oil while operating, Hopefully not?
I like the idea I would not want to freak out my neighbors and have them call the county on me.

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Seriously, what the hell is it with uptight people in the US?
Every 2nd question I get about these things comes from people concerned about their whiny neighbors dobbing them in for making a smell farting or making too much noise blowing their noses. Geez it must be a pain in the arse living in a lot of places there!
If I had neighbors like that, I'd be inviting them over for a practical demonstration of my new oil fired crematorium and busy body dispatcher.

But, No, they put out NO smell or smoke at all once set properly. If they are started correctly they don't put out any more smoke than cooking bacon on a stove and for not as long. The way I do mine they will operate at high outputs and still have excess air which means a very clean, odor free output. Mine all just give that warm air smell like comes out of a clothes dryer or a gas fire heater. Doesn't matter what fuel they are running, you can't even smell anything when you preheat them on wood.

Quote:

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Sure seems like a cheap way to separate aluminum.
Is there any problem recycling your home made ingots with a scrap metal yard?

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People here have said their yard may not take them. I have never tried as yet as I'm wanting the ally to do castings. I guess it would depend on the yard, how " neighbor like" uptight they were and how well you knew them. Maybe talking to them first, telling them what and why you are doing it and asking if there is a way you can cast it to their satisfaction may fix the problem. Just being upfront and asking would probably go a long way and if it didn't, there's more than one yard around. I read of one guy that said he cast it into specific sizes that can easily be calculated what they should weigh. The specific size should weigh a specific amount and of course it does.

On a metal casting forum I am on, one guy makes good money melting down scrap like this and sells the ally to other metal casting guys. If what he says is true in any way, he sells a Ship load of ally like this every month. He shows pictures of stacks of it but says he is always behind on orders. People always seem to be enquireing about getting it off him.

All he does is melt it into ingots and scrape off the dross and they seem to pay well above scrap prices for it as well as postage on top.