How To Melt Aluminum With A Hole In The Ground
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ส.ค. 2024
- I've been interested to try this design for use as a survivalist foundry for quite some time now. The name of this type of fire pit is a Dakota Fire Hole, and I thought with a little extra air flow provided by a fan it might have the potential for some real heat.
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That is a very sweet furnace!
hi
o hey kipkay :D
I have so many soda cand eack week. Also, I've heard that if you pour the aluminum into a bucket of ice cold water, it forms cool wavy patterns. From there, you can make it into your center-piece and call it modern art.
Gio Penguin
don't pour aluminum in ice cold water, idiot! it will splash all over and burn your skin!
Gio Penguin what could go wrong right?
I enjoyed this video, and I'm subscribed!
Why thank you sir.
eric vo haha crazyrussianhacker is the most ridicoulus chanell on TH-cam, which after a couple decent videos resorted to showing 'how to properly eat watermelons' I feel sorry that you waste time watching his videos
this was a great video! i use to do this all the time but it wasn't very efficient so now i know a great way to smelt down some metals :)
I wonder if kipkay enjoys this
+Dimitri Javani Ya but Atleast i Dont have to spend Time With Your Dumbness
ONE WORD OF CAUTION!
DON'T do a Dakota fire hole ANYWHERE close to TREES! You can catch the entire root system on fire underground and the WHOLE TREE can catch fire up to a week later, even if you bury the coals with dirt! It's best to flood the hole with water really well before back filling the dirt if it's even "remotely" close to trees.
(You might even want to pin this or modify the description to include this.)
Thanks for this info 🎉 I would hate to accidentally burn down one of my fruit trees.
don't be such a big wiener.
i would gladly bet upwof thirty bucks you have zero personal experience with any of this.
shut up and stay off your keyboard.
My shopping list
1. A shovel
2.Wooden Planks
3.A small metal fan
4.A steel pot
5.100s of Pop cans
Not suspicious at all.
You could just find sticks
Haha, better than the trunk of my car for a while: Jug of bleach, rubber gloves, trash bags, rope, shovel, machete, changes of clothes. Looks REAL suspicious being a janitor that also loves hiking/camping, or being prepared.
Hi Ben (Nighthawkinlight),
I just make this forge and successfully melted aluminum. I should mention that I had to dig through about 1.5 ft of solid sandstone down AND diagonally. This took me about four hours but it was well worth it! Burs AMAZINGLY hot! Started to melt the steel rod I was using. Thanks for the great projects ;).
Liquid aluminum is so fascinating... Great video!
you're so far down in the comments section...lol btw I love ur vids
L ja tee
Great video!! :D
love your channel
Lol so many famous ppl in 1 comment section! **Faints**
Alltime10s WOW YOU HAVE OVER 4M SUBS WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE
This is awesome!
Always have to be really careful about moisture in your pour. Like in the video it can cause bubbles but if you're unlucky the bubbles may pop/explode sending liquid metal everywhere. That is why you may see some people preheat their mold before a pour to drive out any moisture.
I thought that was to prevent shock from cracking the mold due to a sudden temperature change
+Connor Steppie it's for both.
+KamiCrit is there a way to protect the holes from turning into mud
I saw one of the guys from Cottage Life cutting open an oil drum. I heard of an accident at my father's work where some guy decided to do that. Nothing but shoes were left for the coffin. If you don't know how long ago and what kind of liquid was stored in oil drums and you really have to cut them then do it when they're filled with water displacing any potential flammable liquid vapor.
That's good advice. There aren't many explosively flammable things that might be found in an oil drum that you couldn't detect with a sniff test, but it's better safe than sorry.
***** I used the term oil drum because that has become a common term for all 55 gallon steel barrels, not all of which are actually used for oil.
I'm here for the debate over the spelling of aluminum/aluminium! :)
You may never leave this place
I'm all for the underdog, "alumino"
I love both of your guys videos keep up the good work
thanks!
Aloominoom.
Great work, QUALITY content!
would adding a layer of proper rocks at the bottom help deliever a more consistant heat level ??
nice
Aymii keegan from my experience yes , rocks helps fire quality
NightHawkInLight
I dug a hole in my garden for this with a air tunnel for a little fan like yours.
The fire got nice and hot!
When I tried to melt the cans it wasn't hot enough.
We got out the skid steer with a post auger. The hole got loaded with large logs and a for fan we used a large box fan.
I put the pot on the fire started loading it up with cans they melted but there was no aluminum in the pot I put kept trying to melt the cans but the was no melted aluminum so finally i lift the pot out and discover that there was a hole melted in the side of the pot.
Lesson learned
Don't try melting aluminum cans in a aluminum pot!
I am off to the store to find a new pot that is STEEL
farmerKJS Did you pull the aluminum out of the hole afterwards?
No i just plowed it under so i could plant
farmerKJS LOL dude, sorry, but that was FUNNY...hahah....looked in the bottom of the pot and there was a hole...damn dude, you just made my night!!
As for leaving the aluminum in there, hmmmm I don't know much about metallurgy but that might not be so good for whatever you're planting......I know a LOT of home builders bury a lot of their debris and grass won't grow over the place where they buried it. A buddy of mine bought a new house and there was a square patch in his backyard, about 8' square that just wouldn't grow.....he finally dug it up and found 4 or 5 bundles of pink insulation, brand new in the packages.....
michael C
well it was only a little but and the wood/ash is natural. I haven't had any problems yet
farmerKJS ok, that's good, I was thinking that it was like 4 lbs or something lol...
Seriously though, did you laugh when you saw the hole in the bottom of your pot? I know I would.....lol...and it wouldn't be the first time something like that happened to me...like the time I changed the oil in my car, put 4.2 quarts in and nothing showed on the dipstick? Well THIS dipstick forgot to put the drain plug back in lol........
I've been doing this for years. Great minds think alike! For the air tunnel, I use a scrap piece of pipe from a fence post driven down at an angle to the hole bottom and a vacuum cleaner rigged as a blower. I fuel mine with wooden blocks cut on the chop saw from scrap lumber and dead tree limbs. I suggest a cover on the crucible as sand and ash sometimes blow over the top. As the dirt in the hole dries out, the sides tend to crumble so this is only good for occasional pours where a permanent furnace is not worth the effort. Aluminum cans are a poor choice for metal as there is so much surface area on the cans, they oxidize and create lots of slag. Better to add them to an already molten pot of metal if they must be used. Steel muffin tins are good to pour left over aluminum in to make ingots.
Beware! Molten metal is no joke. It will burn right through your shoe and molten metal poured on concrete or wet ground can explode from the steam created.
What do you use for a cast?
connor jackson
I use mostly extruded aluminum window frames and small engine parts such as pistons and engine blocks. If you heat aluminum, it becomes brittle at high temps and can be broken apart with a big hammer. some guys use old BBQ grills to heat metal in to make it brittle enough to break apart. I just throw it in the fire for a while. any ingots you make should be small enough to fit in your crucible.
clockguy2 I think he ment what method do you use as a mold for casting , just my take on what he said
ChickenPlaysHD Yes, that's what I was asking. I'm thinking of making custom molds and was wondering what other people have used.
connor jackson I use green sand. Some use lost foam casting.
YOU saved my summer! I was going crazy for an optimal design just for a dozen cans I wanted to smelt and didn't want to build an high effort forge! thank you! :)
Kipkay, MatthewSantoro, TKOR, and even alltime10s watched the video, and it only has 1.5 million views. It deserves WAY more.
I'm fucking high
I was very worried those moisture bubbles were going to pop molten metal all over you. I want to try making Silumin, aluminum alloyed with silicon using a thermite reaction between the molten aluminum and some clean sand to produce the silicon. I read that a eutetic mixture is good for forging and a hypereutectic mixture would be good for casting engine parts
Nice! So simple to make too, now that we know how. Thanks.
Great fire pit design. I think my dog has been trying to dig one of these in my garden for awhile lol. :)
Smart dog. Mine just bury bones. Does your dog know how to start a fire?
@@cindyjencks5848 mine does
Really cool idea and great video!
-Ritchie
I love this guy, he is like the caveman of all the sciency-diy channels, go dig a damn hole and fill it with coal, the fire needs air? dig another hole!
BRAN NEW SHINY STAINLESS STEEL POT LOOTED IN A NEARBY CAVE YEAH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! PREHISTORIC SOLAR PANELS AND MEDIEVAL ELETRIC FAN !!!!
@@genkidama7385 I Imagine that if you don't have a stainless steel pot looted from a cave, you could always opt for stone. If you don't have prehistoric solar panels, or a medieval electric fan, you could fashion a bellows from the skin of an animal, or woven cloth, or find a bunch of long reeds and longer winded people to blow them.
For those curious aluminum won’t melt if it comes into direct contact with fire. It needs to be heated properly without direct exposure to fire so in other words it must head through the bottom of a crucible or steel bucket or generally a container that heats up and prevents the fire from coming into contact with the aluminum.
I like that you don’t need to buy an expensive foundry. Thank you. I’ll will do this to melt my Aluminium cans and pour them to make projects. Excellent video.
A foundry is a building or structure used in the melting of metals.
The pit would be called a furnace and the pot would be called a crucible
ah nostalgc video of your just appeared on my recommended.
That´s awesome my friend, very cool, like a Dakota fire pit times 10.
I've used this method twice now, with a shop vac to stoke, and for fuel I've tried both charcoal and coal, worked like a charm both times. absolutely dirt cheap (heh heh) and produces very satisfying results.
I did this about a year ago trying to melt cans and I think I have the exact pot that you're using except one size bigger but everybody talked me out of it saying it's too good of a pot to use so. I tried to use a steel cap off a big pipe a friend of mine made but the empty weight of that still bucket was probably 40 to 50 lb and would probably hold 20 pounds of melted aluminum. I piped PVC underground and I used my leaf blower, just at idle. . So then I bought a crucible which came in broke so waited on the next one and then I broke it on the 2nd melt.. So I'm going to replace my screws first before I even start using my large pot. Glad I stumbled across this I may finally be able to pursue Milton all these cans which I got plenty of wood to use no worries there. Also went to the local hardware store called harbor freight and picked up one of those flamethrowers you hooked to a propane tank actually about two of them but once I tested one of them I was a little skeptical of the safety of it plus I got to get rid of this wood anyway.
Your video is much more watchable than the "professional" video that sponsored you. At least you keep your camera still.
You should watch some of their other videos. They have a bunch of different presenters. I really like this guy's stuff: th-cam.com/video/sMC3ZF-kuUM/w-d-xo.html
DUDE! Thanks for confirming what I was wondering/figuring would be a great way to melt aluminum. I can't recall the name of the fire pit you made (Think it was related to a Native Indian Tribe, read it in a Survival Guide), but was thinking that would be the best way to economically force air into the fire area. Some modern tech (small fan powered by solar) to spare having to use a bellows or long pipes and communal lung power. I can chop wood, that's no money, I can dig a hole, no more money, and I have solar panels to run a small fan, and a cheap pot can be found at Goodwill. Now hopefully, I can talk the local mills into letting me get some scraps or shavings. (Lol, just read your description, "Dakota Fire Hole")
This is a cool idea, but I have one huge caveat. NEVER pour molten metal in a pile of dirt. If there is any water in the dirt it can flash to steam which then splatters molten metal all over. I had this happen with lead, pouring it into a piece of wood. When professionals cast molten metal, they always heat their forms first to drive out any moisture. If you want to use something simple and safe, dried out sand is much better. You can even mix the sand with a binder and form molds, which is really fun.
In this case, luckily, nothing happened. I just want to make sure that nobody viewing the video gets hurt. Love your videos, keep being awesome!
Agreed. Typically a steam explosion is most dangerous in non porous containers because the steam has nowhere to go besides up, through the molten metal. I was aware of this in pouring into dirt which does have some porosity to release pressure downward. It did still have some risk though as you say.
@@Nighthawkinlight I didn't think of that - the dirt wasn't even highly compacted, so it was probably safer than I thought. My main concern was if people see the video and try it in soil like we have in MD, which is pretty much 100% wet clay below 4 inches of dirt.
what i mean by that is that when i go camping this is perfect for warmth during a needed time. what i thought about it is if digging a hole preserves heat then wouldn't that be a perfect way to cook with the titanium pots/pans, as well as to preserve heat for the camp fire on a cold night or any other needs that include heat. thank you again! i promise to like and subscribe, just as long as you make more vids like this.
Woah! I always wanted to make an aluminum furnace,but its to complicated,finaly a a.f. that is easy to make
why the fuck are there too many awesome youtubers in this video?
Kipkay, The King of Random, Alltime10s, ZombieGoBoom, HouseholdHacker, GreenPowerScience, Mathew Santoro, and Hybrid Librarian. I may have missed some more!
They're apart of a partner network, they use each other to grow their fan bases.
I also recommend removing the slag before pouring, but overall very nice set up!
I thought your forge build was simple, but this is even more impressive.
I LOVE YOUR SOIL. All I have in PA is rocks...And more rocks..
I tried a stainless steel pot to melt copper but it ended with the stainless steel melted and not the copper...
Da fuk the logic lol
Use a carbon crusable instead. it happened to me too.
Thats actually rly funny
for that slow best it and keep a top on it for aluminum hours gas
You can melt brass in a steel crucible, I think.
This was absolutely 100% nice. Gonna try this next summer
This is how I melt aluminum since I don't have enough money to build the mini metal foundry Grant Thompson made yet. Keep making new videos they're really entertaining.
You're totally cool. :-)
erin meek Thanks!
Neat project. Another fun video!
Wow, I wonder if I could do this without pissing off the people I live with/own this house with?
During melting of aluminum is formed on the surface Al2O3
Im happy i found this i just dug a hole a few days ago. Ive got about 300lbs to melt and cast
Will this help with melting bodies down?
+MasterZephyr6 You have the same "problem" too?
Samurai Mikai You know it
Sigh, this is only a dream for people who live in Georgia.
hytato the dirt is clay... ;(
all of your videos are fantastic and super creative. high production value also doesnt hurt.
Thanks for the insight. You have given me plenty of ideas for my next build. I have tried a couple of different methods neither worked as well as this. I think the world should look different upon refuse. It takes 1/3 of NSW power supply to turn bauxite into aluminium and yet we throw it in the bin every day! We need to stop thinking of the rubbish as refuse and start thinking of it as a source of ore. People who pick through are not scavengers, they are the new age miners! Aluminium , copper, old concrete (gravel and lime) wood pallets (energy source), scrap iron, plastic bottles (syngas and creosote through pyrolysis) and many other things are all objects of value. If one was so inclined one could make a good living of breaking down old car tires using old wood pallets as a fuel source, collecting the nails as an iron source, while heating a crucible to melt down cans and aluminium scrap. One could very easily generate, aluminium ingots, oil, syngas, iron scrap, and ash nitrates.
I gave this a try over the weekend, and it worked great! I made the same mistake of using a pot with aluminum rivets. I was able to melt down a few cans and get a handle on how this works (burned myself a couple times).
I'm planning on making some little ingot casts, along with out of plaster of paris. Is that possible?
Yep, that's possible. A lot of people use muffin tins. Wear safety glasses and preheat your casts! If there is any moisture in them it can cause the aluminum to splash or pop when it's poured throwing hot drops everywhere.
I would caution against using plaster for molds. Even when heated they can still retain moisture and pop molten metal out at you. Speaking from experience and fortunately didn't get splashed.
LOLStudiosMusic1 check out grant Thompson if you haven't already he has a lot of cool foundries that are pretty easy to make this one's great to if you can get a hold of plaster and sand but they are portable
LOLStudiosMusic1 Yep Grant Thompson (The King of Random) has a youtube channel that has a lot of good stuff.
Digging a hole digging a hole too much minecraft parodies
Make the hole slightly larger and line the interior with firebricks (except where the air hole is, obviously). That'll help retain heat and make the foundry more efficient, and possibly more effective.
a friend in my boy scout troop (8th grader) did this, but used an electric leaf blower as a fan. He made a whole aluminum ingot. Awesome!
Need an idea? Throw in some gallium into molten aluminum. i wanna see what's happening to the gallium ..
Derk Jochems Huh, that's actually an interesting thought. I imagine it would just turn it straight to slag much faster
NightHawkInLight I think it would clean the impurities a little faster.
Derk Jochems
I'm 2 years late, but it would alloy together. Then, if you put the cooled chunk in water, it would produce a bunch of hydrogen, aluminum oxide, and the gallium could then be reused. Gallium makes aluminum react in water. It could power an engine, boiler, air motor, etc using old cans, leaving nothing but aluminum oxide.
Ah, a Dakota Fire Hole.
nice way to do it, extremely cheap on materials needed, and simple to do and understand. Great job.
Dude, ALWAYS, ALWAYS pre heat your mold to +250 degrees F. This will eliminate any moisture, and keep you from getting steam explosion, resulting in an aluminum face mask. Pop cans are all 6061 T6 aluminum. There is no manufacturing code for the pull tab. They are made of softer stuff. Great video! Thank you.
Aluminum face mask???? 😃😮
you know what's a good fuel there?
Anthracite coal.
2:27 "with the crucible sitting directly on the holes." *FARTS*
i know lol but thats what it sounds like haha
Big pooted
A very sophisticated idea to build a furnace. Thx for the idea. Will try and if sucessful then i'll put the link in the comment for the video
I searched 15 videos and yours finally works
Why didn't the steel melt, soften, or collapse from the fire like the world trade center? I'm confused by reality and science...
David Chase This fire wasn't anywhere near hot enough to melt the steel.
I know, I was being sarcastic to the sheeple who believe fire/jet fuel caused the world trade centers to collapse. Thank you for taking the time to acknowledge my statement. Have a good day.
No offense but he clearly said that steel needs much higher temperature to melt than aluminum
None taken but you completely missed the joke.
David Chase do u git funi 911 jook/???????? xxxXDdDDDddDdDdDDD
Perfect food smoker. Just add a 55 gallon barrel with removable lid and the bottom cut out placed over the fire. Use metal rods or racks to hold the food you are smoking.
To control the smoke and heat, just cover the air intake.
I personally made this and smoked some ham and bacon (32lbs worth) for 48 - 72 hours (depending on weight) adding wood about every 5 hours, then loaded the wood for over night smoking and almost closed the air intake.
Tasty food.
Good idea for melting with no equipment or setup. My waste oil burners take some building and setup even if they have a lot more heat output but with a 12V fan, this could be done anywhere.
Very cool, or hot I should say. Its these types of videos that are a real asset in the event of a catastrophe like the grid getting fried and having to survive without electricity. I would imagine this is an ancient method for casting and things evolved along that path to the modern day smelting and foundry operations.
When its all said and done the same principles apply, getting the material hot enough to make it molten and cast something usable. Thanks for the video.
A Dakota fire pit is a wonderful thing! This will make casting so much cheaper, thank you!
Very nice what I use for my air intake is the blower from an old vacuum duct taped to a simple vent pipe causes a constant positive pressure much better than a fan
Very very good idea, for possibly the cheapest way to melt Aluminium. I cannot think of a cheaper or easier way to do it. Fantastic video NightHawkInLight, absolutely awesome brother, thank you for sharing.
For anyone looking for a better, more economical way of melting Aluminium, I know of none.
Also makes a great cook fire, especially in windy areas. Bonus, refill the holes and put the sod plugs back on top. Almost but not quite leave no trace.
I am a Hobby gunsmith and knife Maker and this idea is Great
Good idea, looks so simple but yet it works so great!
I LOVE backyard casting.
Way better than all the complicated ones I've seen
Thankfully I got a cheap vacuum cleaner from goodwill for 3 dollars, and I took it apart and turned it into a blower with the power of a vacuum cleaner. I'm worried that it might be too powerful and put out the fire. Also, a bit of advice. If you want to be able to get good aluminum pieces to melt, cast them in a steel muffin tin to make little pieces of metal without slag that you can remelt later on when you want to use it.
When I first saw how you were melting it I was concerned that it would not melt but amazingly it did melt great video
This is a good sustainable type of fire for people to know how to make. I have used it a dozen times when camping and there were strong winds. Burns wood quick tho.
My advice to you if you try this again, get more cans, but keep the heat on for a while and get a stainless steel ladle and pull all that slag off of there. Will make any castings you do a ton better
Love this video, Super cool way to get liquid Aluminum for casts.
When I was a kid my father would melt soda cans in our fire pit, he used an old iron pot that was almost cauldron style and a rod used to hang plants... This video was a flashback to childhood
Thanks for the idea! I might try casting a few machine parts using this method.
I literally had the idea to make an in-ground foundry/furnace in my head for the longest time and now I've stumbled upon this!! Lol awesome
This is the cheapest and the best furnace I've ever seen on youtube
You have an amazing channel man. All very interesting. I like how your projects may not go as expected but you upload it anyways so we can see the results. Really cool stuff.
You know thats rather cool! even better on a windy day without the need for a fan. You could also build up some soil around that foundry and not have to dig so deep.
Liquid metal looks so majestic
the melting aluminum thing is pretty cool
I really like your forge videos, like the ones where you demonstrate casting and melting metals. You should make a video showing start to finish from an aluminium can to a knife or something, That would be really cool
You should make a cool looking dagger or something.
great idea, i tried it today and it totaly works
this was very helpful, my kids want to try making an anthill sculpture. Let the fun begin. Thanks....
Next time, or as an alternative, you could drill a hole through the pot's sides and push a steel pole through to help when you need to remove the pot.
How much aluminum or how many cans would you recommend for making a project roughly a pound in weight?
You should use sand to cast.
Now I have a way to deal with the fire ants and make some cool art.
You might get more oxygen to the fire if you position the tube of a shop vac set on blow in the tunnel.
This gets a favorite. Ferb, I know what we're going to do tomorrow.
This guy sounds like bird person from rick and morty. This vid is dope!
I used your idea, except I only dug one hole and then drove a pipe at an angle for or the air vent. After that I remove the first pipe and replaced it with one that wasn't packed with dirt. I am currently using a hair-dryer for the air and a propane tank as the crucible.
Was looking up how to melt aluminum didn't realize that you had made an in ground rocket stove. Thanks.
thanks i always go camping just out in the forest not a campsite but this will help a lot
Sweet! First thing I'm going to build on summer vacation
Great video - I loved the background music. Very soothing.
Man, I've always liked your channel, but this is by far the coolest video that you've ever made!!!!!