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Melting large amount of aluminium

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NeoTech:
So i have been collecting car scrap for a while now. And the big thing with collecting car scrap is that its not only aluminium, and have alot of crud on it, so it needs to be "scrap" melted once before it can be put to good use and melted into ingots once more.

So how would one go about doing this? I have been thinking of making a flowerpot or something with a clay lining and hole in the bottom with some kind of screen for sorting the worst out in the first melt.. anyone had a similar idea to be able to melt down laaarge amounts of scrap.

NormanV:
I had half a dozen car wheels to melt. I obtained an oil drum beat the bottom to a hollow and cut a hole in the centre and four holes in the sides near to the bottom for draught. I placed the whole thing on some bricks to allow an ingot mould to fit under.
I lit a big wood fire and piled the wheels and some other castings in. After some time molten aluminium ran out and I was able to catch it in the ingot mould. I had to work quickly as once it starts to flow it's quite fast. I did not have many steel part in the castings but you could put a mesh at the bottom of the oil drum to hold them back.
I have read of someone using the same idea but standing the drum above another drum full of water thereby producing little pellets of aluminium which I am sure would remelt faster than my loaf sized ingots.

NeoTech:
Ah nice let it pour into water. Just hope u get no inclusions i guess. But i have a half barrel i can try it with.

glumpy:
I use a waste oil burner I made and have build tutorials on my Channel for.  I do a lot of scrap ally from cars, mainly Cylinder heads and Manifolds.  A cylinder head takes about 6 Min in an open drum I use for a furnace.





The benefit of melting things like this particularly heads is that it takes all the ally away and leaves all the steel bits you don't want.  I have found using bricks in the drum not only helps contains the heat but also strains the liquid ally very well of dross and other contaminants such as steel pieces.

There are lots of other burner and melting Vids on my channel so have a look around and see what is useful to you.

awemawson:
Hi Glumpy, welcome aboard  :thumbup:

That's a mighty powerful melter that you have there  :bugeye:

Now remind me, what's that country in the antipodes that has bush fires  :scratch:

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