"Ivan Vegvary" wrote in message
news:mLkNi.6808$PV1.523@trndny08...
Just took off the aluminum siding on the front of my house. I don't
know if
it's worth the gasoline to drive it to the scrap metal dealer. I
probably
have about 20 lbs.

Is this siding aluminum suitable for melting and casting?

Another question. My wife has three kilns. They go up to about
2000° F.
Can I just simply snip up a bunch of siding, place it in a cast iron
skillet
and put it in one of her kilns? Just wondering.

Ivan Vegvary



You are fighting physics. The ratio of surface area to volume of your
siding is far too high and as you melt it, it will form a very large
proportion of various aluminium oxides which will settle out as a
thick layer of dross on the surface of your melt. Melting it
commercially they would plunge it into an already molten pool of
aluminium so as to exclude the air. I found all this out when I
started casting a couple of decades ago and was re-cycling beer cans.
Produced as much dross as aluminium.

Now if you cut your siding into kiln sized pieces in a skillet, and
filled the kiln with an inert gas you'd be fine !

AWEM