Watch 1,000 Soda Cans Melt Into Hefty, Aluminum Ingots

You know what’s more satisfying to watch than a thousand soda cans being crushed? Seeing them get turned into solid blocks of pure aluminum bliss. After consuming an unhealthy amount of soda products, Ben from PressTube decides to crush and melt the cans into reusable aluminum ingots (which can be used as bricks for a shiny, aluminum house, a shiny, aluminum walkway, or a shiny, aluminum koala climbing a meat bridge).

Ben starts by dumping roughly 1,000-1,100 soda cans into a shredder. Once they’ve been turned into aluminum confetti, he resists rolling in it, fires up his one-liter crucible and shovels a handful of shredded metal into it.

As the bits begin to melt, a large portion of slag starts to make its way to the surface. This comes from the various paints, dirt, and other materials which were used to make the cans. Ben removes this excess slag before pouring the pure aluminum into a heavy-duty, cast iron mold.

Ben makes three separate ingots – one made of a single pour from the crucible, another from two pours, and a third out of three pours. The first ingot is simply left to dry and is removed from the mold once it’s finished, but the two ingots made from different pours require a block of ice for them to cool and meld together.

The smallest ingot weighs 1.9 kg (4.2 lbs), the middle ingot 3.6 kg (7.9 lbs), and the third and heaviest ingot weighs 4.7 kg (10.3 lbs). All in all, the one thousand melted soda cans provide a total of roughly 10 kg (22.4 lbs) worth of aluminum.

Soda cans aren’t the only thing Ben works with. You can see more of his casting projects (some of which are toys!) over on his Youtube channel, PressTube.

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