Aluminum is a versatile metal and can be used to make many interesting things, including DIY parts. In addition, it has a relatively low melting point, which makes it possible to do casting at home.

Of course, to melt aluminum you will need to make a small furnace; it can even be made from coffee cans, as the author demonstrated. It only took him $23 to create the homemade product, not including the cost necessary tools. You can see how this oven is made and make one similar to yours, following the example.

Materials and tools for homemade work:
- two tin cans, one larger, the other smaller (it is highly not recommended to use zinc-coated cans);
- a household hair dryer (will blow air);
- piece metal pipe(adapter for hair dryer to supply air to the oven);
- scotch;
- metal scissors (ordinary ones will do, if you don’t mind);
- pliers with long handles (for gripping the crucible);
- gloves;
- coal as fuel, lighter fluid and more.

Mini-stove manufacturing process:

Step one. Making the stove body
The stove body is actually taken ready-made; it is a large can from soup, canned food, etc. You need to choose jars with thicker metal. In the lower part, the author made a hole, to which a hair dryer is then connected using a pipe. The hole must be made according to the diameter of the pipe. The easiest way to do it is square shape, but it’s better to tinker a little and do round hole by pipe diameter.

Step two. Supercharging installation
An ordinary household hair dryer is used as an air blower. It must be equipped with an air supply system and have at least two operating speeds. A piece of metal pipe is attached to the hairdryer using tape, and its other end is inserted into the hole previously cut in the bottom of the can. The author secures the cold air supply button with tape; it must be on all the time. Before starting the stove, you need to turn on the hair dryer and make sure that there is no air leakage at the junction of the pipe with the hair dryer. If there is, you still need to wrap it with tape.

You can find a piece as a pipe water pipe, a pipe from a vacuum cleaner will also work, and so on. If the stove is large, you need to take a longer pipe, as it can get very hot and the heat will reach the hairdryer. However, cold air from a hairdryer should cool it well.

Step three. Furnace crucible
The author also has a ready-made crucible for the stove, it is a small tin can from coffee or the same canned food. It is important to remember that such a crucible can only be used once; according to the author, it will inevitably burn out when used again. And this will entail that liquid aluminum will leak into the furnace, which is not very pleasant.

Step four. Furnace tests and conclusions
That's it, the oven is now ready to start. You need to install a crucible in the center and place coal in a circle. Then, after pouring lighter fluid over the coal, you need to wait until it burns completely. After this, you need to turn on the hairdryer at low speed. The tests must be carried out outdoors, otherwise a spark may fly out of the furnace and a fire may occur. In addition, when you first start there will be a lot of smoke from the tin can.

Aluminum beverage cans are suitable sources of aluminum. But, according to the author, due to the fact that the metal in them is very thin, they do not melt, but burn; in the end, too little aluminum is obtained for casting; in general, such a starting material is not very suitable.
If you decide to melt the cans, you must first crush them.

From 12 cans you can get approximately 150 g of aluminum.
2 cans will give about 300 g, and from 36 cans you can get 450 g of aluminum.

After starting the furnace, the crucible should turn red, this indicates that the furnace is ready and aluminum can be placed in the crucible. When the aluminum is completely melted, it can be poured into molds to form ingots; this is very convenient for further work with the metal.

The author recommends warming up the oven before placing aluminum there because an oxide film forms on the tin can, which protects the metal from overheating. If aluminum is placed before the oven heats up, it can burn through the metal and leak out. You should always work with thick gloves that do not burn or melt, since the oven heats up to very high temperatures.

Casting molds should under no circumstances be wet, otherwise during casting the liquid hot metal may explode and fly in different directions.

The author does not insert the hairdryer pipe completely into the oven, since even at low speeds there is too much air supply. By adjusting the distance between the pipe and the oven window, you can achieve the required air supply, and as a result, the temperature.

Important!
When constructing such furnaces, zinc-coated cans cannot be used. The thing is that zinc, when heated, releases toxic fumes that will be harmful to health. If cans with a different coating cannot be found, then you need to work in respiratory protection and do not heat the oven to high temperatures.

Among other things, this furnace can be used as a small forge. When heating steel, a crucible is not installed in it. As a result, it is quite possible to heat a file and then make a small knife or other product from it. For example, you can make small souvenir swords from nails.

For those who follow my blog, I am pleased to announce that I continue to work on creating home production, and I have some progress.

This time I will tell you about my third aluminum melting furnace. The first one was. I successfully melted aluminum in it, but in small quantities. This became my second stove. In it I managed to melt an almost full aluminum cast iron pot (about 4 liters). The casting turned out to be about 5 kilograms, but to smelt that amount of aluminum I spent about two buckets of coal, which is a lot if you calculate everything wisely.

I completely rebuilt the coal-fired smelting furnace, made it more compact, and welded for it metal frame and bought a cast-iron grate, began to make a normal fan pressurization, built a canopy and made a 5-meter exhaust pipe, as well as an exhaust hood like a forge. But due to errors in estimates exhaust system didn't work correctly and I was a little depressed.

And then he took it and decided to build a furnace for melting aluminum on gas! This decision was due to the desire to maximum efficiency, minimal cost and ease of use. A gas stove, unlike a coal stove, does not need to be lit. She doesn't need a hood. It turns out to be compact and transportable. In addition, heat losses in it are minimized due to the tightness of the structure.

I didn’t try to use a blast furnace producing hundreds of liters of melt, but decided that up to 1.5 liters of aluminum (4 kg) would be enough for me. The main thing is that it melts quickly and cheaply. 1 liter of gas now costs 18 rubles. I read somewhere that by using 12 liters of gas you can melt up to 40 kg of aluminum. It turns out that 1 liter of gas should be enough for 3 kg of aluminum, i.e. 6 rubles per 1 kilogram of aluminum.

The gas furnace for melting aluminum in my design is made from a 24-liter hydraulic accumulator tank. It can be easily purchased at any store with a pump and heating equipment. The price is about 2000 rubles. We carefully cut off the top cover with a grinder - we will still need the cover. I consider the upper part of the hydraulic accumulator to which the inch inlet is attached with screws. I unscrewed these screws and took out the rubber balloon.

In the lower side part of the tank we drill a hole Ф50 mm, offset from the center by about 25 mm, and weld a metal pipe Ф50 mm into it. We will insert into it gas burner. The displacement is necessary so that the flame enters the working chamber of the furnace for melting aluminum tangentially and twists into a spiral, going around the melting crucible.

I coated the entire inner surface of the tank and the lid with a 1 cm thick layer of plaster. I mixed the gypsum in small portions with the addition of a couple of pinches of fiberglass, which should give the gypsum some reinforcement. I accidentally noticed this fiberglass in hardware store. Sold in small plastic containers(like seaweed) at a price of about 300 rubles per jar. It’s a little expensive, but the hardened plaster comes away from the mixing tank as a solid crust, which means the fiberglass is working. Why did you cover everything with plaster? I thought it would provide some thermal insulation effect. I spent all the asbestos on a muffle furnace, and it’s a carcinogen - an infection! And gypsum is environmentally friendly. It's time to think about health

While the gypsum insulating coating was drying, I started crushing the fireclay bricks. I was lucky because I came across a loose lightweight one. I got a hard one fire brick I crushed it with great difficulty! Then I tried to crush only the lightweight! Why did I even start crushing bricks? The fact is that I wanted to get a perfect rounded surface of the inner chamber melting furnace. The idea is for the flames to smoothly bend around the chamber, twisting into a spiral. The more irregularities there are inner surface chamber, and the further it is from the round shape, the more difficult it will be for the flame to spread in the working chamber. Although some people stack bricks in a hexagon and tie/fill them, and also melt them successfully. But I wasn't too lazy to crumble the bricks, so I did it

So, the crushed fireclay brick is ready. We take a regular sewer pipe with a diameter of 100 mm and insert it into the middle of the tank. Mix a special fireproof mixture for laying stoves and fireplaces until it becomes liquid sour cream (you can pour a lid into it liquid glass), and add crushed brick there. The final concrete should be quite stiff, so that it no longer flows, is difficult to mix, and even looks a little dry. We begin to throw this concrete between the walls metal tank And sewer pipe. You need to mix it in several passes (because such concrete cannot be mixed properly at once), and each subsequent layer is compacted quite intensively with a wooden block. I also found this mixture at a hardware store. It was called “Fireproof mixture up to 1600° C.” Also, this mixture is sometimes sold under the name “Chamotte Mortar” MSh- and some numbers, but I didn’t find that.

After pouring concrete, this mixture will take a very, very long time to dry. For the first couple of days, it’s not particularly noticeable that anything is drying: the mixture is still plastic and can be kneaded with your finger. The packaging says it hardens in 36 hours and is completely dry in 14 days. On the third day I couldn’t stand it and took the raw one to burn. I burned it with a gas torch. First I tried it on the lid. Warmed, warmed. I look - it’s starting to get brighter! Hurray, the water is evaporating! I tried it with my finger - it became quite hard. In general, I burned the entire stove at once, both outside and inside - nothing cracked or fell off, but on the contrary, it hardened quite well.

And about the gas burner you need to write a separate post! The thing is that assembling the burner is very simple, but getting it to work correctly is quite a task, especially if it is a burner for gas forge or a melting furnace, where combustion occurs in a closed volume. So here's mine. Study!

Homemade ornamental plant, which is shown in the video, is actually a cleverly disguised smelter. This idea will be a real find for those who from time to time work with metal in order to make another craft from aluminum or other metal, but there is not enough space in the workshop or at home to have its own place for each thing.

You will find some inventions for yourself in this Chinese store.

Necessary funds.

In this project, we use equal proportions of sand and gypsum to make a simple melting pot that's powerful enough to melt scrap metal in a second, and nice to look at so you don't have to hide it. This is a mini metal smelter.

First we need large bags of sand and plaster. Both can be bought at a hardware store. We also need a 9 and a half liter metal bucket and a blanket to cover our work area with, because most likely we will get it a little dirty. A two and a half liter bucket can be used as a measuring bucket, but you will soon see that it has a more important purpose.

For our refractory lining we use the following recipe: 4.2 liters of gypsum, 4.2 liters of sand, and 3 liters of water. When the water touches the dry mixture, the countdown begins. We'll have about 15. So let's start mixing everything up. It is very important that all the dry mixture gets wet, getting rid of lumps as quickly as possible.

After a couple of minutes of stirring, the mixture should be fairly runny and roughly the same color. After making sure that there are no lumps left, we proceed to transfusion. Carefully pour the mixture into a metal bucket, being careful not to spill anything. Enough mixture to fill the bucket, leaving about 8cm at the top.

Now we can take a plastic measuring bucket and use it to form the center of the smelter. You can fill it with water to add weight, but sand or rocks will also work. When we push the bucket, the mixture rises, but does not spill out. The mixture has already begun to harden. So let's move the bucket up and down to level it out. You need to hold the bucket in this position for 2-3 minutes, during which time the plaster will harden enough for the bucket to remain in place.

It takes about one hour to fully cure, but the plaster is soft enough to trim. If you dampen a rag and gently rub it over the top, you can smooth out the plaster very nicely and give it a nice texture. Once you're done, leave everything to dry for about an hour.

Melting crucible from a fire extinguisher.

Why not turn that old fire extinguisher into a melting pot? You can tell that it is made of steel because if you put a magnet near it, it will be attracted. This does not happen with aluminum.

Having released the pressure in the cylinder, we unscrew the top valve so that we can easily and safely cut it with a hacksaw, which took less than a minute. For the crucible we will use bottom part, because it is essentially a steel container 8 cm in diameter and 13 cm high. Good size for our homemade mini smelter.

By this time the plaster should be well hardened. Let's pour out the water. Next, use tongs or something similar to gently pull one side of the bucket toward the center. Now, if you grab it with both hands and twist it a little, the bucket will come loose and be easily pulled out.

We got amazing smooth surface, which makes our homemade smelter look surprisingly professional.

Air supply hole.

All we need is a hole for the air supply and a cover. Let's take care of them. The three and a half inch hole saw attachment works great for this tube. By placing the center of the bit on the top line of the bucket, you can begin to carefully cut through the metal. When we go through the metal, we need to tilt the tool down about 30 cm, which is easy because the plaster has not yet fully hardened and cuts like butter. Now we have a hole that the blower tube fits into perfectly. It will be placed a few centimeters from the bottom.

Blower.

Now, if the crucible fails and the molten metal pours out, in the smelter the metal remains inside and does not flow out through the tube. A leaf blower is very easy to make. First you need to take a 3 cm tube, it will be located next to the hot coals.

You will also need a 3 cm PVC pipe. As you can see, the threaded coupling from one end is screwed onto a metal tube, and the adapter from the other end is simply screwed onto a PVC tube.

Lid.

Let's go even further. Let's make a lid that will help maintain the temperature. We need a pair of 10 cm U-bolts. Place them vertically in a wide bucket filled with half the initial volume of our mixture. After an hour, the plaster will harden and can be easily removed from the bucket. And now the lid for the melting pot is ready.

Pressure relief hole.

You need to make a hole to relieve pressure. it can be done before hardening, but you can drill it with a drill with an 8-centimeter attachment. Once the hole is made, you will have a lid that looks like a huge donut. This design allows you to relieve pressure and melt the metal without even removing the lid.

Conclusion.

If you light a fire, you will see that the inside becomes so hot that the soda can melts in a second and the crucible fills with liquid aluminum. With a mini-smelter like this, we can melt aluminum in our backyard and cast anything we can think of.

Best of all, when you're not smelting scrap, the smelter doesn't take up space or be noticeable. You can insert a potted plant inside and instantly turn it into a piece of decor. This pot-turned smelter is more than it seems. Only make your smelter sustainable, this is extremely important for safety reasons.

By the way, you can try using the melting furnace as forge or even like a barbecue, since it runs on coal, after all.

Now you know how to available materials make a mini smelter that's powerful enough to melt metal in seconds, but nice enough to look at that you don't have to hide it. Translated and voiced by the Science and Technology channel.

Another publication contains more useful information.

To make a muffle furnace for melting aluminum on your own, you need to become familiar with its basic elements, after which you can begin selecting materials, preparing tools, and the assembly itself. But first, it’s worth considering its purpose in order to understand whether it is suitable for achieving your goals.

Brief description of muffle furnace

The main purpose of a muffle furnace is to heat metal. Using such a device can help melt metals such as aluminum or copper, as well as other non-ferrous materials. In addition, with its help you can successfully carry out the operation of firing ceramic products and drying them. Cremation can also be carried out. It is worth noting that there is a wide variety of muffle furnaces. They can be electric, gas, air and some other types. They also differ significantly in the type of construction. They are standard vertical or horizontal, as well as tubular.

The main difference between a muffle furnace and a conventional furnace for melting aluminum with your own hands is that it has a special section called the muffle. This area allows you to protect the metal that is being processed.

Basic structural elements and materials for assembly

The main element is, of course, the heater. It is best to choose an electric one. His greatest advantage is that it is very easy to operate. In addition, there are such details as a heating chamber and a special heat accumulator. In order to successfully melt aluminum, heat control must be in place. This will help make the process continuous.

In case you have to melt several different materials, then the aluminum itself should be subjected to the process not just once, but several times. In this mode of operation, it is necessary to make sure that it also performs the function of a regulator. This is necessary in order to maintain the desired temperature of the aluminum after melting.

In order to make a stove for melting aluminum, you need to prepare the following materials:

• grinder, wire and metal bucket;
• seven bricks;
• safety glasses construction type, several unnecessary metal pieces;
• hammer and other standard tools.

Start of assembly work

Assembly homemade stove for aluminum melting starts with the following:

• You need to take 7 prepared bricks, which will play the role of a temperature accumulator.
• Using a grinder, a compartment is built on each side of the brick. The result should be a space that will be used for an electric type heater. To increase the strength of the structure, you can take wire and wrap the entire structure with it.
• A metal bucket that has been prepared can be used as a fireproof chamber. If there is no suitable one, then you can make a camera yourself.

Housing assembly

Even a simple furnace for melting aluminum - such as a muffle furnace, for example - requires a housing. IN in this case it can be made from a piece of waste metal sheet, the thickness of which will be from 1 to 1.5 mm. It is worth noting that a layer of rust will be needed here. Another important point concerns the height of the bucket. This parameter should be with a certain margin, since the working chamber will be mounted on a layer of bricks plus thermal insulation. Next you will have to roll the metal sheet into a pipe. This process is quite problematic, and therefore it is recommended to use special rings made of reinforcement.

Completion of oven assembly

To complete the construction of a furnace for melting aluminum with your own hands, you need to do the following:

• The prepared rings are put on a twisted sheet of metal and connected around the circumference.
• The bottom for the furnace body can be assembled from the same sheet of metal that was already used for the pipe. It is mounted by welding to the lowest ring.
• It is necessary to make a special hole in one of the bricks through which an electric heater can be placed directly inside working chamber.
• For ease of laying out, you should immediately number the bricks, and then start laying them out. It is necessary that they fit very tightly to each other. The resulting design of a furnace for melting aluminum, made with your own hands, must be very stable.
• A heating coil must also be attached to the bricks.
• To install a spiral heater, you need to make several grooves and install bricks along them.
• Also, grooves can be sawed in in the right places using a grinder. It is recommended to use eye and respiratory protection during operation.
• Most often, the material for the spiral is either nichrome or fechral.
• The spiral must be wound very carefully and in such a way that the turns are close to each other. The distance is necessary to avoid short circuiting.
• The entire structure should be coated with the solution.

In this way, you can make a muffle-type furnace for melting aluminum with your own hands.

Small oven

The versatility lies in the fact that in this case the mini-oven is assembled from improvised materials.

A tin can of canned food, soup or anything else will be used as the stove body, that is, it is actually ready, unlike the previous type of device. The only thing that is important is to choose a jar in which the metal will be as thick as possible. A hole is made in the bottom of the jar through which, using a pipe, you can connect a hair dryer, acting as heating element. The diameter of the hole must be exactly equal to the diameter of the pipe. It can be square, but then there will be heat loss, and therefore it is better to tinker a little, but make it round.

As mentioned earlier, a household hair dryer is used as a heater. It is important that it has at least two operating speeds. Using tape, you can attach a pipe to the hair dryer, which will be inserted into bottom hole banks. It is important to check that there is no air loss at the joint. It is also worth noting that the cold air button must be pressed at all times. To do this, you can fix it with the same tape.

People who use these types of stoves are satisfied. Judging by the reviews, the stoves are quite compact and easy to assemble with your own hands. Electric heater It helps to raise the temperature to the desired level. Muffle furnaces They are also good because you can melt in them right away large number aluminum

To melt aluminum at home, you will need a special furnace, which you can make yourself from a simple coffee can. Step by step instructions for those who want to cast aluminum at home.

Materials and tools for the furnace

For a future furnace for melting aluminum you will need:

• 2 cans without zinc coating. Tin coffee containers are suitable different sizes(1 is larger than the other by 2-3 cm in diameter).
• A household (construction) hair dryer is used to pump air.
• A piece of metal pipe with a diameter the size of the outlet of a hair dryer or slightly smaller, as well as an adapter for connecting the parts.
• Regular scotch tape.
• Metal scissors.
• Gloves resistant to high temperatures and crucible gripper (long-handled pliers).
• Fuel - coal, lighter fluid and more.

Stages of manufacturing a furnace for melting aluminum

Stove body
Any metal can is suitable for the body, in which a round hole should be made along the diameter of the metal pipe.

Supercharging
A household hair dryer will be required as a source of air injection with at least 2 speed modes. One end of the pipe is taped to the hairdryer with tape, and the other is inserted into the bottom of the can.

Pay attention! The cold air button must always remain on. To do this, it can be fixed with tape or other material.

Before igniting the stove, it is recommended to make sure that the joints are tight by turning on the hairdryer and checking for air leaks.
Furnace crucible
A crucible is a device for melting aluminum, which must have fairly thick walls and a smaller diameter relative to the furnace body. According to users, this part is used only once and is replaced with a new can when repeated.

Furnace test
The crucible is installed in the center, fuel (coal) is laid out around it and ignition fluid is poured over it. After the liquid has completely burned, the hair dryer is turned on at minimum speed (cold air). The entire process should be carried out outdoors, away from flammable objects.
Any aluminum parts, including cans, are suitable for melting. In the case of beer containers, it should be taken into account that their walls are thin and can simply be burned rather than poured. To increase thickness, you can crumple them before processing or choose others household waste made of aluminum.

Reference: From 12 cans the mass of aluminum in molten form is 150 grams.
Tips and tricks:

1. You can place aluminum in the crucible after its body turns red.
2. It is better to immediately mold the finished aluminum, pouring it into containers.
3. Casting molds must be dry. In the presence of moisture, the metal can explode and fly in different directions.
4. The required air supply is achieved by adjusting the distance between the pipe and the supply window (it is better to leave a gap between the hair dryer and the pipe).

Important!
Zinc-coated jars should not be used as furnaces and crucibles. Zinc releases toxic fumes when heated, which negatively affects human health.
The view shows an example of another oven, which you can also make with your own hands.

Also, an aluminum smelting furnace can be used as a small forge.