New and Unsure of Copper

[Thatguy.]

Hey friends,

Brand new to all of this and curious as far as copper goes if i can melt all these together or no? (Just the copper, not the other stuff) Thanks!

[Frosty]

You "CAN" melt it together but it's not a trivial thing. How much do you know about handling molten metal, have experience? Molten metals are extremely dangerous, a couple drops of water hidden in a mold or under a spill can spatter 2,000f molten copper maybe 20' or farther in every direction.

Speaking of how dangerous molten metal is, do you have good PPE? Leathers, jacket and pants, safety glasses, face shield with leather hood, gloves that can protect you from the heat and not provide pockets molten metal can fall in and don't forget boots slip on high tops you can wear your CUFFLESS pants over so spatter can't cool itself off quenching on your feet. 

There are plenty of posts and threads on Iforge regarding the above topics and there are fora devoted to casting but it's an involved thing you really need to have a good handle on before trying to melt. Even low temp metals like zinc or lead are very dangerous and they're nothing compared to high temp melts.

Do you have a purpose for melting all that together? Maintaining copper's integrity isn't easy, it LOVES to absorb oxygen from the atmosphere and degasing is a must or you've made hard to recover junk.

What do you have for a melter? 

There's more but I'm not a caster, I know just enough to take a couple classes before attempting it on my own.

Frosty The Lucky.

 

[ThomasPowers]

Much what he said, what is it they you need to make? 

I remember one fellow who wanted to make ingots for selling to the recycling center.  Spent a lot of time and money doing so only to find out they paid *less* for an ingot as they couldn't identify all that was in it and sort it into "pure copper" (electrical wire and plumbing pipe) and "dirty copper" (much less in price).

I took an "out of hours" brass casting class at a local University's Fine Arts department that was a great introduction on how to do it and be safe about it---the instructor showed us his scar from an "oops" he did his first time attempting to cast.