Learn how to melt aluminum cans here and earn yourself another invaluable survival skill!
Backyard Blacksmithing: How to Melt Aluminum Cans
Blacksmithing Is an Essential Survival Skill
When SHTF, the survival skills you have on hand become incredibly priceless! One skill that has sadly fallen to the wayside in recent years is the art of blacksmithing.
Blacksmithing is a DIY survival skill that will turn out to be more useful than you thought.
Knowing how to melt aluminum is an essential survival skill to master, indeed. That is because you can't trust that, in an uncertain future, someone else will do it for you.
You've got to know how to make your own materials.
1. Building Your Own DIY Blacksmithing Tools
Unfortunately, forges and furnaces will be in high demand but not readily available. You must then be able to produce your own melting furnace to start producing the raw materials you need.
Thus, having your own crucible will set you up to have a small-scale metalworking industry in your backyard (or bomb shelter.)
Survival DIY
The term “survival DIY” can be easily misunderstood when taken literally. It simply means being able to do most things on your own.
When SHTF, the power grid might fail, along with other sources of energy. The possibilities are endless and unpredictable.
You are then unable to make it without the proper everyday tools, so learn to DIY for long-term survival.
Work with what's around or what's left because it will be the only way. You will have to recycle or repurpose materials to fabricate weapons, tools, and even utensils.
2. Make Your Own Metal Foundry
Aluminum alloys can be hard to produce on your own, but having a stack of ingots you made from molten aluminum can supply you with a heavy amount of raw materials to build tools with.
Luckily, with a little time, effort, and a few household items, you can build your own! Before you start melting, you have to produce a foundry.
With your own foundry, you can melt down metals like aluminum and repurpose them into the tools you need. We have the step-by-step instructions for how to make your own mini foundry and how to melt aluminum.
Now that you know how to make your own aluminum melting furnaces, you have more room to be creative with your tools.
Check out the video tutorial below to learn how:
3. How to Turn Scrap into Muffins
Once you get this bad boy built, you can do all sorts of things with it! Check out this short instructional video below that shows how to turn scrap into “muffins.”
Basically, the muffins are made of molten aluminum. After melting your aluminum cans, you can turn them into many nifty things to use for survival purposes.
After you make “muffins” in your mini foundry, use them to cast survival tools or supplies. Of course, you have to remember to be cautious when handling molten metal.
RELATED: Homemade Aluminum Can Burners
4. How to Melt Aluminum Cans at Home with a Mini Metal Foundry
Learning how to melt aluminum can save your life when you're in need of a self-defense tool or something to trade.
With the number of soda cans floating around in garbage cans everywhere, you won't have to look very far to start melting. This does not even limit itself to just cans; you can use aluminum foil or any aluminum-based products.
There's a bit more work involved if you want to make aluminum alloys, but this survival DIY skill is worth your time. Melting aluminum for raw materials is a good way to set yourself up when a global crisis comes down.
A word of warning: This foundry can reach temperatures well over 1200 degrees Fahrenheit! Make sure you use all the proper safety equipment before you attempt to use your foundry.
Survival Skills Everyone Should Know for When SHTF
Our world is one disaster away from becoming a wasteland. When that happens, you have no choice but to live the way our forefathers used to, some centuries ago.
That means learning unfamiliar survival skills, like the aluminum melting process. You never know when you might need a DIY survival weapon or homemade items to trade.
Scrap metal will be hard to come by, and having a stock of soda cans ready will be useful. So, hoard what you can, while you can.
It needn't only be soda and beer cans, though. Foil, aluminum powder, and the like can produce valuable ingots you can use to craft more tools.
Having plenty of scrap metal and molten soda cans is a good way to have raw materials on hand.
5. Metal Casting or How to Melt Metal into Useful Tools
Metal casting in itself is an art form, and formal education will certainly help you out. You can't just put things in an oven and expect them to come out useful, of course.
So, try to find a metal working class to join. If you can't find one, YouTube has a wealth of information ready for your picking.
In time, you might even be a post-apocalyptic Legatus Legionis with your own private army equipped with your homemade survival tools.
You can also forge metal at home with this product.
Check out how to melt soda cans in this video from The King of Random:
The whole aluminum melting process down to casting seems pretty complicated, but once you get the hang of it, the skill will stay with you. In fact, a lot of people take time to learn the skill only for entertainment value.
For now, melting aluminum cans for profit is trending, but when SHTF, they'll have a super valuable skill they can use to survive. So take the time to learn the skill, both for fun and survival value!
What do you think? Is backyard blacksmithing a skill you have on hand? Is it worth adding to your survival skill set? Let us know in the comments below!
Up Next: How To Make An Improvised Camping Lantern
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Editor's Note: This was first published on April 16, 2018, and has been updated for quality and relevancy.
Dont need the sword, need the foundry. Need details to make…
Got to king of random web page he has instructions there
Thanks….found it..
sorry but where do you find that
found it
Concrete shall make the inner core and a face mask shall stop polluted air from reaching me.
This is really great! As a chemist, though, who used to work at an aluminum plant, if you want to make stuff from cans, you must remember that they are made from very pure aluminum and hence, very soft. If you were to melt other forms of aluminum, extrusions or castings cut to fit the furnace, the alloy will be MUCH stronger and more useful-and, by the way, melts at the same or lower temperature.
Congratulations on a really great video!
Awesome video, but dude…..as someone who cast lead to make bullets, I think I’d be wearing a bit more protection than you are. If I remember right, lead is about half the temp of aluminum at 700 degrees(+-). I wouldn’t want something 1000+ degrees spilling on my bare arm! Also, I don’t know about aluminum, but when you’re melting lead, a single drop of water getting into your melting pot can be disastrous! Keep up the cool videos….just be safe!
where can i find the plans or videos on how to make the mini foundry
Grant Thompson is the expert:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHD10DjxM1g
How to use:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSoWxG30rb0&list=PLbDYIZ0o1HPIymwDTE7falNuZ84o_n4Nj&index=5&feature=iv&src_vid=hHD10DjxM1g&annotation_id=annotation_3806279377
Replacement casting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH-PaNugz9w&list=PLbDYIZ0o1HPIymwDTE7falNuZ84o_n4Nj&index=5
could you melt steel in this contraption?
I don’t think so Jan, it takes 2500 degrees to melt steel, this is a single burner
furnace. It’s temp is only about 1200 degrees. Hope this helps.
dang cool … the gloves are firm grip found at home deep and others …
Randy, thanks for the link.
Damn Joe, and I was trying to figuring out how to cross the street with out my walker?
Joe, you are awesome!
I was fortunate to be taught metalworking / blacksmithing and woodworking at school. I doubt that is available to many nowadays.
However your article has inspired me to build a forge.
I took welding and woodworking classes in high school and had enjoyed it. I still love making things out of wood.
Is there a place that i can find the written instructions for making this
Sorry, not Silver, leftover aluminum, thinking of the silvery color.
Why would anyone want to melt down aluminum for ANY so-called “survival” situation?
Still trying to figure out how this can help me in a SHTF situation?
How does this skill help you? Well, when the larger society falls apart we will still have our neighbors, a small village, so to speak. We will depend on each other to get things done. If you are a blacksmith and I have an apiary and the guy down the street makes biodiesel we are in good shape. And we will learn to get along. We will give locally to the widow and the lame, but not so much to the lazy. I am increasing my skill set to be more valuable in my community since I don’t care to be viewed as a burden. If I am respected for my contribution my family is safer. Bottom line!
Well, now Jc, I like your thinking ,, Welcome to my Community.! Ya’ ain’t gonna go
hungry or without shelter with that attitude for us….. FuzzyLee~
You know most people use Celsius degrees and metric system? When SHTF (by the way, the fan goes m³/h or cfm?) give us a unit converter.
Great skill to learn ahead of time. Remember to be very careful when handling any of the metals and their scrap as there are many that can build up to toxic levels in your body whether by handling or breathing in the fumes. Heat is not the only danger. Remember the Mad Hatter? He was “mad” because of mercury toxicity from the felt used to make hats, it was a real problem. People who work in radiator shops can suffer from lead toxicity.
I also say amen to jcondliffe’s comment about learning useful skills now and community.