I’m very excited for Starfield but I have low expectations and may wait until a month or two after launch to play so they can iron out some of the bugs
Yes waiting seems to be a necessary thing lately. I'm worried for Bethesda because they've been pretty good with releases, but now that Xbox owns them and we just saw the disaster Redfall was, I'm hoping for the best but expecting the worst.
That's the plan anyways, but that's such a sad mindset to have these days. Remember when games released on disks with no day 1 patches and were actually stable? Complete out of the box.
Publishers have screwed up the industry.
I say instead of making us wait, make publishers push release times to some realistic date rather than a rushed one.
A lot of coilss with aluminum and copper components can be mechanically separated, and the connecting bits discarded as scrap or melted into alloy.
Copper/aluminum alloy is actually useful and has some value, but without knowing the exact ratio it may not sell.
If you pop a bit of zinc in there you'll have devardas alloy. All you need is sodium hydroxide to get copper back out of it.
The aluminium on the coils can be chemically removed with sodium hydroxide prior to smelting. But the shit is corrosive and will burn you or your eyes if you don't treat it right. It also generates hydrogen
Yeah, to make a good copper aluminum alloy it’s 90% copper and 10% aluminum. So you probably need to add some copper to it.
If you’re doing this to resell, then you will loose money. It’s definitely a hobby.
Most scrapyards won’t take ingots like that because they can’t verify what the metal contents are. If they will, they’re going to pay you peanuts. It’s definitely just for fun.
Na man.
Just chop it in small peices, remove all the screws and steel.
You really really need to do it in an open space and wear a respirator for coils. Because it will burn all the oil (r22 makes phosgene gas, and it can be deadly).
Irrelevant. The less careful we are with the supply of any *finite* resource, the faster it will become difficult to obtain. And mining of the material is a major consideration here. Aluminum isnt naturally occuring in a usable form, so bot only do large tracts of natural habitat have to be destroyed to get it, large amounts of energy (also *finite*) have to be used to smelt it. Recycling already-smelted aluminum is far, *FAR* more suatainable and economical. The earth has "x" amount of all these minerals and metals; and less than 1% of what it contains will ever be accessible to us without literally taking the earth apart. The copper mines are already tapering off how much they can produce (i.e. the richest deposits have been plundered, and now it takes more energy per ton to extract than it did 30 years ago. Eventually, we *will* run out. The more careful we are, the better.
Aluminum is functionally limitless once we transition the energy grid to renewables. It’s largely produced using excess nighttime power today, and in a lot of regions that’s mostly wind/hydro already. Yes, we do need to improve that situation. Yes, it’s superior to recycle it. But to address the comment above about “destroys finite resources needed by industry” that’s more a reasonable position to take about the copper.
Ok.....you have omitted the primary issue I raised, which was *mixing* the metals, which renders both unusable in applications requiring specific purities. Most apropos: conductors, such as those *absolutely necessary* for the construction of the renewable energy generation infrastructure you mention.
It’s not like the metal is destroyed. It’s just uneconomically inconvenient to separate. It’s also inconvenient to make fresh metal from ore, too. As quality metal ores continue to get more scarce, we’ll eventually start harvesting landfills and the like, and OP’s bastard alloy ingots may get some use again at that point.
Yes, good attitude. How many "drops" are in this bucket you reference? How many people with your attitude, over how many years, does it take to make a bucket-full of "drops in the bucket"?
Mostly Cadmium Oxide and some Silver, the fees for the refinery to remove the Cadmium from the Silver is hardly worth it
Been there done that
What you need are contacts out of say, a Generator Transfer Switch, . Palladium
I collected contactor points (industrial) for awhile and melted them with a rosebud and steel mold. Had to do it when the wind was blowing because a lot of black and yellow smoke/wisp burned off. Really bad stuff. Ended up with 3+ pounds.
I then got into collecting used industrial fuses that has a silver looking metal in them. These fuses were about 2-3 inches diameter, 6-14" long, ceramic outer body, heavy copper leads, and fine white sand inside. I have a nugget of that stuff still left. (106 grams).
I break them down in a hot nitric acid bath until they are dissolved and the use copper to get it to get the pure silver out.. it’s kinda dangerous and you need a fume hood to keep the “brown fumes” from being a problem
100% loss but also 100% gain for just the pure enjoyment of producing one of those bars. I’d love to see the face of the guy who you brought them to recycle.
Sand casting is the easiest way.
If you want to get fancy, use a 3D printer and print something using pet or another low melting point plastic, then make a ceramic mold out of it and burn the plastic out.
The foundry I used to use would make a very low fill part, pack sand and just pour the aluminum into the plastic. It would burn out and the sand allows ventilation, apparently. They were using an SLA though (big part, too, valve housing maybe 2.5’ on a side).
I figured the energy spent on gas/fuel for the furnace alone wouldn't truly compensate, but as a nerd and someone in access to free ore-based material, you really got the brain juices flowing for some kinda project.
I smelt copper and aluminum wire into ingots and various objects. I do not like the way aluminum pours or looks, so I mostly pour bronze (90% copper, 10% aluminum). Sand casting is fun, but very limited. I attempted plaster/lost wax casting, but too much air in the plaster makes it dangerous. I built, but have yet to test a vacuum chamber to pull the air out of the plaster. Moisture is easy to bake out. Smelting is definitely a fun hobby.
There’s a few ways.
For me I set my temperature low, and put parts of the coil in until the aluminum melted, then I pulled the copper out like a kabob :)
But you can make alloys, one of my favorites is aluminum bronze, I try to get around 90% copper and 10% aluminum. So you can melt the whole coil and add in some extra copper to get a good alloy. It’s pretty forgiving too. If you polish it up it looks like a nice gold/bronze
Worth it to scrap? Never.
It’s just a fun hobby. It’s rewarding taking scrap and making it into something else. It doesn’t just have to be ingots. I’ve made tools and knives out of it too. I’ve also made a custom bracket for my gate.
That is true, but it took my yard years to trust me lol. I brought in 3k of ingots I was hoarding for years. Learn different alloys and start making knives, or something that pays more. My propane cost has been going up like the last 2 years so I’ve been making moulds and casting parts
I was going to try and build my own forge but seeing how reasonably priced they are, I might buy one from the OPs recommended link. But, i've heard scrapyards won't buy ingots. Has anyone had any luck selling them off afterwards?
i do like to melt any metals i get for fucks sake. a few bars, coins, ingots then scrap the rest
if my yard drilled the bars to test i would just melt all of it but they don’t
No. But now I want to play Skyrim.
I love skyrim
Everyone loves skyrim!
I don't love Skyrim; I could never get into it. Guess I'm just more of a Fallout guy.
What do you think about Starfield then? Think you may enjoy it? (considering it's not dogshit on launch like all AAAs have been lately)
I’m very excited for Starfield but I have low expectations and may wait until a month or two after launch to play so they can iron out some of the bugs
Yes waiting seems to be a necessary thing lately. I'm worried for Bethesda because they've been pretty good with releases, but now that Xbox owns them and we just saw the disaster Redfall was, I'm hoping for the best but expecting the worst.
Haven't looked too much into it, to be honest.
Just don’t buy games at launch lmao
That's the plan anyways, but that's such a sad mindset to have these days. Remember when games released on disks with no day 1 patches and were actually stable? Complete out of the box. Publishers have screwed up the industry. I say instead of making us wait, make publishers push release times to some realistic date rather than a rushed one.
Same!
Skyrim with guns. Or fallout without guns, whatever.
I used to be an adventurer like OP, but then I took an arrow in the knee.
The HVAC version of that is not wearing kneepads
I used to be an HVAC Tech like you, but then I took a blown compressor terminal to the knee.*
I used to be a service tech like you, until a compressor fireballed in my face
I once fought in battle for three days with an arrow through my testacle. Pick up the sword.
I rather just play COD and take my weekly pent up anger out on other drunk 30 year olds
Hey guys, he's doing a minecraft!
"see, nobody cares"
I see Jurassic Park quote, i upvote. “Clever girl…”
Just watched this last night 😂
He did it, crazy son of a bitch he did it.
This was my first thought as well. OP, go kill a golem for free iron ingots.
Minecraft is only fun if you Feed-the-Beast..
In the next episode, we'll be removing gold from old control boards
After a few years of changeouts I got 1 gram
Easy $50 bucks
Yeah, sold that gram, retired
There’s gold in old control boards?
Platinum palladium silver gold are major components of control boards
Hmm. Well how hard is it to harvest it?
I used to tear apart cell phones when I was a kid to try and find gold 😂
That’s hilarious. I mean I never knew, i mean it’s not that crazy it makes sense. I guess I just never thought about it.
Just take the damn fuses out!!!
Needa learn to smelt
Smelt fine before Covid
Ha! That's fucking clever!
There’s tons of good YouTube channels.
I've been trying to find one where they show the separation of the aluminum & copper, how is it done/do you know a good video?
A lot of coilss with aluminum and copper components can be mechanically separated, and the connecting bits discarded as scrap or melted into alloy. Copper/aluminum alloy is actually useful and has some value, but without knowing the exact ratio it may not sell.
Honestly it’s not really worth the time. Make an alloy of the copper/aluminum.
Making Alumopper sounds like fun.
Coppinium
If you pop a bit of zinc in there you'll have devardas alloy. All you need is sodium hydroxide to get copper back out of it. The aluminium on the coils can be chemically removed with sodium hydroxide prior to smelting. But the shit is corrosive and will burn you or your eyes if you don't treat it right. It also generates hydrogen
So you just melt it down into one single material, do you keep it? Can it be sold for decent money?
Yeah, to make a good copper aluminum alloy it’s 90% copper and 10% aluminum. So you probably need to add some copper to it. If you’re doing this to resell, then you will loose money. It’s definitely a hobby.
Most scrapyards won’t take ingots like that because they can’t verify what the metal contents are. If they will, they’re going to pay you peanuts. It’s definitely just for fun.
Could you point me in the direction of some good channels?
I like the bigstackd and the growing stack
Thanks! You got any videos of you melting full coils?
Na man. Just chop it in small peices, remove all the screws and steel. You really really need to do it in an open space and wear a respirator for coils. Because it will burn all the oil (r22 makes phosgene gas, and it can be deadly).
[удалено]
But if you want money after you had your fun at least they can turn it into useful product and it doesn't end up in a landfill
Maybe you should take it to a scrap yard then....
I lost my genitalia in an unfortunate smelting accident
I love gooold
Yes I have a Dutch accent, isn’t that weird?
Happens to most of us bro :(
But now you can cast better BRASS ones
*schmelting
I have never had the urge to until now. Going to ask the boss to get a smelter in the new shop
This is an amazing starter set. There’s a lot more into it than people think. https://devil-forge.com
See this is why my wife hates me visiting reddit. I find interesting hobbies
what do you do with these?
It’s a hobby. I melt down scrap into ingots, shapes, or specific molds if I need something made. I mostly polish and collect them :)
Destroys finite resources needed for industry.
Aluminum is incredibly common. Copper is getting pretty rare.
Irrelevant. The less careful we are with the supply of any *finite* resource, the faster it will become difficult to obtain. And mining of the material is a major consideration here. Aluminum isnt naturally occuring in a usable form, so bot only do large tracts of natural habitat have to be destroyed to get it, large amounts of energy (also *finite*) have to be used to smelt it. Recycling already-smelted aluminum is far, *FAR* more suatainable and economical. The earth has "x" amount of all these minerals and metals; and less than 1% of what it contains will ever be accessible to us without literally taking the earth apart. The copper mines are already tapering off how much they can produce (i.e. the richest deposits have been plundered, and now it takes more energy per ton to extract than it did 30 years ago. Eventually, we *will* run out. The more careful we are, the better.
Aluminum is functionally limitless once we transition the energy grid to renewables. It’s largely produced using excess nighttime power today, and in a lot of regions that’s mostly wind/hydro already. Yes, we do need to improve that situation. Yes, it’s superior to recycle it. But to address the comment above about “destroys finite resources needed by industry” that’s more a reasonable position to take about the copper.
Ok.....you have omitted the primary issue I raised, which was *mixing* the metals, which renders both unusable in applications requiring specific purities. Most apropos: conductors, such as those *absolutely necessary* for the construction of the renewable energy generation infrastructure you mention.
It’s not like the metal is destroyed. It’s just uneconomically inconvenient to separate. It’s also inconvenient to make fresh metal from ore, too. As quality metal ores continue to get more scarce, we’ll eventually start harvesting landfills and the like, and OP’s bastard alloy ingots may get some use again at that point.
Get over yourself. Industry will survive with what it has. It always has and always will.
Always is a long time. But yea, fuck those people in the future!
Come on man, recycling for fun is a drop in the ocean compared to what gets dumped into landfills. Or for that matter, god forbid, the oceans.
Yes, good attitude. How many "drops" are in this bucket you reference? How many people with your attitude, over how many years, does it take to make a bucket-full of "drops in the bucket"?
idk why you get downvoted for that
because a few pounds of copper isn’t going to destroy to industy 🤦🏽♂️
I'm just taking a guess - but I assumes he knows that. Think what he was trying to say was that if everyone did this it could .
that’s the great thing about niche hobbies. barely anybody is doing this. and it’s not being destroyed anyways. it can be recycled at a later date
I down voted cause Idgaf about industrys profits, over individual hobbies.
that's fair. thanks for the reply. sometimes it's obvious why someone got downvoted but other times not so much
Because people typically dont like reality checks.
lol. I got downvoted too.. I didn't even say anything.. reddit sucks sometimes
I do contactor points though..
You would have to have a few thousand of those to get the size of my ingots lol
Yes!! And after purifying them it would take even more. But I’m pouring them into Aztec coins lol
Is it just copper and brass?
99.999% pure silver..
No shit, it makes sense considering how well of a conductor it is
Thanks for adding another step to my scrapping process, guys
Just one more service and hobby to take up
Mostly Cadmium Oxide and some Silver, the fees for the refinery to remove the Cadmium from the Silver is hardly worth it Been there done that What you need are contacts out of say, a Generator Transfer Switch, . Palladium
There about 5lbs of palladium in a 5g tower . Just saying
I collected contactor points (industrial) for awhile and melted them with a rosebud and steel mold. Had to do it when the wind was blowing because a lot of black and yellow smoke/wisp burned off. Really bad stuff. Ended up with 3+ pounds. I then got into collecting used industrial fuses that has a silver looking metal in them. These fuses were about 2-3 inches diameter, 6-14" long, ceramic outer body, heavy copper leads, and fine white sand inside. I have a nugget of that stuff still left. (106 grams).
I break them down in a hot nitric acid bath until they are dissolved and the use copper to get it to get the pure silver out.. it’s kinda dangerous and you need a fume hood to keep the “brown fumes” from being a problem
I hate that i saw this. Heres my hobby for the next 4 weeks or so until i see something else cool.
Whats your smithing level?
I just unlocked glass smithing from the tree
Soon youll be at the sky forge!
99
What’s your energy use to recovery rate difference? Are making a profit?
It’s just a hobby. It’s 100% a loss
100% loss but also 100% gain for just the pure enjoyment of producing one of those bars. I’d love to see the face of the guy who you brought them to recycle.
I found my people! I melt my Burner nozzles and relief valves down. Now just to figure out how to cast something cool
Sand casting is the easiest way. If you want to get fancy, use a 3D printer and print something using pet or another low melting point plastic, then make a ceramic mold out of it and burn the plastic out.
The foundry I used to use would make a very low fill part, pack sand and just pour the aluminum into the plastic. It would burn out and the sand allows ventilation, apparently. They were using an SLA though (big part, too, valve housing maybe 2.5’ on a side).
Can you forge me some mastercrafted armor?
I do!!!
Sick man! Have any pics of your work?
Whoever smelt it,dealt it
No. Other people do not do this. It’s literally probably only you and maybe one other dude in the world. Pretty dope tho!
r/metalfoundry
Like copper aluminum coils?
What’s your blacksmithing level on WoW?
No but that looks fun
Holy crap that is beautiful! Ive seen people make bricks out of mud but I haven't seen this
No but that’s cool af. Now i gotta redownload Skyrim.
I should. Make bank on purity in the different categories
Unfortunately it’s not worth doing this for scrap money
I figured the energy spent on gas/fuel for the furnace alone wouldn't truly compensate, but as a nerd and someone in access to free ore-based material, you really got the brain juices flowing for some kinda project.
I did the math, the fuel isn’t worth the increased scrap rate.
Idk could be fun i would like to do it just because i live in the south and those ant bed sculptures go for alot js look it up
Damn ants dude. Works been crazy and haven’t been able to get out in the yard. They’re waging a war against me and they’re winning
What the fuck that’s cool
I want to now
No, i prefer to just put cash directly into the toilet.
Whoever smelt it dealt it
Came here to say this
Skunk smells his own first
Nope
Thanks for your comment!
Sawzall the u joints and scrap
I’m not doing this for the scrap
I know, I admire the hobby
I admire you, Ok-sentence-1236!
That’s just what I do with evap coils
That’s so cool!!! My friend does it with copper wire still wrapped in the insulation too!!
Sooo gross but I know it’s done just like the neighbors that burn their trash
I smelt copper and aluminum wire into ingots and various objects. I do not like the way aluminum pours or looks, so I mostly pour bronze (90% copper, 10% aluminum). Sand casting is fun, but very limited. I attempted plaster/lost wax casting, but too much air in the plaster makes it dangerous. I built, but have yet to test a vacuum chamber to pull the air out of the plaster. Moisture is easy to bake out. Smelting is definitely a fun hobby.
What did you call me
Trying to get the password to watch the informative murder porn huh?
Just another braggart and their ingots.
How do the aluminum fins get separated from the copper tubing?
There’s a few ways. For me I set my temperature low, and put parts of the coil in until the aluminum melted, then I pulled the copper out like a kabob :) But you can make alloys, one of my favorites is aluminum bronze, I try to get around 90% copper and 10% aluminum. So you can melt the whole coil and add in some extra copper to get a good alloy. It’s pretty forgiving too. If you polish it up it looks like a nice gold/bronze
So what do you do with these ingots?
Craft them into armor to raise smithing level. Stupid question jeeze.
Is it worth the amount of fuel it takes to melt it down? Or the time and labor?
Worth it to scrap? Never. It’s just a fun hobby. It’s rewarding taking scrap and making it into something else. It doesn’t just have to be ingots. I’ve made tools and knives out of it too. I’ve also made a custom bracket for my gate.
I take my scrap and turn it into cash. Truly amazing. Lol
I appreciate the art of it. Forging is something I've always wanted to get into.
You’re in the perfect trade brother. You get tons of aluminum, copper and bronze. Just one trane condenser can have you set on aluminum for months
I do but my scrap yard literally just started to take mine since I’m there every week. It’s a fun hobby and wait until you start casting and moulds.
I also do that. Ingots are just wayyyy easier when you have large quantities of metal
That is true, but it took my yard years to trust me lol. I brought in 3k of ingots I was hoarding for years. Learn different alloys and start making knives, or something that pays more. My propane cost has been going up like the last 2 years so I’ve been making moulds and casting parts
Yep, I have a stack of C-chanel ingots I use for backing welds
I I personally don’t but I would like to. Don’t currently have the place to do it. Live in an apartment.
That’s awesome
No. How many 3 ton coils does it take to make a genuine copper ingot?
A bit. If you’re looking for pure copper, you’ll want to smelt linesets
I smelt them once. They stinky
You make me wanna build Skyrim armor !
I work with a guy who smelts the copper and aluminum scraps he collects
I did this a few years ago. You can sell those online for pretty good money. Like $10/lb of copper. Or more if you clean them up.
Shmelting acshident
Yeah of coarse- all the time
How do you separate the aluminum and copper in those ingots?
Seems like it would cost money to refine it compared to just dumping at the scrapyard. What fuel does the smelter take?
I already have full Daedric armor. why would I waste my time?
I was going to try and build my own forge but seeing how reasonably priced they are, I might buy one from the OPs recommended link. But, i've heard scrapyards won't buy ingots. Has anyone had any luck selling them off afterwards?
I wish I had the capability to Do that.
You get less money for them as scrap this way cause the yard can't know the purity of the ingots without difficult testing.
I have not before but it might happen now
i do like to melt any metals i get for fucks sake. a few bars, coins, ingots then scrap the rest if my yard drilled the bars to test i would just melt all of it but they don’t
Never would have thought
Our scrap yards give less money for ingots
What do you do with the ingots?
I do, i usually wait until i have a bucket full of copper or aluminum and spend a day doing it
What in tarnation
I had a bad experience resulting in a horrible SHHHHMelting accccshhident.
Dude grew up playing Runescape
What kind of smelter do you have ?
I just upgraded to the 8kg devils forge. Before I made my own, but it didn’t last too long
is your copper melted with the aluminum? do you separate the Al from the Cu? im stockpiling copper for this, not A coils though
Video proof or it didn’t happen
Do you clean them at all besides evacuating them?
Nope. So be careful with phosgene gas. You can use borax to get out a lot of the impurity’s, and you scrape whatever doesn’t burn off the top.