Hi and Happy Tuesday!,

I am trying to recycle my copper scrap so that I can either cast or make copper ingots with it . I was looking through my books and they only mentioned copper being used to make other allloys for casting and ingot making.

Is there a reason why I can't recycle my copper as is? Do I need to add anything to my scrap copper so that it can be reused?

Any info is most helpful !

Thanks for listening,

K-Soul

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If you own a torch for melting platinum, you could recycle your copper, maybe. Send it to a refiner. Copper melts at a really high temperature (1981F) and it oxidizes really fast, it's a dirty metal, too hard to make a clean cast or ingot for a hobbyist. You could try making Japanese Alloys, but those melting points are still really high, or Niello for surface application, it's really toxic, good ventilation is needed, but the melting point is lower. I save my scrap to figure into a design, I make a lot of metal work with several different colors of metal in it. The rest goes to a refiner, I send scrap in with other folks so it's easier to make the minimum, and cheaper for the initial charge of refining.