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.

[the artfull-codger]

I'm quite well known around our village & at work so folk often bring me stuff for free

[I think they feel sorry for me as a humble school technician& they're all doctors/solicitors or engineers] anyway I make quite a few plaques & anything goes for those ie greenhouses,sun chairs, extruded window sections etc but if I make something good like parts for a model engine I use stuff thats been cast before,pistons crankcases car wheels etc, some say you can't cast extruded but I've never had a problem, it does seem to shrink quite a bit more though, My furnace is coke fired,I read on various forums that" beginners" start on charcoal or coke then "advance" to propane, well I guess I'm still classed as a beginner, I make alloy ingots but never brass or bronze as you can boil out the zink if you keep melting brass & Iron neither. I do have a small furnace that I made & it's fired with a Flamefast brazing hearth burner & good it is too but I'll stick with the coke furnace for my main casting,as we allways have 2-3 tons in for the raburn stove, I built my first furnace around 1970 with my dad when there was no internet to make you an expert, having said that I've learned a few things myself off the net.