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CommandD
New Member
22 Posts |
 Posted - 09/16/2007 : 21:02:40
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Has anybody here looked into post-ban penny melting at home?
I've seem melting electric furnaces capable of melting copper for sale on ebay for $500.00 and ingot molds selling for ten bucks/ Throw in about a hundred bucks worth of other equipment (asbestos gloves, etc.) and you would be in business to make 95% copper bars!
I have recently came across a source for tons of (unsorted) Canadian pennies and am thinking of turning them into bars before selling them as the refiners I have approached locally will not even buy foreign currency.
Any thoughts?
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HoardCopperByTheTon
Administrator
USA
6807 Posts |
Posted - 09/16/2007 : 21:45:26
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I looked into some of this stuff pre-ban and it seemed like the energy costs to run that furnace would seriously eat into any profits. It would solve your problem of getting the refiners to buy your copper, but wouldn't most folks want .999 bars instead of .95?
If your percentages are low.. just sort more.
"Preserving REAL coinage.. 2 tons at a time... and FAKE coinage.. a quarter ton at a time.. just for speculation"
HoardCode0.1:M49/15USCA:US1Cu710150(135000 Reserved):US1Zi150000:US5Ni9500:CA5Ni1150 |
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CommandD
New Member
22 Posts |
Posted - 09/16/2007 : 22:54:56
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I'm thinking of getting it into bar form just so they would take it...
But I do know some places that sell 80/90/95% copper bars. |
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HoardCopperByTheTon
Administrator
USA
6807 Posts |
Posted - 09/16/2007 : 23:13:43
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Yeah, that would make it easier to get them to take it. Do these electric furnaces operate on 110 or 220 volts? I would be afraid it would seriously run up my electric bill.
If your percentages are low.. just sort more.
"Preserving REAL coinage.. 2 tons at a time... and FAKE coinage.. a quarter ton at a time.. just for speculation"
HoardCode0.1:M49/15USCA:US1Cu710150(135000 Reserved):US1Zi150000:US5Ni9500:CA5Ni1150 |
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horgad
1000+ Penny Miser Member
USA
1641 Posts |
Posted - 09/17/2007 : 08:03:50
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If you want to melt stuff cheaply, than you need to look into building yourself a mini cupola furnace. The mini-cupolas are modeled after the furnaces used by industrial operations and can be run off of propane, coke, hardwood charcoal, and even used motor oil (cheapest). If built properly these suckers can even melt steel.
One thing to be aware of if you melt any thing with zinc in it is that zinc as a lower melting temperature than most metals and when it hits boiling temperature it gasifies and becomes zinc oxide. Zinc oxide gas can give you what is called Metal Fume Fever and can even be fatal in large amounts. In small amounts it is relatively harmless, but any white smoke/vapors coming off your melt should be avoided. (By the way, zinc oxide is the key to refining copper by at least one method.)
As for the small electric furnaces, I don't how much they cost to operate, but I think that I can figure it out. They are marketed mostly to jewelers who are working with gold and silver so maybe they are impractical for use with copper. A small one melts 30 troy ounces of gold at a time or 25 troy ounces of silver. Copper's density is 8.94 and silver's is 10.5. So figure that the furnace can melt 15% less copper or about 21.25 troy ounces (roughly 1 3/4 pounds).
Electricity in my area cost about 7 cents per kW hour. The furnace runs at 11.3 amps and takes 21 minutes to get to melting temperatures. So using the below formulas...
watts/1000 = kW x hours of operation = kWh x kWh rate = cost
volts x amps = watts
1.356 kW to operate x 21/60 hours = .4746 kWh to melt 1 3/4 pounds
.4746 kW x .07 cost per kW = 3.3 cents to melt 1 3/4 pounds!
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Edited by - horgad on 09/17/2007 08:04:46 |
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HoardCopperByTheTon
Administrator
USA
6807 Posts |
Posted - 09/17/2007 : 11:27:37
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Do any of these furnaces get hot enough to melt copper? Isn't the melting point of copper a bit higher than those other metals?
If your percentages are low.. just sort more.
"Preserving REAL coinage.. 2 tons at a time... and FAKE coinage.. a quarter ton at a time.. just for speculation"
HoardCode0.1:M49/15USCA:US1Cu710150(135000 Reserved):US1Zi150000:US5Ni9500:CA5Ni1150 |
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horgad
1000+ Penny Miser Member
USA
1641 Posts |
Posted - 09/17/2007 : 13:34:07
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The Kerr auto electric furnaces go up to 2050 F which is about 1100 C.
In celsius some melting point are:
zinc 420
silver 961
gold 1064.58
copper 1084
nickel 1453
iron 1535
So the Kerr equipment should melt copper, but just barely. However, pouring is a different story. You need to get the temperature above melting by some amount in order to pour it with out it instantly re-solidifying. The Kerr equipment might enable you to pour a bar...I really don't know. 16 degrees to spare seems pretty small. More complex pours using pure copper would be even more difficult because of the extra time it would take for the liquid copper to fill in all of the details of the mold.
The mini cupola furnaces that I mentioned can melt iron and of course would have no problems melting copper.
By the way, the boiling point of zinc is 907 C! So please be careful out there... |
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CommandD
New Member
22 Posts |
Posted - 09/17/2007 : 23:29:11
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Thanks for the info and the zinc oxide warning.
Yes, an electro-melt can melt copper but I have questioned the tempeture needed to successfully pour it. But in my scenario the ingots don't need to be pretty - they just don't need to look like the Canadian pennies from whence they came!
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n/a
deleted
43 Posts |
Posted - 09/18/2007 : 12:24:44
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I wonder if it would be more valuable to keep them as pennies. Pennies are a known quantity and can be traded easily. Smelters won't care, but your average person may prefer to buy coins. Metal bars are less known, and the average person has no way of knowing what the purity of a metal bar is. I have seen this issued discussed in the past with silver - whether to buy silver bars or silver coins.
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Jason
Penny Pincher Member
USA
138 Posts |
Posted - 09/18/2007 : 22:49:28
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Personally i would keep them as pennies and just sell them on ebay, but if for some reason i wanted to make ingots, my cutting torch would be plenty sufficient to melt them.
M20/1USMS:US1Cu22700:US1Zn7500:US5CuNi720:US10Ag128:US25Ag89:US50Ag40:Us100Ag3 |
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Post Ban Penny Melting
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