- 1). Put the copper wire into a heavy cast iron kettle. Bend and cut the copper as needed to get all the copper into the kettle.
- 2). Insert the kettle into a ceramic glass kiln, and raise the temperature to 2000 F, or just over 1085 C. Copper has a lower melting point when compared to other metals such as iron, which melts at over 2700 F. Nonetheless, the copper must be raised to this high temperature in order to be melted and reshaped. Many glass kilns reach temperatures of 2000 F.
- 3). Remove the molten copper from the kiln. Carefully pour the hot liquid it into ingot molds. These molds resemble steel bread pans. The molten copper cools in the ingot molds.
- 4). Drop the copper ingots into cold water as soon as the copper is set. The copper ingot is "set" when it can hold its shape outside of the mold. The sudden decrease in temperature prepares the copper for rolling.
- 5). Contact a local sheet metal specialist or a portable metal processing service, such as Real Wrought Iron to roll your processed ingots into copper sheets. Rolling copper into sheets requires industrial manufacturing equipment. The equipment applies huge amounts of pressure on the metal ingots and reshapes the material. This step requires industrial presses; homeowners cannot successfully complete this step with home equipment.
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