Today we’re going to be making muffins. But trust me, this is one recipe you won’t
be able to find in the kitchen cookbook. In this project we’re using backyard science,
and a bucket full of soda cans, to make a batch, of mini metal biscuits.
Let’s start this project with the mini metal foundry we made in another video, and a big
bag of charcoal briquets. These might look like the kind for BBQ’ing and grilling,
and that’s because they are. When 5 briquets are spaced evenly at the bottom, we’re ready
to add a crucible. Like this one I made out of a steel fire extinguisher. And I’ve found
that putting the container on a layer of charcoal, helps melt the cans faster once we fire it
up. Now let’s connect a 1” steel pipe through the “air supply” port on the side
of the foundry. This will get the fire hot enough to melt metal, but we still need a
way to shoot the air in. We could just blow through it, but a much better idea, is to
use a hair dryer. Which you can find at most thrift stores for about $3. Now I taped the
hair dryer to some PVC pipe and inserted a couple of 1” couplings, to connect the steel
tube at one end, and give the blower tube a quick release feature. This way it’s super
easy to take apart, and fits into a 5 gallon bucket for easy storage. Now since the blower
tube is at a strategically placed angle, it’s really helpful to support it so it doesn’t
strain the foundry. This little trick will help keep the walls from cracking, and increase
the life of the unit dramatically. Now that the foundry’s all set up, let’s fill it
to the top with charcoal, and breathe some life into them the same way you’d light
up your BBQ. My tool of choice is a propane torch because it gets everything heated up
in a hurry. The coals are burning, so let’s flip the hair dryer to the “low” setting,
and blow a steady stream of oxygen on the charcoal to really heat things up. You can
see how the cover we made, keeps the heat inside, so it conserves energy while it’s
bringing up the temperature. The coolest part, is that the crucible, lines up perfectly with
the hole in the center. Alright, with that warming up, let’s round up some soda cans,
like these ones I got from a local recycling depot, and this important tool that makes
the whole operation possible. A pair of steel tongs from the dollar store. After 10 minutes
you can see the foundry is scorching hot, and the handles probably are as well, so let’s
use the tongs to carefully remove the top without getting burned. You can see the steel
crucible is glowing orange, and that means it’s ready for action. The container is
3” wide, which is the perfect size for melting standard sized soda cans like these. And at
temperatures over 1,000ºF, you can see it’ll liquify them, in just a few seconds. Now I
cranked it up to full power to melt more cans in a hurry, and averaged around 10-12 cans
per minute. The cool thing, is that it doesn’t matter if the cans are dirty, painted, or
still have soda inside. The furnace eats anything, and pulls out pure liquid aluminum, which
you’ll see in just a second. In my experience, 38-45 cans produce around 1 lb of molten aluminum.
And if you try crushing your cans first, you can melt them with the cover in place, so
less metal will get oxidized in the process. Now after liquifying about 50 cans you can see
the container is completely full, but there’s a lot of gunk floating around that we really don't need.
The easiest way to isolate the aluminum is with something like this steel cake pan, I
got at the thrift shop for $.50. First, let’s go ahead and carefully remove the crucible,
making sure we’ve got a very secure grip with our tongs. Then very slowly, pour the
liquid into the steel mold. You can see the slag stays behind, and almost acts like a
strainer, helping prevent anything solid from flowing down-stream. Now that we’ve separated
the good stuff out, why don’t we tap the container on a slab of concrete, and dump
out the dross. By keeping our crucible clean, we can use it again right away. Now just for
fun, I tried melting a bunch more cans, so I could pour them into a brand new cupcake
pan. The hope here, is that this fancy pan, will give a cool and unique look to the aluminum
ingots, when they cool. The pan is made of steel, but it’s catching fire because the
non-stick coating is burning off, but this will be the only time it does that. After
a couple of minutes, you can see the ingots have hardened, but they’re still blisteringly
hot. So much so, that they’ll ignite a piece of paper instantly, just by touching it. Now
it’s a really good idea, to have a bucket of cold water nearby so you can cool them
down. When they drop into cold water, you can see they’re still hot enough, to bring
the water to an instant boil. But after about 10 seconds, they cool to the point where you
could pick them up bare handed, if you wanted to. Now I also tried pouring ingots in a mini
muffin pan, to get a smaller variety, and ended up with some really adorable, mini metal
muffins. These ones are actually my favorites now because they’re so easy to work with.
The purpose of an ingot is to keep some pure metal handy for when you want to make something
cool. So now that we have some, all we have to do is fire up the foundry and
toss a few nuggets into a clean crucible.
This setup can liquify ingots in 5-10 minutes,
and check this out .. by melting clean ingots, there isn’t any dross we have to fish out
either. Instead, there’s only a thin skin of aluminum oxide. Which means this entire
crucible, is full of molten aluminum, ready for casting. I tried pouring mine into a 5
gallon bucket filled with sand, and one other specialty item. Which you can see bursts into
flames and absorbs two full pounds of liquid metal. After 5-10 minutes the metal is hard
enough to grab onto with a pair of channel locks, so we can break the mold and reveal
the casting inside. Watch for how to make something like this in another project video.
When it’s time to clean up, all the metal working tools fit conveniently, into a 5 gallon
bucket, and when the foundry has cooled down, the handle makes it easy to flip over and
dump out the ashes. Cleanup is quick, and when you replace your potted plant, you can
see the whole thing reverts to it’s innocent disguise as fashionable home decor. Well now
you know how to turn scrap aluminum soda cans, into shiny metallic muffins, which you can
simply admire with pride, or use to make just about anything you want. Well that’s it for now. If you
liked this project, perhaps you’ll like some of my others. Check them out at www.thekingofrandom.com
Behold, the sword, that was pulled from the sand. Hey guys, this was just a prototype
for another project video I’m working on, but hundreds of you left comments asking me
to give it away. So, I will oblige, and I’ll give it as a gift, to one of you. But before
I explain the rules on how to win, we should really take a second to thank Audlble.com
for sponsoring this video. Audible has the worlds largest selection of premium audiobooks,
and in the spirit of melting metal and making swords, I want to recommend “The Hobbit”
by J.R.R. Tolkien, which you can download for free by going to www.audible.com/thekingofrandom
and starting a 30-day free trial. If you don’t want to get the Hobbit, they have over 150,000
other audiobooks you can choose from including fiction, non-fiction and periodicals. And
simply by checking out www.audible.com/thekingofrandom, you’re supporting me and my videos, and
allowing me do more of them. Now back to the contest. I saw one comment suggesting that
everyone should guess the weight of the sword, and the one who gets closest to the actual
weight, wins. So that’s how it’s going to work. Click here to submit your guess on
how much the sword weighs, in grams, and in one week I’ll check to see who got closest
to the right answer, then I’ll ship it to the winner for free. Now don’t put any answers
in the comments. If you want a chance to win, click here, and submit your best guess because
that’s the only place I’m going to be choosing from. Thank you for supporting my
videos, and I hope to see you around for the next one. And I’ll talk to you then.