Where do I buy or obtain pure copper for cementing?
- Thread starter River21
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Electrical copper (bus bar scrap) or wire, is very pure, copper plumbing pipe is pure enough for what we need, normally for cementing you want thick or larger copper bars or wires.
Plumbing pipe can be cut in short lengths, split open with a saw or shears, and flattened out and cut with shears... normally the larger diameter the copper pipe is the thicker it can be depending on the types and uses of the piping, pipes can come in hard or soft copper depending on the application.
Electrical outlets or Hardware can sell thick copper wire for grounding...
Check your junkyard for electrical equipment or ask them for bus bar copper (big thick bars) many times these bus bars can be silver-plated. Take some of your junk metal trash and trade him for the copper.
Plumbing pipe can be cut in short lengths, split open with a saw or shears, and flattened out and cut with shears... normally the larger diameter the copper pipe is the thicker it can be depending on the types and uses of the piping, pipes can come in hard or soft copper depending on the application.
Electrical outlets or Hardware can sell thick copper wire for grounding...
Check your junkyard for electrical equipment or ask them for bus bar copper (big thick bars) many times these bus bars can be silver-plated. Take some of your junk metal trash and trade him for the copper.
I find it best to melt my scrap copper to large bars.
I can then drill a hole and use a stainless steel to hang them in my cementing beaker. This saves on having to fish out small bits from cemented silver.
Also melting the scrap burns off most all the dirt and impurity.
Using one or two large bars instead of lots of little bits helps cut down on excess copper being left after cementing as well.
I can then drill a hole and use a stainless steel to hang them in my cementing beaker. This saves on having to fish out small bits from cemented silver.
Also melting the scrap burns off most all the dirt and impurity.
Using one or two large bars instead of lots of little bits helps cut down on excess copper being left after cementing as well.
Copper is a metal with crystal properties like gold aluminum and silver, having a face-centered cubic crystal structure that will work harden, hammering. strain bending, rolling the metal under pressure (working the metal) will make it hard and more brittle
to point of possible cracking.
Annealing these metals like copper or gold is almost the opposite of hardening or annealing (softening) iron metal where we change the crystal structure of the metals in the process.
When we anneal copper or gold returning it to a soft state which can be easily worked or shaped, unlike with iron we do not change the crystal structure of the metal but remove defects in the crystal structure.
With copper hammering or working the metal causes defects in the face-centered crystals, annealing just removes these defects in the crystals but does not change the crystal structure into a different crystalline structure as we do with iron when we harden or anneal that metal.
To anneal the copper and make it easier to cut with shears, you can heat the metal to red hot (700 deg. F to 1100 deg F), holding the temperature for a short period of time (soaking), and then dunking the metal into water to cool. The metal should cut or flatten under a hammer much easier after the process.
Unlike iron, the cooling rate or how fast you cool the metal has little effect as we are not changing the crystal structure in doing this with copper or gold.
to point of possible cracking.
Annealing these metals like copper or gold is almost the opposite of hardening or annealing (softening) iron metal where we change the crystal structure of the metals in the process.
When we anneal copper or gold returning it to a soft state which can be easily worked or shaped, unlike with iron we do not change the crystal structure of the metal but remove defects in the crystal structure.
With copper hammering or working the metal causes defects in the face-centered crystals, annealing just removes these defects in the crystals but does not change the crystal structure into a different crystalline structure as we do with iron when we harden or anneal that metal.
To anneal the copper and make it easier to cut with shears, you can heat the metal to red hot (700 deg. F to 1100 deg F), holding the temperature for a short period of time (soaking), and then dunking the metal into water to cool. The metal should cut or flatten under a hammer much easier after the process.
Unlike iron, the cooling rate or how fast you cool the metal has little effect as we are not changing the crystal structure in doing this with copper or gold.
Most good electrical wire and plumbing pipe are pure copper, watch out for any solder or brass fitting.
If you clean them off as much manually as you can a good flux will clean off the rest of the gak.
Sorry you were thinking of filling holes with Epoxy> why?
If you clean them off as much manually as you can a good flux will clean off the rest of the gak.
Sorry you were thinking of filling holes with Epoxy> why?
jmdlcar said:
If you are unsure test it with nitric acid, some telecom wire is plate.
Some may be silver plated and then great, then some will be nickel plated or copper plated aluminium.
No one can help you wire by wire you have to look at testing, so you can work these things out by what you observe.
And that is yet another reason it is good to melt, cavities will fill tight and only be truly liberated once all the copper is sacrificed.
The wire I have when I cut it off of the pole it was all copper both ends were copper when I look at it. And the pole had a date plate and it was dated 1969 and it had another number too. The bus bar when you look at the ends they were all copper and I know where it came from out of the house I rent the electric panel was change 2 years ago and the house was built in 1959 and was never change before that. In fact all the pipes in the house are copper even the sewer and the main sewer pipe is 4" by 25 feet long.
jmdlcar said:
Sounds like a good copper, does not sound like you acquired it in an honorable manner at all.
Do you own that property or work for the owner in some extrema demolition and refurbishment?
Or did you just notice someone else's property was unguarded?
justinhcase said:
No I don't own and no I don't work for him. I live in a older house and the electric panel need to be upgraded and the copper wire was replace because it was old so I ask them if I could have a 6 foot of the ground wire and they gave 8 feet of it and I look when they put the new pole and the ground was the good copper to.
What really concerned me was"The wire I have when I cut it off of the pole"!jmdlcar said:
No one but utility workers should ever be working with thick copper coming off of utility poles.
Just in the UK outside the metal theft, some thirty-five people last year alone have converted themselves to a very high conductive carbon in the pursuit of scrap copper.
jimdoc
Well-known member
Copper wire will break off in pieces, you are better off with solid piece.
