Copper Bars

[Tantalar]

I am taking up the task of making Copper Bullion in the very near future. I know a lot of people on here enjoy that, so I will post some cool pictures when I figure out what I am doing. I was just wondering though, does anyone know where I can get a supply of .999 copper that I could use for this purpose and actually honestly mark them as .999 fine?

I figure this will be a lot of fun and will enable me to use my artistic talent along with my love for bullion and copper. I do love copper as I am sure all of you do too.

I plan to move into making silver as well, very small time, artisan style

[Bluegill]

Buy copper bar stock. The C11000 is .999 pure. It comes in a variety of sizes and shapes.

Cut it down to what ever size (weight) you want and design your art bar. A few of the art bars currently on the market are just that.

There is one bar I have seen that the producer left the saw marks on the end from the chop saw and didn't even bother to de-burr it before bagging it and shipping it out.

Best of luck. And don't be shy about posting pics...

[Tantalar]

WOW those are VERY expensive unless you order thousands of dollars worth it seems.

[everything]

Melt junk wire and pipe for now. You can buy some of this stuff from your scrapper friends pretty cheap I'm sure. My friends give me copper, they know I collect it, so free is possible when your a small time scrapper like me.

Save up, wait until another recession and the bottom drops out of the copper market, then go buy a sizable quantity, gonna need to think ahead for a play like that.

[rickygee]

Ahh, my bad. I thought this was going to be a thread about drinking establishments.

[Tantalar]

HA! Yeah I guess I will just stick to melting it down. My only concern is making sure I don't get into any problems with breathing in that stuff... I do plan to do it outside of course. Maybe I will get a fan for it too.

[Bluegill]

Melting Cu is not like melting Pb to cast your own bullets. Pb melts at a little over 600 degrees. Cu melts at damn near 2000 degrees. You might want to do a little research on this...

[getdong]

I agree with the people who said use scrap copper. Any supplier who's selling you copper rods or anything else has already had the expense of fuel and whatever else is involved in melting the metal so there's already quite a markup on the raw copper. Your better off going to estate sales, picking, etc and getting scrap copper be it gutters, tea pots, decor, etc and melting that down. As for getting it .999 pure I think you'd need quite a sophisticaed setup and not just a charcoal filled hole in the ground in your backyard but I imagine you can get it pretty pure.

[Tantalar]

Based on what I have heard, if you are doing it small time, you can use a crucible with map gas. I could be wrong, but small time, you can do this. If you can, I think it will be what I need. Either way, I plan to melt down some sterling crap from weighted sterling left overs with the crucible and torch.

[getdong]

Based on what I have heard, if you are doing it small time, you can use a crucible with map gas. I could be wrong, but small time, you can do this. If you can, I think it will be what I need. Either way, I plan to melt down some sterling crap from weighted sterling left overs with the crucible and torch.

There's some good videos on youtube about this. There's also some sites that give you designs on how to make a charcoal oven or mini charcoal foundry or whatever you want to call it. Personally I'd recommend using charcoal, propane or other gas is going to get VERY expensive. I suppose if your doing it strictly has a hobby and not really trying to make money do whatever is easier which is probably gas but you can make more bars and melt more stuff cheaper using charcaol

[everything]

Going through the backyard scrapper forums, they say 2*4's burn pretty hot, knowing how to weld is mostly required, and don't go cheap on the crucible. For good energy I'd find high BTU wood and season it properly. And, with my learning curve I'd have to start with aluminum.