Allow myself to introduce.. myself

Greeting from Birmingham Alabama,
My name is Alex, I am a 28 year old in pursuit of a materials engineering degree with an obsession every metal I can safely handle, with a preference for Tin and Indium. I actively practice metal casting, forging and tinkering on a hobby level. To fuel my hobbies and earn additional income, i collect/use/sell scrap, which I find quite adventurous and fulfilling. There is truly no other feeling in the world like the one I get when I come upon a dumpster or pile of junk at the end of the driveway full of scrap materials that I am able find a use for, earn a profit, and that the owner is glad to be rid of. It's unfortunate that so many people look down on scrappers/scrapping, however it is those same people who give me the opportunity to make money off of the things they consider worthless.

Welcome on the forum. For curiosity's sake, where do you find indium? I am not even sure to identify it without a test if I stumble on that stuff.

Hi I am jerr from middle Tennessee im here just to learn sum knowledge and looking different buyers and salers of cats my bf buys and resale cats so I have some knowledge and sence we are nolonger working together I need the knowledge to function alone for he handled identifying cats I handled prices I have 20 cats need identified and sold I don't go to local business for completely get ripped off we used 2 individuals who buy top dollar and send out to rifinerys 500 more in bulk at time and ill sit on before I take 10th of what really work so if there are individuals buying cats in the tennessee areas and or anybody knowledge of identifying cats al9t serial numbers aren't legible and or barely some missing sum of number wear tear so if and body could help to identify these cats it be appreciative and or like to make offer I will not except petty prices for once identified i know worth identifying is where I lack knowledge he handled wrote list then I price crossville and cookeville lebbanon areas

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Originally Posted by Jerrberr

Hi I am jerr from middle Tennessee im here just to learn sum knowledge and looking different buyers and salers of cats my bf buys and resale cats so I have some knowledge and sence we are nolonger working together I need the knowledge to function alone for he handled identifying cats I handled prices I have 20 cats need identified and sold I don't go to local business for completely get ripped off we used 2 individuals who buy top dollar and send out to rifinerys 500 more in bulk at time and ill sit on before I take 10th of what really work so if there are individuals buying cats in the tennessee areas and or anybody knowledge of identifying cats al9t serial numbers aren't legible and or barely some missing sum of number wear tear so if and body could help to identify these cats it be appreciative and or like to make offer I will not except petty prices for once identified i know worth identifying is where I lack knowledge he handled wrote list then I price crossville and cookeville lebbanon areas

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forum member: APA (https://www.scrapmetalforum.com/members/apa.html)
is who you want, from everything I have heard on here, and the only one I have ever been in contact with.

But also there are some other buyers on here, see:

https://www.scrapmetalforum.com/sear...archid=4281681

I have a quick question for people who melt metals. Can you pour hot metal into a 1"×1"×1" "cast" ( im not sure if thats right) then sprinkle chips of various stones and glass into it before it cools.

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Originally Posted by Arlimin

I have a quick question for people who melt metals. Can you pour hot metal into a 1"×1"×1" "cast" ( im not sure if thats right) then sprinkle chips of various stones and glass into it before it cools.

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Sure but the difficulty of your question depends entirely upon what you are casting.
Safety is the most important thing, if you are melting anything you need to wear proper protection ie fave shield, leather apron/gloves boots. If youre casting anything other than Sn(pure tin) you should use a respirator with p100 rated cartridges.

Lead/ tin / and alloys of both are fairly unreactive in the liquid state and therefore look "ok" when cast into an open faced mold (ie a muffin tin, cake pan etc which is what I assume is what you'd be doing) anything you used to heat in and pour into would have to be made of steel or cast iron and must be heated to remove every trace of water from it. This includes the stones you use, if you just dump random rocks off the ground into liquid metal it will cause trace amounts of water on and in the stones to vaporize sending molten metal flying every where. These metals are both extremely dense compared to others, so most any mineral you put into will likely float on top and will remain there when it solidifies. A good thing if this is an art project.
Don't cast aluminum,copper or any copper alloy like this. If you've never cast anything before there are a lot of things you'd have to learn first and these metals will react with oxygen when liquid and look terrible when cast into an open faced mold. Even the copper "ingots" you see on the internet are not made this way but cold drawn stock that someone has cut, stamped, and polished.

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Originally Posted by CopperMiner

Welcome on the forum. For curiosity's sake, where do you find indium? I am not even sure to identify it without a test if I stumble on that stuff.

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I've found most of my indium from cheap defected Galinstan thermometers. I separated the gallium from the indium and am left with a little tin. It can also be found in high vacuum seals, as a coating on old bearings, and as a major component of most fusible soldering alloys (ie liquid at room temperature or very low melting temperature eutectic alloys). The fire sprinklers in most buildings usually have an indium/gallium/tin/bismuth alloy that stops up the drain. When the ambient temperature gets close to the alloys melting point (like the beginning of a fire) the alloy stopper melts and releases the water. This is why in movies and tv shows you can see a character set one of the sprinklers off by holding the small flame of a bic lighter directly beneath the sprinkler head.
You usually won't find indium in it's pure form but it is very remarkable. It's softer than lead (if you can imagine) yet still dense. When bent it has the same crystal twinning crackling sound that is characteristic of tin. It's color is bright silver like tin.