Baking Aluminum Muffins

It rained last night so I didn't get to try out the furnace as planned but I finally did tonight. Here's the setup. As it turns out, using the air compressor didn't really work like I had hoped. Even with the adjustable regulator there either wasn't any air flowing or way too much which would just blow the flame out.  

Instead, I made a cone out of thin sheet metal and used an old hair dryer as the blower. Even that was too much air flow. It was a balancing act of aiming the hair dryer off to the side of the opening to get just the right amount of air.
	The hair dryer at its optimal spot. "Vidal Sassoon! Because, if you don't look good... it's probably because you were disfigured by molten metal while using a hair dryer as part of your sketchy furnace."
Once I did get it situated though, it really roared to life. I got my makeshift crucible up to a nice orange color and then started feeding it pieces of the bike I dismantled the other night.
	Initially it didn't look like it was melting but, after a few minutes, I touched it with the tongs and it just crumbled into the crucible.

It took about 25-30 minutes for the pieces to melt completely and then it was time to pour. Sorry, no pictures of this step. My hands were full and I couldn't convince anyone else to stand anywhere close enough to my contraption to get pictures or video.





Here are the fresh baked aluminum muffins! This is approximately half of the bike peices. I'll melt the rest at a later date.

While I was doing this I was also "collecting" more aluminum.  I know everyone says your not supposed to use beer or soda cans because of the paint and interior lining.  It's probably the same people that say you shouldn't imbibe and operate 1500 degree furnaces.