What should I expect? I have no clue how much copper or solder would be in the mix. There might even be a little bit of brass too. I want to do a melt but not sure what to do with the mixed stuff. Everything cleaned up I might have 100 pounds of clean copper.... but I've been left with this pile. just over 3 kg In the future, I expect to get a lot of this. I'm just wondering how to deal with it or if it should just remain as scrap. My guess is most of it is leadfree solder.
Don't F with it. Scrap the shit. I had a DOZEN 5gallon bucks of junk like this. Took it to the scrap man a few years ago and got a couple hundred bucks. If ya want to know what to expect? A big ol mess. Straight copper is useless for casting anyways unless you need to make a bunch of buss bars... Remember the golden rule. Cast to cast. Leave the melting of straight copper to the yt idiots.
there is nothing wrong with Scrap, Just depends on How you use it. Jason is right though, Dont just try to melt it. But you can alloy it especially if you are going for a simple brass or bronze . first you need to start out with half of a crucible of the alloy you intend to get . I normally go for 60/40 Brass 60% copper 40% Zinc I intend to melt 30 Lbs of Brass, so I will weigh out a heat as follows Just assume your scrap pictured is Copper about 98% the solder is probably 95% tin, 5% antimony, nothing that is any issue in brqass or bronze for ornimental work so ignore it, you have Cu 100% for our example so weigh out 15 Lbs of Brass, weigh out 9 Lbs of your scrap copper (pictured) and 6 Lbs of Zinc. . Now Hammer all that copper flat and charge it in the bottom of the Crucible cover it with Brass, you will have left over brass, Melt , the brass will melt covering the copper, the copper will disolve in the molten Brass , add brass till everything is in, then the Zinc has to be PLUNGED to the bottom of the melt. there are different ways to do this depending on the shape of your material, the way that works most of the time is to use copper wire to Tie it to a piece of rebar . or you can use or make a foundry Plunger https://mifco.com/shop/molders-tools-and-supplies/4-bell-plunger-6-ft-handle/... if you use one of those you load your metal in it and wrap a piece of alluminum foil around it to hold the Zinc into the plunger til you get it all submerged. I use marine Zinc anodes for my Zinc , so I have welded a 1icnh pipe tee to a piece of rebar, and slide the Zinc into it and plunge it that way. remember just plunge, no stiring . and of course you will loose about 4% of your zinc in a brass that high in zinc so add about 10% extra . The important thing here is to keep the copper under liquid metal as much as possible so it cannot ozidize. i work with copper wire alot, ball it up and hammer it tight , and place it in the bottom of the crucible, cover it with small solid scrap. I have great results with this method . V/r HT1 Um ask at the Scrap yard if they will trade you pound for pound copper for Brass depending on wher you are they may, they make about 40% profit, so they are not opposed, but if they are worried about legality or inventory they wont, the smaller the scrap yard the more likely they are to help
My preference would be to use it in alloying tin bronze.Tin bronze is more expensive than brass but has way less slag problems. Tin bronze is quite tolerant of the usual solder constituents. Alloy at 8:1 copper:tin for toughest mix, 16:1 for easier filing,cutting and lower cost. The one thing to watch for is cast silicon bronze fittings, if there is any lead solder in the mix. Silicon and lead together in a mix leads to brittleness. Silicon bronze fittings look like cast copper, but file like brass or bronze.
Hmm, I would personally use the copper to make aluminum-bronze alloy. Which consists of 90% copper and 10% aluminum. As for the solder I believe it melts at a much lower temperature than the copper, so I would just heat the solder up to melting point and wipe it off with steel wool. By the way aluminum-bronze alloy is supposedly a pretty hard alloy. Patrick
Wiping off the solder is lot of hard work just to get some nearer pure copper. I'd sell it for scrap personally but beyond having a play with ali bronze once I soon got bored. Just my thoughts.
What do you mean by "slag problems:"??? I cast Yellow Brass weekly, , if I'm casting clean metal I get a TINY bit of Dross , mostly oxidised zinc lead and tin, but it is certainly no problem. skim it off. if you gate poorly you may cause dross formation inside your molds thusly inside your castings, but certainly no more then your would get in a tin Bronze, I would agrue Less actually as TIN is much more prone to forming Dross when agitated. , that is why the top of a bronze ingot gets the black cotttage cheese look often while Yellow brass ingots (free of lead) are quite smoothe V/r HT1
AluminumBronze is difficult to work with it is HIGH drossing so gating has to be spot on, and Sn, Pb, and Zn are all contaminates in AluminumBronze so gotta be ral careful with Scrap . But it is Pretty golden Color if that is a concern V/r HT1
Ok, well I've been planning to do some aluminum-bronze so now I know what to expect. Its also nice to know what color it will be. Patrick
Patrick, I'm in the same situation as you. Maybe the scrap (I have shown in the original post),I'll melt into an ingot. I plan on pouring aluminum bronze. My first project of aluminum bronze is going to be a five step pulley. I have a 1930-40's ish drill press that had a cast aluminum pulley(I still have the original). It is cracked and worn away to razor blades. Currently I have replaced it with a single speed 1:1 pulley. The motor is eight pole, 3 phase (865 RPM)2hp, 208v. On a temporary fix with a off the shelf cast pulley, it is currently set up on. It is on a VFD. With the VFD the motor is happy from 100-1000 RPM. But to prevent the motor form over speeding too much I'd like to get a new pulley. But they're not existent in the specked out sizes. One day soon I might pour this with cast-iron for a few friends, but for now aluminum bronze would be really nice for my own baby. The ware resistance that aluminum bronze has, with its beauty of Gold look, is what I am personally after with full function.
You aint seen BLING yet! Wait until I finger out what I'm doing with this lathe! Looks like I better make peace with B R A S S... nasty shit!
Brass isn't so bad to melt. I used to melt a lot of it before everdur. I'd still sell the scrap and buy everdur with it though. Alloying takes a lot of fuel and isn't worth the time or wear and tear and doesn't make as good of an alloy as you can buy premade. Plus most of the guys buying metal are a bunch of assholes. At least they were always to me when I went to buy from them.
B.S. !!! it takes exactly the same fuel following the technique I outline. and can give you perfect results if all your ingredients and your Math are correct . I do it all the time, and was doing it all the way back in the 80's making parts for Battle ships !!! V/r Ht1
Our experiences differ. I'm using propane so 1.5 bbq tanks to melt and alloy isn't worth the fuel cost of nearly 30 bucks. Also I allowed silicon bronze which ate through crucibles when alloying in silicon metal. Seems to be pretty caustic.
There's a reason all other metal alloys are compared to brass for machinability with brass having a score of 100 .
I am the third owner in 70ish years. I got the whole backstory from the second owners wife which two years ago was in her early 80s. I got the original motor with it and start and stop switch gear. It was originally wound for 25 Hz and came out of of a Niagara Falls Power plant in the early 50s. The elderly woman said her husband purchased it from the power plant shortly after they were first married. It was originally a gray paint. Her husband painted it red at some point. I have since swapped out the motor for a 2 hp.
