I am trying to melt used copper tubing into ingots. My dad wanted to recycle it and trade it for US money, I think melting it into an ingot is better since it is actually worth something.

I was reading an article on www.jamesyawn.com about a furnace he used to melt aluminum into rocket nozzles. I fear that since this tubing is so thick and the steel can is so thin that I will probably melt the can before the tubing.

Does anyone have any good ideas about what I could do to make a more "meaty" furnace that is more sturdy. I am working on a few experiments, I have achieved melting some aluminum coke tabs but nothing else.

Click here , then click on "Smelting Furnace." No, I don't think this project will make you popular with your neighbors or your father.

I recall seeing something on the History Channel about Bronze Age men extracting and smelting copper. It was fairly elaborate, with two men laboring feverishly on bellows. When they were done, the amount of copper melted looked pretty small.

I suspect that anything you may gain by melting the copper into ingots will be more than made up by the cost of energy in doing so. It looks like a pretty interesting school project though, if you can enlist the help of a couple of your friends.

Onward and upward,
airforce

Thanks You Airforce,

I am looking for plans that can use charcoal. (The wood kind, nott he slow burning grill stuff) Because we have a lot of wood around that I cna make charcoal from.

I think I can adapt these plans to improve the design I am working on though, Thank You again.

FYI, Colt, you can blow air through charcoal with a hairdryer. I saw it in popular mechanics or something.

Ok, I have adapted my design even more. I will draw up a diagram in photoshop and post it so you guys cna get a feel for what I am doing. My neighbor who was a mathematics professor at Mississippi State University thinks my idea is going to work well. He has also aided in refining the design.

Go for it. The property I live on had a blacksmith shop that burnrd downinthe 1940"s, the shop dated back to the early 19th century at least. On it was the remains of a furnace used to cast small cannon for the Confederacy. It was constrcuted of heavy stone and used a "tub" bellows and wooden pipe for the air scource, charcol was the feul of choice as it is heavily wooded here and there is evidence of extensive charcoling here and by the river.
Copper is a lot easier to melt than pig iron. Have a ball, be carefull though of the gases and the process its self.