[TheForge] reclaiming copper

[Dan Brewer]

You asked for advice on how to do a job.  Advice was given.  Now this advice
was given freely and with out malice.  I was not attempting to be
condescending towards you.  With the information I had; 700 pounds of wire
scrap still in insulation, a coffee can furnace and a steel crucible.  Since
then I have learned that you are physically unable to handle a larger
crucible by yourself. You have a lot of crucibles, You are on a small fixed
income, You are in constant pain.  And this thread has gone on too long.

So some modified advice given freely so you can take it or simply disregard
it.  Your choice.  The larger furnace and larger crucible is because copper
is a bitch to melt. No steel because a steel crucible will contaminate the
melt and is prone to failure at temps in the copper range.  Once you have a
small pool of melted copper you can dissolve more it.  In a small furnace
you do not have the room to do this for long with out loosing too much heat.
Since you need to get the insulation off some how burning it off is one way
but it leaves a lot or residue on the wire.  Some type of flux is needed to
remove the crud and trap it so when you poor the copper the crud is no in
the ingots that you want. So if you strip some of the insulation off the
wire burn off the rest, and ball the wire up into a mass it will melt
faster.  Or taking a hammer and beat it into a shape that will fit into your
crucible will work. Check your crucible after each melt to see it there is
any damage.  If there is use a different crucible.


So take or leave this post .  Since I little invested in it I don't care.
Be safe in what you do and let us know how it all works out.  

Dan in Auburn  

-----Original Message-----
From: theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of James Binnion
Sent: Saturday, July 01, 2006 3:12 PM
To: terry l. ridder; Sponsored by ABANA
Subject: Re: [TheForge] reclaiming copper


On Jul 1, 2006, at 11:11 AM, terry l. ridder wrote:

> hello;
>
> comments below.
>
> On Sat, 1 Jul 2006, Michael Horgan wrote:
>
>>
>> Perhaps tDan and Jim are attempting to save you from (further)  
>> INJURY!
>
> i do not know what their motivation is.

I assume that Dans motivation is the same as mine. To save you from  
screwing up either your,self or your equipment by using the wrong  
materials for your project.

>
> i do find it difficult to believe that a schedule 80 steel pipe  
> crucible
> is going to catastrophically fail in a single use even two uses.

Your original post said you had 700 lbs of copper cable to deal with  
this is more than a couple of crucible loads unless you have an  
industrial size furnace so I don't see how you can characterize it as  
one or two uses. It will alloy with the crucible which will  
contaminate the melt, raise the melting temperature of the resulting  
alloy which will result in greater alloying and more damage to the  
crucible and eventually failure of the crucible. When will depend on  
too many variables to even try to make a guess, but it will ruin the  
metal from iron contamination and ruin the crucible because the  
alloyed metal will be rather firmly bonded to the wall, think brazing  
as this is what you will be doing.

>
> if i had silicon carbide crucibles small enough to fit the coffee can
> foundry i would definitely use them. i do not so i am attempting to  
> make
> do with what i have on hand.

And we were trying to warn you of the pitfalls in your proposed path.

James Binnion
jbin at well.com



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