I have given some thought to making a home foundry and I was wondering if anyone had some tips for a newbie. Also I was wondering if there is any real value to casting aluminum into ingots and selling them? If there is where do you sell them and what are they generally worth per pound?

Generally they are worth less per pound than the original material is, add in the cost of melting them and you are throwing money away.  Scrapyards like to know what alloy they are getting/selling.

 

As for advice: backyardmetalcasting.com  a site dedicated to this sort of thing.

 

Cast alloys that are good for casting---were used for casting in their previous life.

 

and finally PAY ATTENTION TO SAFETY  molten metal is much more dangerous that steel even hundreds of degrees hotter!

Lots of different aloy aluminum an inform might be more per # than breakage (AL with steel) but if the scrap yard doesn't trust you maybe not. Too easy to add die cast.

That casting forum is currently experiencing errors.  There is a guy on there that makes and sells zinc-aluminum alloy ingots on ebay, look it up there.  He must be making some $.  Probably not a lot, though.

 

Tips -

 

Wear a face shield, welding gloves, long sleeves/jeans, and leather boots.  Better would be leather apron and spats. 

 

Heat your ingot molds on the furnace lid before pouring.  Cold molds or condensation will cause this:

 

No, you aren't going to do anything but spend money for no good reason. First the reduced value as scrap then there's fuel costs, then there's how much al you'll lose in the melt. Depending on how good you are at it sometimes all the al is oxidized and lost.

 

On the other hand, if you're going to get into casting yourself sub to a casting forum and experiment listening to expert advice. Al cans, siding and extrusions make okay at best casting stock for simple forms. If you want to do thin section or complex forms you'll have to select al that's been cast in thin and complex forms.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

Molten metal makes for a particularly painful clue-by-four  And they never closed the furnace....

most scrap yards here want to know the alloy and purity, they can not know that when you bring them a home cast ingot.  Some may even wonder if it was stolen.  So many either refuse it or pay you very little.  Cast because you want to,  forget about selling them as ingots.  Make something cool and sell that instead !

Take all your scrap Aluminum to a scrap yard and sell it as is.  Take the $$ you get and use it to buy needed tools.  Forget about casting the scrap into blocks.

I take cans to the scrap yard.  But I save all other aluminum such as extrusions.  I alloy it with a little bit of zinc or silicon and it's useful metal. 

If you melt it down, all they will pay you is dirty scrap prices. I have a bucket full of ingots for my casting and I will never get what they are worth unless I make something like this out of them out of them.

Oh and did you notice why the counter kept burning? HINT...... they left the hot crucible on it.

Hi guys.  I'm new to this.   I work in the aerospace industry and have access to aircraft grade aluminum shavings by the tons.  I'm considering smelting them down into ingots.  Any thoughts?

Smelting is the extraction of metals from an ore, melting in liquefying,  . What do shavings have to do with extracting aluminum from bauxite?  Start by learning terminology so we can communicate and learn what you are doing so you dont hurt yourself. 

36 minutes ago, Spooler6 said:

I'm new to this.

Welcome I suggest you start learning here. READ THIS FIRST 

If you have read through this thread, you would have a good idea what we think. Depends what you plan to do with the ingots.

5 hours ago, Spooler6 said:

I work in the aerospace industry and have access to aircraft grade aluminum shavings by the tons. 

2xxx,5xxx,6xxx,7xxx series wrought stuff? Shavings from castings, perhaps?  Mixed? Unknown? Tons of shavings sounds like a good time at the scrap yard, particularly if you know what it is. I would then buy the aluminum type that you intend to cast. I would just melt casting shavings, but I am guessing that you mostly have wrought alloys. 

Even if you have mostly cast stuff, is it all the same composition? I mostly saw a356 when I worked aircraft stuff, but there were other cast aluminum alloys used, too.

If you're thinking of melting it to take to the scrappers it'll bring less than it'll cost you in fuel. If you want to use it for casting you'll lose so much to oxidization . . . I can't even estimate but at least 50%. 

If you want good casting aluminum look for thin wall castings like transmission cases, it's alloyed to flow well with limited shrinkage. It's the primo salvage for the hobby caster.

Frosty The Lucky.

You want chunks not chips