Here's a little tip for when you use a metal mold. If you lightly coat the inside with some spray graphite lube, it will make demolding much easier without adding contamination to the alloy. Kind of like high temp pam. Hope this helps, Thanks

Great job! Awesome to be able to watch someone as a beginner. Thanks for being candid as you learn.

we're using your videos today for our homeschool lesson. thank you for doing what you do, my kids are hooked!

This guy is some kind of genius, red hot metal into a plastic bucket (?) that he then sticks his hand into - to find the water is now red hot too. Fancy that!? And this is the same fella that's going to be in charge of a CANNON. Holy good gravy.

it changes colour after going into the water because when hot the metal is forming an oxide layer very fast. As the water boils it strips the oxide layer from the surface and once cool the oxide forms very slowly over days or weeks.

A worthy undertaking. As a new furnace / crucible owner with lots of experience with lead casting, I'm here to learn from others mistakes, hopefully making fewer of my own. Thanks for sharing.

A lot of people use muffin tins for making ingots. It does not look as pretty but I find it rather practical as the small round ingots are easy to throw in a crucible and melt when making something.

Can tell your really having a lot of fun with this ! I enjoy working with different metals myself .

It's amazing what a person can do with some tools and a little know how! Great video. It was the first I've seen from you but I'm looking forward to more.

Molten copper has a high affinity for oxygen and likes to absorb it from the furnace atmosphere, you can solve this by adding some crushed charcoal to the crucible, the charcoal floats on top so it is easily removed before pouring, this also cuts down on losses due to slag... I will also just like to add that the standard practice is to pour molten metal above a sand bed, the spalling concrete can create a real nasty situation real quick...

Great vid. I work in HVAC and Refrigeration industry and I have a lot old copper pipes I've been saving over the years. I also learned all pennies made before 1982 are 100% copper so I'm starting to save to those too.

Loved it, I use to scrap all the time and wish I had a furnace back then would have made way more money (back in the 1980's). As for the color change copper oxidizes when heated, when you cool it off in the water the H2 in the H2O releases the oxidized layers and viola, shiny copper color. Can't wait for the cannon, and thanks for the video!

Copper is so pretty. That was fun and interesting to watch. Thanks.

These KZfaq recommendations are wild but I’m not complaining

Big stacked never says "ouch"

The ingots after you sanded them were kind of, oddly, beautiful. Recycling is cool to watch.

Awesome pours! Very nice collection of heavy ingots! I love that cylinder! :D Thanx bud! I look forward to watching the canon pour!

Great hobby, plus recycling. Love it.

To the point and fun to watch. Thanks FarmCraft101!

He likes his little hobby😁

Anytime I'm melting metals, i like to leave about a 1/4 of molten liquid left when I have more metal to melt, it seems to me its easier to to melt any metal when you have a bit in a liquid form in the crucible than having to re heat as if you were just beginning to melt. I haven't gotten to the point where I can melt copper so its satisfying to watch. Aluminum it is for now.

That looks very satisfying. Liked and subscribed. Thanks for making this great video.

The finished cylinder was a work of art!! Great video!

Looks like a great couple days of fun. Looking forward to seeing you blast things out of that cannon 😁

Those ingots are beautiful

This should be called the half-arsed channel! literally everything he does half-arsed. The dross, the pour, the sanding! Can't wait to see the cannon!

Very interesting. I have a better understanding and respect now for what all goes into getting copper ready to form and shape. I never really gave it much thought.

Just found your channel and right up my alley, Thanks.

Forbidden caramel

Slag is mainly copper oxide as the copper reacts with the air. You can recover the copper chemically. If you want to melt copper without slag, then use an argon atmosphere.

Love your videos. This was a very interesting process and takes a bit of tenacity. Thanks.

Thanks for teaching me Not what to do. You've helped a bunch

you are exceeding the vaporization capacity of your propane cylinder that's why its freezing up.A 20# bbq cylinder is too small to run your burner for much time, a pair of 100 pound cylinders running in parallel with each other would run much better and maintain pressure better.

that was some tasty guitar playing in the outro . .. much less spillage when pouring from a 1/2 full crucible, particularly when doing it solo with heavy liquid metal . you might want to fab up a pouring stand for quality of life .

How can you not love this video, thank you for making it.

I cheered for you all the video! It's so cool to learn along with you

A bonus feature--Flaking Concrete where the molten copper hits it.

I'm about to move into my first house, and guys like you, ArtByAsrock, and bigstackD are giving me terrible ideas for the workshop space! :-P

That was fun to watch! Thanks for creating a great video!

You're channel is the first one I've come across where the melter talks! Good stuff!

This was enjoyable

Hehe big ones 😊 great job

Loved every minute. Very informative! Thank you!

Very cool video, severely enjoyable to watch! Thanks for sharing!

try fire clay on your molds .make a mixture with water some what muddy texture mop the mold then sprinkle dry fire clay to dry it... it will come right out , i work at a lead smelter. nice video 👌

man that had to be a bear to pour. Biggest I did was 6lbs of copper and that cooked the heck outta my skin, even with ppe.

So awesome. Love the sanders too

Sweet, the ingots look fantastic!

Hank hill of the copper world. “I like copper and copper accessories”

When the lathe and polishing compound comes out, you've gone overboard

Good job i like the Finished product you worked through any issues that may have come up and you got it done.

Great journey - thanks for posting!

I need to see this cannon being made

I have one of those trash cans with wheels people leave at the end of the driveway for trash trucks to pick up full of copper pipe. Probably atleast 200 pounds.

I find these videos relaxing and satisfying. Very enjoyable. Thank you!😎😎😎🙏🏻🙏🏻

WOW! This was awesome! Thank you for sharing this.

Oxidation it what causes it to go black, cooling it in water stops the oxygen getting to it meaning it stays copper coloured

Have you thought of moving the pouring to a sand box? It is a lot less likely to have a steam driven splatter of molten metal hit you.

I like that you are smart enough to have safety equipment on and are aware of the concrete spalding issue. I have not heard of using charcoal as a protective barrier from the gasses. Would a floating layer borax work?

A lot of fun to watch! Thanks!

When you see how much work and effort goes into mining copper its amazing that people just throw this out in the garbage. My friend gave me 100 pounds of clean solid copper wiring from an electrical job he did.

It's amazing how many videos I watch of these and people are wholly unprepared. Why is it so hard to buy multiple containers for ingots? My OCD in me wouldn't allow me to make different formed ingots or to leave ANY slag.

Man that copper looks extra beautiful after coming off the lathe. I recently learned how to make chainmail. So I started making it out of copper wire. Then soaking it in ketchup after I finished. Really good looking chainmail.

That polished copper is so pleasing to the eyes.

When you had that chunk of copper, I saw the perfect slug for an I.E.D. Anyway, once the ingot has solidified, quench the mould and the ingot should tip out for your next pour. Watch out for hot water when quenching. Would help if you got a metal bin for the quenching.

... You did this in the BEST unsafe way possible... Good job lol 👌

Great video, thanks for sharing. Do you heat your moulds before pouring?

Wow I finished watching this whole video 🤔 very entertaining.

A CANNON! Oh hell yes! Looking forward to that! A fifty pound weight cannon is going to e amazing. In my mind that going to be shooting golf ball sized projectiles? Every man should have a cannon in his life. I made one from a section of really heavy wall tubing that I found in an oil rig support company yard, probably a bit of drill pipe. Made an awesome cannon that fired coke can sized projectiles. At full powder load it fired way over half a mile out to sea! Brilliant laugh till it was deemed inappropriate and confiscated!

Getting back wasted metal from the slag is an option, but to do it you have to turn to the wonders of chemistry, not heat.

First time viewer! Don't know anything at all about smelting. I'm here to learn as I find this art really interesting! I'll be watching more of your videos! 👍

Congratulations!!!👍👍💞💞💞 I hope you get bedroom and indoor pluming done before baby arrives!!

Your ingot mould walls are to thin and need to be at a greater angle that’s why it’s not releasing, also you should have running water in your bucket to help with the quench You might also find that if you heat the crucible before you add any metal it should not take as long to melt hope this helps. Good luck with that cannon it’s going to be awesome

use soot from acetylene gas will help your casting break free easier

Years ago my Dad had a family printing company and had a Linotype type casting machine. It had an electric furnace and we reused the type, melting it in the pot as he called it. Every so often we had to add some flux to turn the impurities to a grey powdered dross and scoop off with an old ladle. The flux came in a flat segmented block like a chocolate bar. You only needed to use one inch square piece to bring out all the dross in the pot. One of Dads friends had a mould for fishing sinkers and i made a batch for him but it wasn't successful as printers type isn't pure lead. It has lead, tin and antimony in it. it went white and coroded in the salt water. Good luck with making your cannon.

Borax seems to work good at drawing out all the impurities. And keep the propane cylinder in a bucket of warm water so it has less of a chance to freeze up.

So amazing, dangerous but so amazing^^ I Will make my first melt next week, i hope my furnace Will be enought hot to have liquide copper🤞🤞🤞

Copper has a lustre to it when polished like few other metals, I think anyway.

Fun to watch! Looks like fun to do!

wow ,copper splashes, its very fluid, great vid

set your mould on top of furnace to preheat= no riples in castings.

Seeing this video makes me realize that if I want to materialize one of my life goals (to melt and pour enough ingots (unsure the kind of ingots at the moment) to build a tiny shed), I might want to invest in a full-sized household propane tank, and equipment to make the pouring process a lot easier and safer. Why a "brick shed" made of ingots? Why not? I can imagine an 8ft x 10ft shed made entirely of highly polished aluminum bricks, or a mixture of aluminum, copper, and maybe some silver here and there. Maybe throw in some iron decorations. Would probably take years.

I have never been so excited by copper ingots before in my life. XD

Very good and very informative 👍

Looks like you didn't preheat the mold. Resulting in not so great looking ingots.

Heat the mold up with the torch before you pour you'll come out with perfect bars

Very interesting and cool!! A trick to keep your LP tank from freezing is to put it in one of your blue buckets or a old rectangle cooler with some water in it. If you have a full tank of LP fill to a little under half way up the tank. If less than half tank of LP then just enough so it don't float. It helps the gas stay cold and flow out to the last drop.

you can completely remove the solder from the ends of the pipe by heating it up the ends of the pipe with a blow torch until the solder is molten and then you can use a wire wheel on a bench grinder to brush/buff off the solder. It's quick and easy. Just keep the torch lit nearby to keep the solder molten. it removes the solder cleanly and cleans up the pipe.

Hi, you need a second person to help you with a burner as you pour it into the molds to keep the heat up!

You must want a cannon pretty badly. I will be curious to learn how you plan to properly mix the other ingredients with the copper. I suspect you will either need to do it in batches or use a bigger crucible. Still, it is the mixing that I am looking forward to.

Lots of work great little hobby

Time to try this. Thanks!

Pour parallel to the mold not perpendicular. It gives you a bigger target.

Have you calculated how much it cost in gas to do a melt?

would lining the metal ingot mold with liquid paper help it release ? As for the sand molds ... since there is always the possibility of moisture being present in the sand, i'd think a protective leather smock and a full visor should be used in case there is a splatter of hot metal caused by moisture flashing into steam.

Very interesting diy.

Make a small sandbox to work on/pour over......large spalls of concrete and molten metal flying around are not fun, especially with a full unwieldy crucible of molten metal in hand......

0:03 "I 'borrowed' all this from my neighbors house while they were on vacay. . ." 2:09 You totally should shoot it like that. For Science! 2:59 Translation: furnaces are hot. Brought to you by Science! 3:34 "So fresh from the neighbors it sill has water in it!" 8:10 I bet if you put it on top of the furnace to keep it warm you wouldn't have that problem. I'm not saying you wouldn't have *other* problems then, but we should probably just try and solve one thing at a time. 9:10 I'm gona go with something to do with changing crystalline structures. Also it's no longer glowy hot. And maybe an oxidation coating. Was I helpful? 9:21 "Next time on FarmCraft101, cooking with fresh copper ingots." 13:00 Alternatively: Shop Glitter! 15:55 "Because I hate my driveway so much I had to show you twice."

Borax is your friend, when you melt copper or brass. Nice video, as always! Stay thirsty, my friend!

Very Nice Work