frugal? recycle you aluminum cans? even THAT

[fnfredux]

market is down.
WOW! Municipalities are stuck with LOTS of stuff that USED to be sold to factories to be recycled.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081207/ap_on_bi_ge/recycling_bust

and for some juxtaposition
http://www.stoptheaclu.com/archives/2008/12/01/good-news-michelle-obama-to-get-20000-diamond-thank-you-ring/

let them make their own beds and keep their trash!
My "daddy's" prez.
I think we should all get to see the receipt and the payment method.

[gregabob]

The commodities market has been hammered recently- a lot of fund managers selling to cover margin calls. I was getting 84 cents/pound for stainless steel (it is made with nickel), then the nickel market dropped like a rock and now stainless is down to 8 cents/pound.....aluminum and copper got hammered badly too-down 50% or more. Just have to wait it out and sell when the price comes back up again.

[Maranna]

I have hundreds of aluminum cans, some I've crushed and some aren't I'm going to find something to make out of the ones that aren't crushed.
Can't get enough money for recycling them, so might as well find a good use for them.

Anybody got any ideas?

Anybody know what it would take to melt them down to make usefull things out of them.

[tufhelp]

Here are a couple of leads from a google for aluminum can crafts. Some want money but there are pictures that you may be able to put use...

http://tesscar-aluminum-craft.com/locomotive.php

http://thenewnew.blogspot.com/2008/04/from-aluminum-cans-to-jewelry.html

[Maranna]

`Thanks for the links tufhelp. I've seen the one of the tesscar before, but never the one on the jewelry.

I drink my Arizona tea out of a bottle and not a can. I've been thinking of taking the bottles and putting colored candles in the bottles. I'd cover up the pretties of the labels first, then after using several different colored candles to drip down the sides, I'd take off the covered up places and add some dried flowers or silk flowers. I think it would be pretty, as long as the bottles didn't get too hot in the summer and the was melt.

[CanNerd]

The Arizona Tea bottles I reuse to hold water for emergency. I especially like the Lipton Tea glass bottles with metal pop lids. I refill with boiling water and seal. Must better storage than standard plastic water bottles.

I remember seeing an instruction somewhere on making cooking oil candles using soda cans. Light lasts for hours on just a couple tablespoons of veggie oil.

[leera]

My Mom makes decorations out of soda cans(only the no deposit ones).....airplanes,helicopters,whirlygigs.......y ou name it.

MI has the 10 cent bottle deposit,refund on anything carbonated......

[GoldenCityMuse]

Now is not the time to to be selling cans. If you have the room, stockpile them [crushed preferably], & wait until prices rise. That is what I tend to do.

Still remember early last year when I sold my cans for 60¢/lb! Those were the days.

[ol_hoot]

It all comes down to supply and demand and right now the demand for those metals is way down.

[fizzle7033]

I found these on craftster, thought someone might be interested :)

http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=307543.0

http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=284523.0

http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=17920.0

http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=177201.0

http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to/video/how-to-recycle-soda-cans-into-ashtrays-162820/

http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=8634.0

http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=244543.0

Sorry for the link overload!

[ScrubbieLady]

Must be an area thing. I sold my aluminum cans last week for $.55/lb.

[tufhelp]

Not so much an area thing, though that does figure in... Most of these posts are about 1 year old, so perhaps the market for cans has rebounded... Wait and see if Obama takes credit for this "recessions over" indicator!

[Mom5farmboys]

We keep a small cardboard barrel out in the barn and all scrap aluminum goes into it. Foil, beverage cans that do not have a deposit on them, also some hair care products come in aluminum cans and my mom and a few of my friends save their empties for me and into the barrel they go (crushed) I have also picked up some old aluminum cookware out of free boxes at garage sales. When the barrell is full it goes to the scrapyard.

We also keep another barrell for copper. Old wires, old jumper cables, any old copper pipes, go into the barrell when its full it goes in too.

We usually wait until the price is high, although I don't know what the price is at right now.

[Oblio13]

How about a beer-can roof for your chicken coop?

http://www.dinosaursandrobots.com/2009/04/beer-can-roof.html

[Prairie]

Must be an area thing. I sold my aluminum cans last week for $.55/lb.

Pretty much every liquid container here is recyclable and has a deposit on it, as long as it is bought within the province, except plastic 4 litre milk jugs. All 355ml aluminum cans are worth 10c. If the sorter at the recycling depot sees a can labelled 12 Fl. Oz., he will know that it is foreign but you still get 1c for it, and for some reason, they can spot them from a mile away! lol

[momma_to_seven_chi]

I especially like the Lipton Tea glass bottles with metal pop lids. I refill with boiling water and seal. Must better storage than standard plastic water bottles.



I love those because they reseal so well. I put dry goods in them, heat the oven to 300, turn it off, then put the bottles on a cookie sheet and slide them in the warm oven. When you take them out after it cools, they are sealed. I have some with flax seeds, some with rice, some have macaroni, etc. Wonderful bottles and a good tea too.

[patience]

Marana said:
"Anybody know what it would take to melt them down to make usefull things out of them. "

Yeah, I've done that, but it is not for the faint of heart. Aluminum melts at around 1150 to 1200 degress F., which can be done with a small gas furnace, one homemade from a small barrel using a charcoal fire and a hair dryer for air supply, or an old oil furnace gun type burner stuck into a barrel lined with firebrick.

These folks have books on the subject, and besides, it is a fun site to look at. :) http://www.lindsaybks.com/

Here's one of the best books I've found on home casting:
http://www.lindsaybks.com/dgjp/djgbk/char/index.html

That particular author started with his charcoal fired casting outfit and built an entire machine shop! Hobby size, but still, quite a feat. That, however, takes some real dedication. My efforts in this direction have been to make very simple castings--rectangular slabs and large diameter round pieces that I can machine in my shop to make parts. LOTS cheaper than buying those big hunks of aluminum, but only worthwhile if you collect a lot of scrap and spend a weekend at this, say once every 3 or 4 years. Doing so, I can make on the order of $100/day casting.

I have made a few machine parts this way, but it takes some learning how. Cans are nearly pure aluminum, which is very soft and not very strong. I use about half cans, and half old pistons, and other cast aluminum scrap that is harder, then stir in about 3 to 4% by weight of copper wire scrap (melts at 1600 F., but it will dissolve in 1200 F. melted aluminum) to add toughness and the ability to "age harden"--The older it gets, the harder it is! I have some cast aluminum vise jaws that I made 30 years ago that will mash black gas pipe flat and not show a dent! I poured 2 sets at the time, but haven't needed the spares yet....

[Prairie]

This is just me, but I'd be leery about melting and forging aluminum. I've heard bad things about aluminum cookwear, and I remember hearing in college that you shouldn't heat up aluminum and inhale the fumes... glass was preferable, in that case. ;)

[patience]

I think I read that acidic foods can become polluted from aluminum cookware, but that is the acid rather than the heat causing the problem. I've never heard of fumes from aluminum being noxious. At least there were no OSHA precautions about it when I worked at an aluminum foundry. But the chemicals involved in casting can be horrific. Flourides are commonly used in the fluxes, which is one of few things chemically active enough to deoxidize the metal. The degassing chemicals are bad, too, but you can use potatoes (YES! Potatoes.), submerged in the melt, very slowly to degas a melt. CAREFUL! It will spit molten all over!

No, this is NOT easy to do, and it is NOT safe. Much to learn to stay safe at it. But it can be done safely, and I can make decent money at it when the market prices are right.

[AlchemyAcres]

I used to be a foundry fanatic...I had charcoal and propane crucible foundries and a couple iron melting cupolas.

Melting aluminum cans can be super dangerous!

If anyone decides to melt cans it's EXTREMELY important to be mindful of any moisture in the cans.
Be super careful with crushed cans which almost always contain some trapped moisture which when tossed in a hot crucible can send molten metal everywhere!!!! :eek:



~Martin ;)

[patience]

Amen to that! Moisture is a NO-NO around any molten metal. Even spilling a few drops on moist concrete can vaporize the moisture and make the concrete pop out a chunk! I saw the aftermath of a spill in the big foundry where I worked. They hauled molten from the furnaces to the diecast machines with a ceramic ladle on a forklift. It held about 600 lbs. of metal. When a driver had the ladle too high and hit the brakes, the whole works tipped over forward, and molten went down the aisleway! People jumped up on ANYTHING to get out of the way of it. One guy rode a parts handler robot for an hour before they could get to him. Unhurt, but scared.

Then it took jackhammers and oxygen lances to cut up the metal after it solidified. Shut down the area for a couple days....

So, read, learn, and do it over and over again before starting this. Arrange to watch it done, and learn why and how it all works before ever attempting it. No fun if you get hurt.

[blackpowderbill]

Just before Christmas I watched a report that hosted a Chinese guy, probably Amercian as he sopke real good American.
Anyway, he was a metal trader who said that the Chinese embassy was the creator of the cash for clunkers program since the dollar had tanked and China wanted to recoop their losses.
I should have booked marked that news report it was part of the same one that called for inflated food prices.


So by having Americans trade in good working paid for vehicles for scrap that China would get was a way for them to get another chunk of our country.
Now we have the cash for clunker appliances~ FYI: the newer friges have smaller compressors,large condensors and will last only 10-12 yrs as the compressor runs longer to do the same work as an old one.

Lead is on the rise again last purchase for lead shot was $32.00 /25lb from a low of $22.00/25lb in October 09'.[wholesale cost]

Pewter doubled from $7.00/lb to $15.00/lb


My latest reloading components flyer has all the new increases and they are not friendly!

[patience]

I just sold out my stash of aluminum cans, but kept the heavy aluminum scrap, and will collect more expecting the price, long term, to go significantly higher. Whereupon, I will cast it into things I need.

We are getting even more recycle conscious. Things like glass jars we reuse, containers of all sorts to store stuff, metal of all kinds, clothing (we can take it apart and make useful stuff), even used oil.

I have plans and a good start on making a centrifugal oil cleaner--works like a washing machine on spin cycle--to recycle my dirty engine oil. A couple trips through that thing, and it looks like NEW oil! :D

[NCLee]

Re: Glass....

At the rate glass containers are disappearing from the grocery store, I save any and all glass containers that have the potential for future use. Especially the larger sizes. Still grumbling because vinegar used to come in gallon glass jugs. Now all I see is plastic. Sometimes, if the price is decent, I'll buy the product, just to get the glass. For example, you can be sure there'll be plenty of pickles when I have a family get-together. Love those gallon pickle jars. :)

One thing I've been comtemplating is pre-made soda can alcohol stoves as a flea market type sale item or a barter item if the SHTF. Same thing for some other things along this line. Premade items made from recycled goods.

Lee

[blackpowderbill]

ny now has a .05c fee/tax on all canned or bottled stuff now.
ya know if you're collecting and picked it up for free then selling it off you should see a profit. might niot be as much as you'd like but its still cash in hand.

[patience]

Lead touched $1.20 a few months ago, but is down now to under 90 cents.
http://www.metalprices.com/FreeSite/metals/pb/pb.asp

That site has most any metal you want. Look in the right sidebar and click on the metal name to get the charts for it. Metal prices are one of the most reliable indicators of economic activity, and it AIN"T getting better lately!