melting down copper

[swkieran]

ive got some copper articles that i need to melt down so i can sell them,does anybody know a good way of going about it,i know it needs to be really hot,ive built a brick built furnace in my back yard and was thinking of using a mixture of petrol,diesel,oil and rubber to get the temp high and constant

[bigzee]

could you not sell them as they are and let someone else melt them? the density/price won't change after your heating and fuel -burning efforts will it?

[Edwin]

Copper can be easily bashed into lumps for carrying about. If you melt it (1200F?) it will oxideise and you will lose a bit of weight and it will be all blackened and nasty. Do you know if it is all the same and is some an alloy? ?he smelter would prefer separate bits.

[RobbC]

To avoid the metal burning you would have to use a Flux

Robb

[swkieran]

could you not sell them as they are and let someone else melt them? the density/price won't change after your heating and fuel -burning efforts will it?

i could bigzee but its that sort of metal lol,its worth twice as much,im going purely on weight.not monetry value

[cuppa joe]

coal or coke...forget the petrol its dangerous and will not reach a high enough temperature...you need to be able to blow air into the bottom of the burning coal ,coke .
Try getting an old ceramic plant pot to use as a crucible and if you can cut the copper into pieces small enough to fit in it ,then sit the pot in the embers and airate the fire...a good way to do this is with a metal tube and a hair dryer ...you will need an extension to the garden of course. hope this helps

[Edwin]

And after melting how do you move the molten copper and into what? Mould making even for a simple ingot is technical and potentially very dangerous. Charcoal is the fuel to use but don't.

[cuppa joe]

Im not an authority on smelting Edwin just saying what I would try ....as for the mould I would leave it in the pot to cool then break the pot if needed .

[Tony1948]

You'll get a lot more for brite copper than bernt,when I was in the trade we would never burnt the outer coating off copper wire if we could help it,got a mutch better price for brite than burnt all ways go for brite........atb.........dont get eaten by the bears........TONY

[fish]

have a look at the time team archive,they smelted bronze using primative technology fairly easily.

look here,sorry dont have the time to search,but there were 2 episodes one about roman iron works and one about bronzeage foundry.
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/time-team/4od

[swkieran]

coal or coke...forget the petrol its dangerous and will not reach a high enough temperature...you need to be able to blow air into the bottom of the burning coal ,coke .
Try getting an old ceramic plant pot to use as a crucible and if you can cut the copper into pieces small enough to fit in it ,then sit the pot in the embers and airate the fire...a good way to do this is with a metal tube and a hair dryer ...you will need an extension to the garden of course. hope this helps

sounds like a good idea.ill give that a go ive got some scaff tubes.there already in pieces aswell there a bunch of coins,but there much more use melted down and ill chuck them in with the rest of my copper scrap once i can melt them down

[bigzee]

i could bigzee but its that sort of metal lol,its worth twice as much,im going purely on weight.not monetry value
Western Power Distribution have just bought-out the people my company's working for, so I'd better stay out of this!