How Many Pennies to Cast a Sword?

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until the end of the video for the mel chemistry giveaways so far now I've shown a few different ways to source copper probably the most difficult ways possible by going out and finding the or yourself bringing it back processing it and extracting the ore into actual copper to make a weapon well not having to buy the materials it's actually really expensive when you factor in having to drive there rent a car they can handle the rough terrains all the electricity to grind it up smash it up then Electra win it out over all that's probably the most hast inefficient way to actually make copper the easiest way it's probably to go out and buy a piece of copper or a process ready to go but it's actually not the cheapest the cheapest way is actually to melt u.s. pennies so pennies are made of copper or at least they were the penny or its actual official name the 1 cent piece was first introduced in 1793 and was then made when a hundred percent of copper was nearly the size of a half dollar with inflation a penny then had the purchasing power as a quarter does today through the course of the past few centuries the size and composition has changed to various alloy metals of copper from nickel tin or zinc or some combination of those with a brief period during World War two where they were made of zinc coated steel but majority of their existence they have primarily been copper usually ninety-five percent but after 1982 they were swapped to be cheaper to produce copper-plated zinc penny that are used today but even with the cheaper metals as of 2014 a penny cost an average 1.7 cents to produce with continued inflation and the rising value of copper this has caused older copper coins to be worth more as a metal than their face value which means that if you source all of your copper from early US pennies it's actually cheaper than just buying that copper straight so to make the chief of sort possible I'm gonna try that out and I know what you're thinking I'm committing a federal crime by destroying US currency and that is actually not true according to the Code of Federal Regulations moulting coins for a profit is illegal however there are exceptions for coins being used for educational amusement novelty jewelry and similar purposes as long as you're obviously not profiting for the metal content of the pennies so it's making a sword could be considered almost all of these this should in theory be completely legal as long as I'm not trying to sell the sword or anything listen yes we'll find out I'll let you know if I go to jail I haven't talked to a lawyer so my next video might be from prison we'll find out most coins in circulation are either going to be pre-1982 95% copper or post nineteen eighty to ninety seven point five percent zinc to see the difference copper dissolves at nitric acid so you can strip away the outer layers of the coin from each of these eras [Music] you'll be left with a nice clean older penny in a completely zinc newer penny I got the iron box $25 worth of pennies and then a bag like $14 that gives me almost 4000 pennies to sort through having to sort through manually and look for the date on each one is gonna be really really time-consuming there are a few ways to potentially sort pennies besides manually sorting them by the printed date in fact apparently penny hoarding is the thing that people do and separate and hoard these higher value pennies waiting for the laws about melting the penny to go away so they can melt them down and make a profit to separate them you can do it via weight or you can even use the magnetic properties of copper to separate the ones that are mostly copper or sons of theirs already apparently a demand for it you just buy a cheap machine that separates them for you it analyzes the composition of each coin and then spits it out either one slot or the other so I can quickly sort through a whole bunch of coins so copper goes on one side I think goes on the other I can melt the copper ones down and the zinc ones I can bring back to the bank and then a giant bag of mm um I need some sure they'll love that gonna take a while [Music] try to rig up a way to give the separator at constant flow of coins but ultimately it was just easier to manually feed them by the handful [Music] thanks to this handy little sorter I now have my mostly copper pennies sorted from the zinc ones these are all pre-1982 should be like 95% copper at least but to make bronze you also need tin if I want to keep with the whole coin themed tin coins are a thing this is a Thai coin from the 1940s made out of tin there's a few Southeast Asian countries that had tin coins whoever they are pretty rare and to get enough of them would be pretty expensive and kind of a shame to melt down a bunch of collectible coins I'm just gonna use store-bought ingots get this mixed up it's gonna be about 9 to 1 ratio of tin to copper next time to cast it once again with some help from Gregg the sword casting guy but first one the topic of tin a message from our sponsor Mel science click the button below and get your 25% discount for the first month with Mel chemistry hey buddy how's the homework going I can't find a source for 10 mill science sent us a few kids oh maybe we can take a study break and learn something they sent us a VR headset this is pretty cool I'll let you check this one out well is it amazing I could see the copper and tin forming right in front of me Wow monsters this is gonna be loads of fun for a birthday party cyanotype this will come in handy for a photography series looks like we had to make blueprints I wonder what else we can make the starter kit be sure to use it with someone over the age of 12 oh snap son look at this they even included a tin Hedgehog set this is perfect for our penny sword let's get our science on and it's already forming wow what a fun day of experimenting with this tin kit I sure learned a lot yeah what an awesome day no science must really believe in how to make everything if Mel believes in us just this much I think we should believe in them Foley too now back to making the sword previously I made a bronze each sword with the help of grade he was also interested in helping me try to make a penny sword as well this will be fun to look down into [Music] [Music] then add it in the tin ingots heat it up from stove it again [Music] bellow okay here we go [Music] good thing Liam made extra okay all right so next I go and pour in there [Music] now that's really that's so pretty oh my god yeah that's pretty stunning and it's a nice cast so this stuff is called flashing and that's a very common thing to get with a two-part mold we had our technical difficulty which have exacerbated that but most castings will have some of that and this peacock effect here I have just never seen it quite like that like that's really cool you got the whole shebang their whole rainbow a penny sword oh my god in the end it took about five dollars worth of pennies to cast this sword well I'm so happy that worked out great I usually don't let them just air cool I eventually just went to the wire because I'm impatient [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] and now I don't want to drop it on my toe now that would hurt [Music] [Applause] a crucial step in making a bronze sword is edged hardening it and what we're gonna be doing is we're gonna be taking a ball-peen hammer and just kind of laying it on our little improv BAM and just kind of lightly striking it so I do this in just a lot of small blows instead of big ones mounted mostly to the edge we're gonna sharpen it after we're done with that I try some I want to have it laid down so that's kind of backing it and then just kind of pound as close as you can't like you're partly striking the anvil and partly hitting that but just kind of as close to the edge as you can you don't want it like land any in here just kind of right up there [Music] [Applause] [Music] that's compressing the metal so it's harder than yeah shoving the atoms a little closer together makes it significantly harder you get the same effect when you're bending a paperclip back and forth before it gets to the point where it breaks it's getting harder and harder to make the bends because you've compressed the metals at the point where at that paper clip is benek so that's work hardening also but this is a way to do with bronze all right and we're going to save the sharpening until the last because we don't all be handling a sharp sword when we're putting the handle on [Music] [Applause] [Applause] Ruben Angus have a lost art but he went back 150 or 200 years ago everyone would know how to do this because this was like how things are put together [Music] and finally to put actual edge on the sword so you can see how well it can cut [Music] I have my penny sword I spent a little bit of time sharpening it putting an edge on it I'm sure I could probably spend a few more hours really getting it razor sharp but now I think it's at least good enough to actually cut something compared to the bronze sword I made last time with Greg it is a little bit different color that's because there's a little bit of zinc in this the pennies were five percent zinc and then I'm sure there's a few red of zinc ones that got in there compositionally this is more of what would be considered a gunmetal which is what these two actually make cannons out of it's got more of a golden color and I think it still has a pretty nice edge to it the head up here a lot of coins left over I also went and cast a few knives and they should be approximately $1 worth of pennies and you give these away later on this year nopal Shema first it's getting to Greg for his help with the casting of this he is a teacher of sword casting and he travels all around the country and if you wanted to come to you just send a message you can set something up his website is the sword casting guy calm all right let's get chopping [Music] [Music] it slices it dices I neither sir almond cookie my hot dogs my hot dogs if you like some free Mel chemistry kits tell us what mel stands for and mel chemistry we'll give away three half year subscriptions to three viewers who answer this question the most creatively not the most correct person but the most interesting so start looking it up tell us what you think Mel stands for click the button below and get your twenty five percent discount the first month with Mel chemistry using the code HTM a it makes again - Mel for sponsoring this episode [Music] you enjoyed this video be sure to subscribe and check out other content we have covering a wide variety of topics also if you enjoy these series consider supporting us on patreon we are largely a fan funded channel and depend on the support of our viewers in order to keep our series going thanks for watching

Channel: How To Make Everything

Views: 2,696,932

Rating: 4.6432195 out of 5

Keywords: HTME, DIY, Fun, Smart, Learn, Teach, Maker, History, Science, Innovator, Education, Educational, School, Invention, Agriculture, Textiles, Industry, Technology, Pennies, One Cent Piece, Us Currency, Melt, Hording, Copper, 1982, Penny Sorter, Penny Sorting, Scrap Metal, Casting, Tin, Bronze, Metal Casting, Metal Working, sword making, make a sword, cast a sword, penny sword, casting penny sword, old pennies, brow tidy ox, metal working, copper casting, casting metal, making metal stuff

Id: CutjZmHoJ3I

Length: 17min 11sec (1031 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 17 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/BlueVelvet90]

...I'm beginning to think I have some mild form of dyslexia. It took me a moment to register that word was "pennies".

[u/Sonotmethen]

The likely method Peter Pans sword from Hook was crafted by!