Hi Mike,
I am into aluminium casting. The problems with swarf and chips is
that they high a high surface area and when you try to melt them you
end up with a lot of dross (oxide) and very little metal.
Industrially they would compact the chips and melt under an inert
atmosphere to avoid these problems. The same goes for drinks cans.
The metal is so thin that you end up with musch dross and very little
usable metal.
There are many aluminium alloys and they are compatible. However,
most turning alloys are not ideal for casting. It can be done but it
is much easier to cast proper casting alloys that contain a high
silicon content to give good fluidity. Drink cans are nearly pure
aluminium and the metal is very soft when cast.
Iron is small quantities is not too much of a problem although if too
much gets into the alloy it forms hard intermetallics that make the
metal brittle and very wearing on lathe tools. Many amateurs melt
aluminium in mild steel crucibles and get good results.
If you want to separate aluminium and steel try using a magnet. Free
machining steel make small chips that is easy to separate with a
magnet but once you get curly swarf mixed it is almost impossible to
separate different types easily.
I do not think there is so much of a problem regarding hazardous
fumes in melting aluminium swarf as long as you don't contaminate it
with plastic swarf. PTFE swarf produces highly toxic decomposition
products, PVC is also hazardous.
I hope this is useful
Mike
Kingsley, UK
--- In 7x12minilathe@..., "Mike Payson" <mike@...> wrote:
Ok, I finally got a lathe, & I'm finally starting to make some
chips (and
that's about it, for now at least!). So once I make the chips, what
do I do
with them? For the amount I'll be producing, it seems like more
bother then
it's worth to haul them to the recycler & get pennies on the dollar
back
from what I paid for it. Since I mostly work with Aluminum, I'm
thinking a
better use would be to save them to trying casting at some point
down the
road. I'm assuming that I don't need to worry to much about mixing
various
aluminum alloys, but do I need to be concerned about the occasional
steel or
other metal chips? I can try to separate them, but I'm sure at
least a few
will get into the aluminum bin. Will they cause problems? How about
the
lubricants & coolants? I'm guessing that they'll just burn off, but
I'm not
certain. Obviously I'll be doing the casting outside, so I'm not
terribly
concerned about burning the small amounts of chemicals that would be
present. Should I be?
Thanks!
Mike
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