Cleaning scrap for melting

[NormanV]

I buy my aluminium scrap from a scrap metal yard. Mostly wheels but also gearbox castings. It is not so dirty but I don't bother to clean it. I melt in in a wood fire in an oil drum with a hole in the bottom. The molten metal runs out of the hole into a loaf tin to make ingots. This cleans most of the crud and when I melt it again in my gas fired furnace I get nice clean castings.