"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
...

On Sat, 08 Apr 2017 22:07:22 -0500, Ignoramus9502
wrote:

I got a bit lucky and bought a broken air dryer that had a big copper
coil inside. This is a heat exchanging coil with a copper tube inside
a tube.

http://igor.chudov.com/tmp/coil.jpg

The problem is that it is extremely heavily made and would not easily
cut with a cable cutter. I want to cut it up into pieces and clean to
make #1 copper.

That's probably worth a fortune as #1 copper. Oh, it's down from $3
(when I last looked) to $2.28/lb, but still valuable.


Any idea what can cut it, maybe a circular saw with a small tooth
blade?

How about a recip saw for a deeper cut? If it's soft, a 12"
woodcutting blade might work, though it might leave rough edges.
Cut it in half and clean from there.

What takes that white gunk off? What is that?
================================================== ===========

I'm guessing the white stuff is your basic hard water deposits, calcium and
magnesium carbonates and/or sulfates and/or other salts. It always tempting
to start throwing acids at the problem to dissolve them, but then you are
going to have a big volume of hazardous waste to get rid of. How about
cutting the tubing with bolt cutters, and trying something like a small air
hammer with a wide flat tip to vibrate off as much of the white stuff as you
can. Maybe hit the coil before you cut it up to knock off big chunks, then
each length after you cut it up. Finish with a wire brush. As much as I
love chemistry, mechanical methods are almost always faster :-). Save any
acid for a final polishing step only if really needed.

-----
Regards,
Carl Ijames