Getting pennies ready for smelting/melting one day?
Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2013 5:25 pm
Hey guys, so I'm about to order a $600 small metal melting furnace. Not to melt down my copper cents (at least not right now while it's illegal), but because I can freely melt down the Canadians I have (or get cheaply on eBay) and I'm also getting into melting detecting and want to be able to melt down the stuff I find.
Well anyway, I've really been doing my homework on melting down metal and I just realized that most guides I read say to clean the metal before melting or else the residual dirt and sticky grime can cause a fire in the furnace. So does this mean I have to go through my entire penny hoard and clean all the grime off the pennies before I can ever safely melt them one day? I mean ugh, that's potentially one hell of a task. The only real fast way I can think of would be to dump my penny hoard in the bathtub, fill it with water, and then dump in 3 bottles of cleaner or whatever chemical works best, and hope the dirt and grime just repels off or floats to the top of the water.
Well anyway, I've really been doing my homework on melting down metal and I just realized that most guides I read say to clean the metal before melting or else the residual dirt and sticky grime can cause a fire in the furnace. So does this mean I have to go through my entire penny hoard and clean all the grime off the pennies before I can ever safely melt them one day? I mean ugh, that's potentially one hell of a task. The only real fast way I can think of would be to dump my penny hoard in the bathtub, fill it with water, and then dump in 3 bottles of cleaner or whatever chemical works best, and hope the dirt and grime just repels off or floats to the top of the water.