I'm sure some of the gurus have done this... Or is it a waste?

This seems like it could be beneficial if it doesn't lower the total weight, scorch it if done wrong, etc.

It's melting down copper wire into bars. I gathered this could make it all copper 1 and if you're someone that scraps often and has the torch and other supplies, and many pounds of copper wire, that this could be beneficial. I randomly found this on google and it's on ehow.com

I searched and didn't find anything on it so maybe it's been discussed in the private forums or I didn't search properly.

It peaked my interest so any opinions on this are welcome. I was googling how to remove the red look off some copper from a microwave so they don't count it as less because it looks kinda like the reddish glued copper under standard tv tubes. Anyway here's the link:

http://www.ehow.com/how_8505171_melt...home-bars.html

-Evan

http://www.scrapmetalforum.com/showt...ghlight=ingots

http://www.scrapmetalforum.com/showt...ghlight=ingots

These are the two Threads that I know of.

I took in a ingot to my yard and they would pay me insulated price. It is just that they do not know if there is any lead, alum., or other non copper elements in the ingot. If you can get the yard or e-bay buyers to buy it, and do not spend more than it is worth melting it.

GO FOR IT!!

I can not. So I just use the ingots as bullion for my other projects.

the shelacked wire from tubes and microwaves should go as #2 as is. The process to turn it into #1 Bullion is too expensive, dangerous and time consuming, unless you want to make ingots for retail sales. just my .o2. Gustove would be the one to talk to aqbout that.

Its really not worth it if your just going to melt your scrap to take to the scrap yard. Most scrap yards wont buy ingots and those who do will pay you at a lower grade. Now if you want to get into sand casting, you could make stuff from your scrap and sell it for a much better profit. There are forums out there that are dedicated to this.


If you really want to try it, you can melt lead, zinc, and aluminum in a steel crucible made from a large diameter pipe with a plate welded to the bottom. A campfire with an air supply will be enough to melt these metals.

If you want to melt brass, bronze, and copper you will need a ceramic crucible and a pretty beefy furnace. Copper will melt at about 2500 degrees F I believe.

Before you try to do this I would recommend that you do a Google search and read as much as you can about the subject, you can get hurt pretty badly if you are not careful.