Copper Bars from Scrap Copper, Selling for Profit

okay scrubbers time to melt some more copper so I've got a whole still got lots of copper here to melt keep adding to the pile so I'm just going to make myself some one kilo copper ingots and not sure what I'm going to do off them in the end whether I sell them or just keep them in my own stockpile most likely I'll just keep him but maybe I might do a a Bey auction and list a bunch just to see how we go because I keep saying you know that we once we melt them into copper ingots we actually get you know at least six times the value of copper so we can maximize our value or just keep them in there in a collection sell them another time so I'm going to be doing a few different melts yeah a couple of melts over a few days different days whenever the weather is right it can't be too hot and obviously we can't have any rain and and I can't do it on weekends when there's you know too many neighbors around so prefer to do it on weekdays so I'm just going to melt some copper now and pour myself like few ingots and I'll probably do two or three batches today but so this video you'll see a few different batches as we go over different days I've already done one actually I've done a couple of different batches already but one of them the the ingots didn't turn out that good yeah I don't want it inside the garage then gods didn't turn out even another one I did where the in gods where the video didn't actually work so stick around and we'll pour some copper bars [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] Wow that's about that's hot coffee tea a hook hot coffee water oh it's boiling just about you could cook a stew in that just our nice little piece to put back in into the next batch because this is from wire it's always easier to melt when it's like this instead of just wire because it's more solid obviously so it heats up quicker and just melts up quicker wire takes in that propane furnace why it takes about 40 minutes solid stuff takes about 25 minutes usually but that's a beautiful it's actually yet really happy with that one yeah these are all going to be part of the of my eBay sale so what I'm going to do it's just another test because I get a lot of people doubting my comments when I say that you know you can get about six times value six times scrap value just selling them as in gods like this because they're you know hand poured artisans and type in gods and you know certainly you know I know I'm still going to get a lot of comments of people saying oh but what's the point you still get the same only at a scrapyard we don't sell these at scrap yards once again through the 30th time we've said it we don't sell these at a scrap yard if we're gonna sell copper to a scrap yard we might as well just sell copper wire you know I mean we're not silly the reason why we do it is one because I enjoy making ingots for my personal collection or like stacking ingots like this and to to solemn as in gods because there's a lot of people that want beautiful copper bars like this this is you know probably close to a 1 kilo or probably a bit more and people want you know a really nice copper bar and so try and try and buy one and I'm not talking about a buzz bar that's been cut into pieces and stand I'm talking about hand poured pure copper bar from pure copper wire and any impurities are burnt out pretty much like the lacquer and all that stuff so there's another two and I'm gonna keep going and we're gonna melt gonna make as many bars as I can over and over the next few days and we'll have a look what we got I want at least 10 to 10 or 12 to put up on eBay so we'll see but these ones these two absolutely you know they still got to polish them up but they just look fantastic you can see straight away that they're there you know each they're you know completely different you know different characteristics to it all around so even the sides some gaudy imperfections but that's fine that that's what hand poured bars are all about you know everyone is unique and yeah there are you know a lot of effort you know you got to invest in a good furnace and there's time and fuel and then polishing this up and and all that and most people that want bars can't just melt their own copper wire you can get free copper but it's not easy to melt copper wire you need it very hot and you need to write first you can't just do it on a camp stove it's not like lead or even aluminium is reasonably easy to melt but to melt copper you've got to get the heat up to about it 150 degrees Celsius probably more around 1,200 degrees Celsius to help it really pour well so it's not just melt you know the melting temperature of copper or the melting point it the pouring temperature is a lot needs to be a lot hotter as you see inside the crucible the the piece of copper that sort of stays in there that'll cool down and you can you know take that out bash it down a bit and melt it again but it's good to just keep to keep the furnace going so I'll turn it back on that copper will be still red hot in there and I'll fry some more copper wire and we'll keep [Music] they are too beautiful pause they're probably the best to pause I've ever ever done they look fantastic [Music] that's super hot we let them cool down they are super beautiful port super hot and super perfectly straight I've I had to balance out the whole setup so you get it slightly off angle and you don't get perfect pores obviously so all right well I've got the furnace there's still a bit of copper inside the crucible so all I need to do now is just add some more copper into it and it's going to be a lot quicker for the next pour we'll let these cool down by the time these are cooled down in our quench them we've probably ready for the next part [Music] [Music] so that's them two bars you've they'll polish up really nice a little bit of pitting on the base basically the the the molds weren't cold enough so hardly enough so but that's alright we've got the job done and yeah don't polish up really well I think there was oil on that mold I don't know how it got there so yeah it's a little bit hard to see how how high it is I didn't want it to go right to the top so this one's a bit this one looks okay this one went right up to the top and that one just I put a third mold there just for excess cuz I didn't think I was gonna have that much copper in there so turned out I've got an extra in got anyway and it's still quite a bit more but it looks like it's going to rain so I had to turn off the furnace and just leave it at that for today and I'll pour a few more tomorrow cuz the last thing you want is a little bit of rain to come over the furnace so this little one was just for excess copper so it's not meant to be in England or anything I just throw this in to start off the next melt just so it doesn't sit I don't have too much sitting in the crucible to solidify okay there we have it that's a a bit of an edge there we need to file off but beautiful little ripples on this bar still can't avoid pit marks because you just have to get the these crucibles or the molds just way too hot and by the time you go and turn off the furnace and set up you know like take out your the crucible and all that and by the time you get back they cool down very quickly the only way would be to have them constantly under a flame so I can't do that setup here but one day I'll be able to do it a little bit better so just get rid of these okay put on a bit of face protection [Music] [Music] well we've boiled that water I'll go and tip it out and put some fresh stuff in there okay so use our three bars they look a bit ugly now but once we polish all this carbon and stuff off they're gonna look spectacular really nice ripples a little bit of a sharp edge on this that we can just simply grind away not bad bases either these three you're going to polish up really nice and they certainly weigh over a kilo I think this one certainly does so probably closer to three pounds each but we'll weigh them all up once we've finished making buzz couple of nice paws they're beautiful I want them just under the top so they're not so heavy some of them are a little bit too heavy I've got quite a lot that are you know very big so I want to make a couple that are just slightly smaller [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] it's a beautiful bar a bear with different if it hold still and poured and poured custom bar [Music] this one slightly rough edges but we can file that off and polish it up it'll come up alright [Music] [Music] all right well that was pretty good I wasn't sure how much I had left in there but the gas bottle was running out so I didn't want to put too much more copper in there just in case I ran out of gas so so I've got a good smaller one they're really happy with that one quite a bit smaller so that's probably going to be my the lightest one and then I got another full-size one here but again pretty good pause this one turned out really excellent so yeah happy with that we'll just let it cool down and I'll start polishing some of these bars up and I think I've got enough now for putting up maybe a put a bunch up on the eBay and just see how the sales go again as I've mentioned before I get about you know the last time I sold in gots like this I was getting about six times the copper value which is about right if you look at how much effort you've got to put into actually melting it's not easy to melt copper and you need a you know a pretty good furnace and it and it takes a lot of trial and error before you start getting it right so it's not as if anyone can just go and get some copper wire melt it down and make it in got you know it's it takes a lot more time than that so that's why there's a very good premium on copper bars and you know obviously you can buy commercial kind of buzz bars that are you know fabricated but when it comes to hand poured artisan type of ingots well obviously there's there's a premium there because each one is unique and you know no matter how many bars you pour they're never going to be you know percent spot-on and they yeah so had a little bit of a spillage on this one but that's fine it's you know little spills don't really aren't really that dangerous as long as you've got all your safety equipment you know I've got my safety shoes thick pants and I've got the the proper liver apron and gloves also face masks so I'm fully kitted up in case of any you know random spill but yes so far so good alright so yep next stage will be polishing them up and I'll put them on eBay and we'll see how will they go so no doubt whilst the video is up and running the auctions well the I'll list them as buy it now so I'll list them up at the same time so if anyone wants to check out the listings they can [Music] always make sure you got one of these masks on when you're sanding down polishing bars because you don't want to be breathing in the the copper stuff and also if you're trying to keep them shiny and you know obviously the copper bars will tarnish and if you want a even tarnish and no blotchy spots make sure you don't touch it with your bare hands until it starts actually tarnishing otherwise you'll get the oil from your fingers will will stain it and you'll get fingerprint marks before it actually even the tarnishes but there you go Wow beautiful little bar here there you go it's nine nine nine pure copper made from yeah just pure copper wire and we've got ourselves a nice little stack here actually might just zoom out a little bit got the camera lined up so there we go we've got ourselves sixteen copper ingots and I think most of them while most of them definitely are over one kilo some of them quite a bit over but there is two small ones so this is the smallest one and it's quite a nice one this one I like that as you can see the ripples are on the the tops they're all kind of unique ripples so you know it makes every bar unique and this is probably one of the biggest ones and yes some of them have slight pit holes like here's a pit hole in the edge you know every one of them has some kind of imperfection but you know that's the beauty of hand poured in gaad's so here's an example like this one's an early one and it was it's been touched as you can see with the fingerprints and you can see how it tarnishes quicker so if you want a more even tarnisha you want to polish them way up [Music] [Music] so they'll pull the SH out and just needs a little bit more work but that's what I mean by touching them with your fingers before they all actually tarnish once they start getting a coating of tarnish all over then it's fine it's just the first so yeah that's probably as far as the small ones is concerned that's probably the best of the smalls there's another small one it's pretty good too had to grind off a little bit off the top here but still it's it's fine once it tarnishes it will it'll look much more even so I think just to give you an example I'll give you some of the weights and so yeah what I'm going to do is I'm going to list these on the eBay and you know just do a little bit of a trial to see how how well they sell again as I said I done it once before and surprisingly they solved very well well that's perfect it's it's one kilo exactly while five grams over but we allow for five grams variation on the scales so there you go one kilo exactly well that's I think that's a first bar of actually made at one spot on one kilo so I'll see whether I sell that one or not this one here yeah again it's a 1 kilo bar 20 grams over allow 5 grams variation so it's just over 1 kilo perfect so I've got 2 kilo bars I've got a rough idea on how what level of the crucible I need to pour to get round 1 kilo but some of these bigger bars like that's probably the next size up you know do a pretty bar okay so one point two four kilos so that's exactly around two pounds so that's a two-pound bar this one this one's quite a nice one too I just love the ripples on the top they just look spectacular [Music] that 11.37 so yeah they're all around that kind of weight 1.39 so beautiful bars and so one point threes you're looking at that's you know they're three pound bars and this one I think is the largest of the lot and it's actually quite a nice one too I really like this one okay so this is one point four so they'll polish out and just needs a little bit more work but that's what I mean by touching them with your fingers before they all actually tarnish once they start getting a coating of tarnish all over then it's fine it's just the first so yeah that's probably as far as the small ones is concerned that's probably the best of the smalls is another small one it's pretty good too had to grind off a little bit off the top here but still it's it's fine once it tarnishes it will it'll look much more even so I think just to give you an example I'll give you some of the weights and so yeah what I'm going to do is I'm going to list these on the eBay and you know just do a little bit of a trial to see how how well they sell again as I said I'd done it once before and surprisingly they solve very well well that's perfect it's it's one kilo exactly while five grams over but we allow for five grams variation on the scales so there you go one kilo exactly well that's I think that's a first bar of actually made at one spot on one kilo so I'll see whether I sell that one or not this one here yeah again it's a 1 kilo bar 20 grams over allow 5 grams variation so it's just over 1 kilo perfect so I've got 2 kilo bars I've got a rough idea on how what level of the crucible I need to pour to get round 1 kilo this one this one's quite a nice one too I just love the ripples on the top they just spectacular that 11.37 so yeah they're all around that kind of weight 1.39 so beautiful bars and so one point threes you're looking at that's you know there's three pound bars this one I think is the largest of the lot and it's actually quite a nice one too I really like this one okay so this is one point four eight kilo so this is about three and a half pounds beautiful bars so there you go guys hand poured copper ingots 1.48 one-of-a-kind unique ok so this one looks like the heaviest one point five one five so one and a half kilos wow that's a nice one was it this one that's that's definitely heavy one point yep one point five one five so that's the heaviest one I've got and that's a full pour you can right up to the top but as you can see that this this one actually poured perfect can't get any more perfect than that you know from my my way of doing it sure it's got a couple of pit holes in the bottom but you can't do a great deal about that the only way is to get the crucibles red-hot and well to get a crucible red-hot that's about the same temperature as the melting point of copper so you'd have to put the crucible itself into a furnace to get it that hot and then pour really quickly but beautiful house that guys I think I'm getting a little bit better at pouring and and certainly quicker at melting copper the once you what I found is obviously the first time you heat the crews are the furnace up it takes some time so it takes about twenty minutes just to heat it up to start thinking about melting the copper but though once you've done your first pour you just keep putting you know you leave a little bit of copper in the bottom so you want to have more than you you need and then if you just add more copper to it as it's going because it's heated up a lot it only takes about 15 minutes to get to the next pour and you can just keep going like that providing that you've got enough fuel and stuff to keep you going I've been doing two paws in a day that's kind of enough because I've got other things to do but there you go guys awesome pure 999 copper ingots this one's beautiful one two this this top is fantastic and the sides are good it doesn't even have you know any major pit holes just basic ones not very deep at all this one is beautiful bar well that's a top specimen that weighs one point four four kilos Wow but yeah a lot of them are really really perfect you know some have slight imperfections like on the edge here but that's just a way it formed as it was pouring so you can't do a lot about that and yeah once again it's kind of what makes them unique so anyway I'm gonna list about probably list ten or twelve on eBay and I'll do that now so the next thing you'll see is some of the listings that I've put on eBay and then and then we'll just take it from there I might do an update video and how if any sold over the next few weeks but if you want to keep an eye on the options just you know maybe you check out the auction pages and maybe watch the items yourself to see if they actually sell if you're interested in doing your own copper ingots for profit rather than just keeping yourself but you know it's it's not the sort of thing that I'm going to really stress out it and try and sell and discount or anything like that because as you know I do this for my own hobby as well and so I'm happy to just keep these ingots in my collection and and just keep stacking like that okay well here we are at my ebay auction site and in case you're wondering I'm electrical gadgets with an underscore if you want to look for me on eBay or you can search the items that I'm selling which is a hand poured copper bar so yeah so I've listed fourteen bars on on eBay I haven't been on eBay for I've had a big break about four or five months so I switched off my eBay store and now I'm just listing as a regular eBay our free listings so so yeah so I've listed fourteen bars and say for instance this bar here is one point four seven kilos it's 63 95 and basically I've got myself a bit of a formula for pricing so instead of just picking up a random price I first base it on the scrap metal price so not the actual retail copper value like for instance you know if you look on the copper price charts you see that currently it's about so currently the real price of copper is three dollars and seven cents a pound that's us or it works after four dollars and seven cents a pound to Australian so that works out to eight dollars 95 a kilo that's what the the actual price of copper is on the price charts so but that's 895 a kilo but I'm basing my prices on scrap metal price which here in Australia on average it's about six dollars fifty a kilo so about two dollars fifty a kilo less than what the real price of copper is okay so yeah so I base it on six dollars fifty a kilo and then I multiply that by six point six I usually I go for six times the price of copper but because I'm selling on eBay you got you know at least another 10% it's probably about fourteen percent in fees and stuff so I add another 10% so six point six person times the copper price and so that's what my my bars are selling for so one point four seven kilos at six point six times the scrap value works out the 6395 and I just go like that so it give you an example so here's my one of the items so that's the one point four seven kilo copper bar and zoom in you can see that's that's basically what it is what it looks like and so I do a cropped up picture and then I do three regular kind of pictures top showing the bottom because I want to show the natural craters and stuff that have been created and also show the the side just to give an idea on what it looks like on one one side and that's it and so that's my little auction text hand poured copper bullion bar one point four seven kilos 3.24 pound and so I go on blah blah blah do the regular sales pitch and like I said I've sold about a year ago on eBay these copper bars and you know they all sold out pretty quickly or some of them took a little while but they eventually sell and so yeah I just wanted to show you that that you know if you wanted to maximize your value on your recycled copper that this is one option now you know it's a big difference turning you know going from just a copper bar to scrap copper and turning it into a copper bar because his there's a lot of work you've got to have you know a lot of equipment you gotta have the you know a good furnace and you know it costs money to run the furnace even though it's on gas you know you've got to add a couple of bucks here and there for all that and your time and then there's so many failures that you've got a rapport and and it's just not easy for the average person to just go and get scrap copper somewhere and and then trying to melt it into buy-in God you know and you might think well what's the point of you know turning copper into copper well you know people like to stack copper bars just like they stack gold bullion or silver bullion they like all kinds of metals and they just want a you know one version you know a copper bar you know obviously when if you're stacking gold you know you're not getting one point four seven kilos of gold bars anytime soon you know that's about sixty thousand dollars so yeah so that's that's a reason why I do it if you look on ebay you'll see for yourself other poured bars and they're not cheap and also you'll see buzz bars which are just machined factory bars they come in like giant 30-foot lengths and then they just cut them into little pieces and I'll so like one pound bars two pound bars well that's just commercial factory pressed copper it's not a hand poured bar that you know that's completely different ballgame so most mints and so on they even when they pour their bars it's done for all it's all mechanical this is hand true hand poured artistic style you know and so there you go if you're looking at maximizing your value on your scrap copper and you're prepared to you know put in a bit of time and pour your own bars well that's about the going price about six times the scrap value so it's probably about four times for about four or four and a half times the actual physical copper price on international charts so yeah and there you go guys well the only problem here is obviously no problems in sending these bars to Australia anywhere in Australia because you know they all range in the one point something kilo once it's over a little bit over a kilo it goes as almost two kilos like international it's very expensive so if you overseas and you're looking at buying one of these bars that's about around the starting price now you know or about the mid mid price of sending a bar overseas so expect to pay that that's Australian dollars so you know it's a bit less in u.s. dollars say for instance but yeah it's very expensive to post and the heavier the bar is the higher it goes so around the one kilo bar might cost about forty five dollars and a one point five kilo bar will cost about sixty five up to seventy dollars to send so you know you've got to take that into account you know so that's the probably about average probably about the minimum to buy by the time you factor in packaging and all that so that's just something to consider i I normally I don't sell to international but in this case I put it up as international because otherwise it's very hard to view this internationally and last time I put up copper bars on the eBay a lot of people from YouTube wanted to see the auctions but they couldn't see it because it wasn't listed as available overseas so that's the only reason why I made them available internationally so you can see the auctions easily and well you know you never know some people might want to actually you know are prepared to pay you know quite high in postage but read their description if you're interested in read all the little things and just before you bid to make sure that you you know what you're buying alright so that's them there and yeah it's pretty much the same auction just a variation in sizes and the actual every bar is obviously unique and different so this one here is one point three eight kilos three point oh four pounds and yeah that's fifty eight ninety five Australian and so there you go so to all those you know there's a lot of people on YouTube that knock me about pouring copper bars and you know I say well this is a hobby this is why I pour but there's also value in pouring in making your own bars so it's not turning scrap copper into scrap copper it's turning scrap copper into you know a bit of an artistic bar and people collect them so you know for some people they might say well I wouldn't do i wouldn't collect them but there's a lot of people out there that love stacking metal and copper is one of those medals that people like and it's not a matter of just walking out and streets and picking up a you know a bunch of copper out of a microwave or a TV or something you know it there's a lot of work to go to get it to this stage and it's it's not easy you need very high temperatures or guys well hope that this whole video was a bit of fun and you know it's it's not you know to be you know it's not something I take seriously I'm not particularly worried if they sell or not I'll leave them up I'll probably leave them up for a month but otherwise they'll just go into my collection and I'll continue to be pouring my own bars for my personal collection as I go probably the next video that I'll do on pouring metal will be aluminium I want to melt some extruded aluminium and turn them into very large ingots and I might even list a few on eBay but they're basically for my personal collection as well so there you go guys I'm electrical gadgets so check me out if you want to see these options and you want to you know put them in your watch list and you can keep an eye on every bar that I've got going I've got 14 listed here and so about the cheapest one is the one kilo bar it's 44 95 it's because it's it's spot-on 1 kilo and it's pretty much perfect this bar you know it's a couple of dollars more than my then the system that I used but because I'm really happy to keep this one anyway but anyway there you go guys keep scrapping have fun and I'll catch you next time

Channel: eWaste Ben

Views: 813,589

Rating: 4.6118798 out of 5

Keywords: copper ingots, scrap copper, melting copper, ewaste ben, metal melting furnace, propane furnace, stacking copper, pouring ingots, copper bar, bullion bars, ingot

Id: Q3TFD42sNJo

Length: 60min 12sec (3612 seconds)

Published: Tue May 01 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/ewasteben]

I sell these copper bars for 6x scrap value, not bad but it does take some work to get decent pours