TLDW #3 - Casting and Forging Recycled Aluminum Foil - Handmade Metal Buttons @islandblacksmith

Uploaded June 2016 | Updated September 2026, 9 hours ago

**WARNING: This is the longer process version intended for serious students of the forge. Watch the TimeWarp edit here: youtu.be/yUXXupLIero

Turning reclaimed aluminum foil and pie plates into handmade metal buttons by melting, refining, casting, and forging. Each button requires approximately 5-10 pie plates.

Heat is provided by a sideblast charcoal forge and Japanese style fuigo box bellows. The crucible came from a retired railroad worker and is an iron one generally for melting lower temp alloys (careful temperature control extends the life of the crucible somewhat). Aluminum foil, pie plates, and take out containers are cold forged into small blocks before adding to the crucible. Stirring and refining is done with a graphite rod and borax. Flat casting onto a steel plate and then cold forging to final thickness before drilling on the hand powered post drill. Care must be taken not to over-forge the aluminum cold or it will crack.

See some of the buttons in use with hand crafted textiles at manonik.com

TLDW #3 - Casting and Forging Recycled Aluminum Foil - Handmade Metal Buttons

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Museum Forge part 6/7 - recycling farm equipment, making aku

$3 minute forge and 5 minute forge making...bring your own bellows! diy Building two examples of quick and simple diy sideblast charcoal forges with found and reclaimed materials to demonstrate that lack of equipment and materials should not be a major obstacle. See more in-depth forge builds on the bladesmith forge building playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBJ5AOs7cMwCSinW7foaiHFZKbZDkasQL Ways to improve these concepts include: mixing copious amounts of chopped straw or charcoal powder into the clay to make it refractory, using high temperature kiln bricks, making the walls higher and longer, using the clay to narrow the tuyere to about 1sun/3cm right where it enters at the bottom side of the forge, putting a barrier up to protect the fuigo (and allowing a shorter pipe), allowing the clay to dry before lighting the forge, etc... Note that if the pipe is galvanized best fit with another section of non-galvanized or at least file off the last 2 inches of zinc in case your tuyere accidentally gets heated to an orange yellow heat and burns off the zinc causing toxic fumes... Full traditional swordsmith forge build documentation here: http://islandblacksmith.ca/2017/01/building-traditional-swordsmith-forge/ Smaller tanto forge build here: http://islandblacksmith.ca/2017/04/building-a-charcoal-tanto-forge/ Fuigo box bellows: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ecetg1B7y4&t=0s&index=16&list=PLBJ5AOs7cMwCSinW7foaiHFZKbZDkasQL$

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