Nice – you've built your own mini foundry! Now it's time to put it to use. Check out this tutorial to learn how to melt aluminum soda cans into pucks for casting.
How to Melt Aluminum in Your Mini Foundry
Knowing how to melt aluminum is an incredibly useful survival skill – and this DIY requires only a few household items. Using your mini foundry, a few coals, and a ton of heat, you can turn soda cans into aluminum pucks that can become practically any object. This technique is a great way to recycle old soda cans, and you can make awesome new objects in just a few steps. Check out the supply list below to get started, and let us know your own aluminum melting techniques in the comments.
Supply list:
- Mini foundry & crucible
- Coals
- Blowtorch
- Hair dryer
- 8-10 aluminum soda cans
- Muffin tin
How to melt aluminum:
Step 1: Lay a single layer of coals at the bottom of your foundry.
Step 2: Center your crucible, then fill in the sides with coals.
Step 3: Light the coals! Aluminum melts at 1,221 degrees Fahrenheit.
Step 4: Once they've burned for a few minutes, use a hair dryer to blow air down the blower tube.
Put on the foundry lid to help keep in the heat.
Step 5: Insert an aluminum can into the foundry.
Step 6: Pour the melted aluminum into a muffin pan to create aluminum pucks.
Step 7: About 8-10 cans should give you a sizable puck.
Step 8: Store your pucks in a cool place, or pour it over styrofoam to forge aluminum objects.
Check out the video below to see this tutorial in action:
Want more survival tips? Check out the posts below!
- Homemade Aluminum Can Burners
- 3 Quick Tips to Safely Drink Dirty Water
- 8 Survival Foods That Will Save You in A Power Outage
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Editor’s Note – This post was originally published in November 2015 and has been updated for quality and relevancy.
Sure – Plug in the hair dryer or use the blow torch after the grid goes down. Nice short cuts for today. Where’s the instructions to build a hand operated BELLOWS to get high heat from a pile of dead wood??