Hi all,

I’m just getting started with this hobby so this is probably a noob question but I want to be as safe as possible! I recently started smelting aluminum from a couple sources with this furnace kit I bought. From what I understand this kit can melt copper without issue, and my friend with a bit of a hoarding problem has piles of scrap copper wire, heat sinks, pipes etc that we want to melt.

My concern is that the wire is enameled, and I’m not sure if that will cause any issues with the process or safety issues. My assumption is that it’ll work the same as smelting cans - most will vaporize in the extreme heat into very healthy and safe fumes, and anything left will sit on the top as dross to scoop out. But better to be told I’m wrong here than once I have molten metal and a red hot crucible to deal with. ;)

I tried searching through /r/metalfoundry for any relevant posts but didn’t see anything, but if there’s a noob resource that I should check first for future questions please let me know!

Edit: I have another question I may as well ask while I’m here - should I use a different crucible per type of metal I’m smelting? Or is there anything special I should do to my crucible if I will use the same one for different metals?