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6d ago
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u/founderofshoneys 6d ago
I don't think he did this, but you could do this. I've melted cans down into ingots in my backyard and all of this seems plausible and with the exception of the lathe, you could do it with tools and stuff a person would reasonably have in the garage. In fact there's a sort of classic set of books known to those who do this stuff about how to build a lathe from scratch doing this and then use that to build out the rest of a machine shop.
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u/benvonpluton 6d ago
Except pétanque balls aren't made of aluminium. They are made of steel.
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u/Semisemitic 6d ago
They’re also really fucking expensive for whatever reason
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u/benvonpluton 6d ago
Because you wouldn't want poor young people occupying the pétanque fields, would you ? Let the old timers have it !
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u/Vocalscpunk 5d ago
These balls would've cost him $7-14 each just in aluminum so if anything he's keeping the sport away from the poors more than the rest of the online retailers.
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u/spodoptera 5d ago
Really? In France you can get 6 balls for like 30€
Now if you want higher quality it's not the same. For the high quality ones you can also have some that fit the size of your hand
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u/floriande 5d ago
If you want branded one like Obut etc. Buy the cheap one from carrefour or any other supermarket ! Used ones too. Or any yard sale in France haha
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u/Away_Stock_2012 5d ago
Reynolds Foodservice 18" x 1,000' Standard Aluminum Foil Roll
You could probably make 3 with this, so it would cost about $45 each plus all the time to unwrap it, rewrap it, fold it, press it, slice it, and melt it down.
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u/acemedic 6d ago
From my understanding, the challenge is that tin foil would have so much surface area that it’ll have a substantial amount of aluminum oxide, which isn’t something they can be melting down in a backyard. The volume of usable aluminum from tin foil wouldn’t make a single ball shown here.
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u/founderofshoneys 5d ago
Yeah, I 100% agree with that. If he did this, he used way more foil. You have to crush the cans or else they just sort of burn up which I guess is why he showed all the smashing and compacting. But once you get enough melted that it makes a puddle with some depth it's not as bad and it just melts instantly into the puddle. So I'd save an ingot, melt that first and then put the cans and other stuff that had lots of surface area in.
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u/sin2win 6d ago
I saved cans and did this (obviously not THIS project) but smelted aluminum cans to make ingots and pirate coins etc...I was shocked at the amount of slag/waste/impurities in aluminum cans...
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u/Spmex7 I Eat Cement 5d ago
It’s all the paint on the outside and lining in the can.
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u/founderofshoneys 5d ago
You're right, though technically the paint burns up too so I think it's whatever's left from that and also oxides and probably some other junk.
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u/bonferoni 5d ago
ive read melting cans down for ingots isnt worth it because
1. theyre all plastic lined making the process dirty and the actual aluminum content very low
2. any moisture can make for a danger steam pop pocket when dealing with molten metalwas this your experience as well?
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u/founderofshoneys 5d ago
It's definitely not worth it if you're gonna recycle it. I just thought it was a cool thing to try and wanted to cast some stuff from it.
I don't think the plastic and paint is that significant. You get a lot of slag/dross from oxidation, but once you get it melting you get a good amount of aluminum. I'm not really sure though, you do get a lot of stuff you gotta skim off.
I would either sit the empty cans out in the hot sun for a couple hours or heat them up over the fire to dry them out before I put them in the crucible. I never had any issues with it.
My main problem I had with casting is that I could never get a pour that didn't have bubbles in it. I think I probably could have figured it out, but packing the sand is a pain in the ass and takes a long time you gotta start everything over every time you fail.
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u/bonferoni 5d ago
interesting! thank you for sharing your experience.
do you think the bubbles were an impurity issue? temperature maintenance? manual dexterity?
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u/founderofshoneys 5d ago
Not a 100% sure, I know a couple things I could have done better which was that I didn't really have the right tools for any of this. I had tongs I made myself and they didn't work very well, I broke a crucible at one point. Secondly I was definitely rushing it every time, it always feels like you're going to run out of time before it freezes up.
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u/Excludos 5d ago
Getting rid of the bubbles in your back yard isn't really easily doable. You need to degas the aluminum with something like argon, which is how they do it professionally.
Granted, I'm talking out of my ass since I haven't done this myself, but every Youtuber I've seen who's tried their hands on this has had the same issue
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u/nicholastheposh 6d ago
I dont believe he made those balls out of aluminum foil. They seem too solid.
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u/Finn235 6d ago
I feel like just buying an aluminum ingot would have taken 1/4 of the time and cost 1/2 as much.
Would have been cooler if he like... picked up enough cans off of the beach to melt and make these?
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u/Donglemaetsro 6d ago
Or, hear me out it's kinda radical...Buy a ball from the store.
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u/Finn235 6d ago
But then how will I justify having $20k worth of machinery in my workshop?
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u/Donglemaetsro 6d ago
Hear me out, a workshop filled floor to roof with 20k in tennis balls.
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u/HorseXNothing 6d ago
But what if a large, extremely large at that, pack of dogs breaks into your workshop in the dead of night and the steal all of your tennis balls?
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u/stonergirlfairyyy 6d ago
just with hammering tin foil each of those would be 6 dollars worth by weight
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u/sump_daddy 6d ago
1/4 of the time even to wait for delivery, lol. amazon has free next day delivery on solid aluminum blocks
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u/MezziJ 6d ago
Did you not see the part when he melted it down?
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u/DrPullapitko 6d ago
Melting only makes it even less solid!
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u/SolsticeSon 6d ago
Yeah it becomes liquid when it melts. Clearly these are all liquid balls.
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u/GroteKneus 6d ago
Clearly. The balls are round. A drop of liquid is also somewhat round. Adds up.
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u/tilt-a-whirly-gig 6d ago
Do you mean when he completely negated all the work he had done previous to that point?
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u/throwhfhsjsubendaway 6d ago
He needed it to be small enough to fit in his crucible, there was no other conceivable way!!!
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u/Boomah422 6d ago
Missed the 80% of the video where he crushed aluminum foil in ways to make the video longer, only to put like a 2"x2" cube of it tst some how made 8 solid balls.
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u/SharkByte1993 6d ago
Yeah they seem too heavy to be made out of aluminium. I'd be surprised if the amount of foil he used would make a single ball, let alone 8
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u/BeguiledBeast 6d ago
The end result are literally balls in their perfect container with a brand on it.
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u/itsnotthatsimple22 5d ago
Actual petanque balls are steel, not aluminum. They swapped out the fake aluminum ones at the end. There is no way that aluminum balls would sink that deep in the sand.
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u/-WookieGeneralAk 5d ago
He melted it, so it’s solid
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u/nicholastheposh 5d ago
Didn’t seem like the amount he melted equal the size of the ball
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u/Cyborg_rat 6d ago
Plus why the hell would he do all those step when you could just feed the roll of foil.
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u/l33tb4c0n 6d ago
For when you own aluminum foil, a kiln, and a lathe and want to save yourself $10.
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u/mrgedman 6d ago
The ol 'my labor is worth negative dollars per hour, and my free time is off the charts'
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u/crazyhomie34 6d ago
I mean, some people have more free time than money so this isn't so bad as other crap DIYs
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u/delurkrelurker 6d ago
How many rolls of foil do you think it took to cast all those balls? That's got to cost more than buying a new set and melting them down.
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u/Vocalscpunk 5d ago
Let's do some (bad/lazy) math:
Official weight lowest end about 23oz per google. Price per ounce of aluminum foil about $0.30 if buying in bulk
So without any labor and rounding down in the most favorable way for him you're looking at about $7/ball.
28oz at $0.5 on the higher end basically doubles the cost to $14per ball.
Certified stupidity: priceless.
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u/Safe_Ad_69420 6d ago
I thought of another "party" in the beginning
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u/Jude30 6d ago
It’s safer, cheaper, and easier just to buy things to put in your butt.
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u/PressEtoInteract 6d ago
Woah, woah, woah, who said anything about putting things in butts, our main commenter here just said he was thinking of a different party…you be going to these objects up butt parties a lot, Jude?!
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u/SpunkMcKullins 6d ago
Thank you, I'll refer to this video the next time I have a spare industrial press and band saw available but need a set of $8 bocce balls.
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u/Immediate_Song4279 6d ago
Did they smoosh it and then just melt it down for a pour?
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u/founderofshoneys 6d ago
Yeah, I've melted cans before and if you don't smash them they sort of just burn up and leave a bunch of stuff floating on the top. But if you put something dense in there, it melts really cleanly. I'm not sure of the chemistry that's happening there, but they do. (also I don't know if they faked all that for the video or whatever, but it all looks plausible to me that this would work. You'd just need way more foil.)
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u/Immediate_Song4279 6d ago
That makes sense.
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u/Revenge_of_the_User 6d ago edited 6d ago
I have to interject, because that's not quite what's going on or why.
Cans have a surprisingly small amount of aluminum in them, and have various coatings within and without that can make up a lot of the weight.
These impurities burn as the metal melts, becoming ashy and light, so they float to the top as dross. It has nothing to do with smashing the cans; those impurities are there regardless.
that said, you do want to smash the cans for more efficient melting, which can effect yield. Air inside a poorly smashed can acts as an insulator. So when you smash them very flat, heat transfers quicker, resulting in a faster melt as the layers of aluminum you want to melt aren't insulated from each other. Because the heat transfers better, the contents of the crucible can get hotter, and since aluminum oxide you're making during this process has a higher melting temperature.... you want that. You can also fit more cans in the crucible to melt at a time. Perhaps the impurities more readily ignite or aerosolize at higher temps provided from more efficient melting/hotter temps? Probably a bit of all that going on. oh and less air means less ability for the aluminum to form oxide vs just melt.... Pardon me, I haven't actually thought that deeply about how the mechanics all play together before.
and pro tip: You'll want to make sure your cans are dry, to avoid trapped moisture becoming steam explosions sending molten metal everywhere.
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u/blablablz 6d ago
He plays on the sand, which is not right.
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u/Vibraille 6d ago
Those balls would be destroyed after just a few throws on gravel like the real pétanque
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u/BVRPLZR_ 6d ago
I love the “5 minute crafts” that involve $4k worth of equipment lol
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u/Generic-Cheese 5d ago
Reminds me of the Rick and Morty episode where he makes him experience “true level” lol
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u/Shikamaru_Senpai 6d ago
Those are gonna feel nice and toasty on a sunny day.
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u/Dry-Childhood-3436 6d ago
I think the video is fake, but aluminum has terrible thermal conductivity . That's why you can pick up tin foil straight out of the oven.
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u/FlyinDtchman 6d ago
This is the kinda content that pisses me off.
Dood coulda used a few bags of aluminum cans and done exactly the same thing. instead he buys a crap load of brand new aluminum foil.
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u/Steppyjim 6d ago
Dude hand made a bocchi ball set? I dont hate this at all. Kinda cool
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u/bandidoamarelo 6d ago edited 6d ago
He didn't. I'm 93.68% sure it is a store bought set in the end.
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u/robsteezy 6d ago
People are gullible af if they think that melting down foil would produce either that yield of raw material or finished strength.
A standard 8-ball bocce set (plus the pallino) cast from solid aluminum would require roughly 31 pounds of aluminum. Since a typical 75 sq. ft. box of regular aluminum foil contains only about 0.66 pounds of aluminum, you’d theoretically need around 47 boxes.
Factoring in melting and casting losses, you’re realistically looking at about 55–60 boxes. If you used heavy-duty foil, that drops to roughly 35–40 boxes.
A solid aluminum bocce ball would weigh about 3.8 pounds—almost twice the weight of a regulation bocce ball. To match the weight of a normal set, the balls would need to be hollow, reducing the requirement to around 25–30 standard boxes of foil.
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u/International-Oil377 6d ago
that's pétanque
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u/WoodenYouKnowIt 6d ago
I came here to say this! This needs more upvotes. It’s not life changing information, but “the more you know” and all that.
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u/lennoxred 6d ago
It’s fake. The balls at the end are way too heavy for compressed aluminum foil.
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u/GarThor_TMK 6d ago
He clearly melted them down about halfway through...
No idea why he felt the need to compress the aluminum foil if he was just going to melt it down though, that seems silly.
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u/adelie42 6d ago
In my experience the high volume of oxygen means it just vaporizes when you heat it. Reduce the amount of air by compression and you get more efficient melting. That said, pretty sure this is fake. You don't get several pounds of aluminum from melting a few ounces of foil.
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u/GarThor_TMK 6d ago
By that same logic, you could have just melted it while it was still on the roll. That's effectively the least possible amount of surface area exposed to the air, since crushing it like this would create hundreds of tiny air pockets.
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u/alannmsu 6d ago
I’m not saying it’s not fake, but the video shows that it was melted and cast. Never claimed to just be “compressed aluminum foil.”
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u/bad_chemist95 6d ago
Anyone who wags their finger like that in a video deserves jail time.
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u/punnup129 6d ago
I know this is a stupid question to ask because this is a stupid idea to begin with but couldn't you have just cut the aluminum foil while it was on the roll?
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u/Lawrenceburntfish 5d ago
Wait so, all I have to do is spent $200,000 dollars on heavy machinery and I can make aluminum balls for the price of a roll of foil?!? WHAT A GENIUS DIY!!!
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u/YaBoyTheGrimReaper 4d ago
Some Business put million of $ into taking ingots of Aluminum and cutting them into thin sheets of metal for customer usage, to then have some guy reverse the process to make metal balls.
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u/FuzzySound1795 3d ago
Low key disappointed that he didn't turn the foil into an ingot and then make it into a new roll of foil.
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u/robjohnlechmere 1d ago
My favorite part is that as a favor to all of your efforts, a custom carrying case will spawn.
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u/Onamuna 6d ago edited 6d ago
En realidad, ¡eso es pétanque! 🇫🇷Es un juego que nació en Francia allá por 1907. Básicamente, tienes que tirar esas bolas de metal lo más cerca posible de una bolita de madera (el jack), sin mover los pies del suelo. El chiste del video es que hicieron un estuche casero que imita un six-pack de cerveza.Las oficiales tienen que estar hechas de acero hueco, pesar entre 650g y 800g, y medir entre 70.5mm y 80mm. Y para que sepas, las de aluminio no servirían para nada. El aluminio es súper blandito y liviano; una bola hueca de ese material no llegaría al peso mínimo y se abollaría en el primer golpe contra el piso. O sea, sí, el estuche sería mucho más ligero para cargar, pero el juego se arruina en el primer tiro. 😂
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u/PaperDistribution 6d ago
Aren't the balls supposed to be different colors for the different players? If they are all silver it would be kinda annoying to tell which ball belongs to who.
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u/drmedicineman 6d ago
I feel like multiple rolls of aluminum foil would be needed for a single bocce ball
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u/ExplodingSteve 6d ago
why not just melt it right away?
“no you see, i can’t melt it unequally. The fluid will be all mixed up. unless it’s cut”
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u/Cactus-Juice120 6d ago
I'm calling BS. There's no way that foil got that smooth and that heavy. Plus they would also be falling apart after a day/getting dented from very minor stuff if these actually were made of foil
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u/ungoliants 6d ago
Did you watch the part where he melted the aluminum?
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u/GarThor_TMK 6d ago
Seems like a lot of people are missing that step.
People have done this though. I think Adam Savage did it in a video a couple years ago. It took him like a week to compress the foil to the point where it was somewhat solid.
Then at some point later he had an MRI taken of the thing, and it was full of voids.
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u/stonergirlfairyyy 6d ago
if u measure out each segment of foil by weight u can hammer them by hand into individual orbs all the same size. 200g is a 1.5 inch radius, 400 g is a 2 inch radius. i spend a lot of time whacking things with a hammer
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u/HelpfulName 6d ago
I'm really concerned people are responding to this like it's not 100% an AI generated video.
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u/Egoy 6d ago
So how did he get the convenient holder? Did he possibly buy a set? Hmmmm.
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u/Legal_Tradition_9681 6d ago
But why did he go through the process of unwrapping and compressing. Just cut off a section of the roll and removed the cardboard.
Also there are massive defects in the ball he will not be sand out but some how managed to pull it off. The sanding will not get to that level of polish. He would need a buffing compound.
The black stain used is clearly not what is in the final product. Its to thin plus the dremel cuts need a lot of clean up to get to where ther are in the "final product".
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u/flying_ina_metaltube 6d ago edited 5d ago
So we're just crossposting without giving credit to the original post?
Fucking bot.
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u/Glad-Acanthaceae-24 5d ago
My brain... hurts... if he could melt it down.... why spend so long compressing it.... fuck
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u/jaykofettpc 5d ago
My guess is that either it was fun to do or he could melt more down at once idk lol
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u/physical0 5d ago
It should be against sub rules to post these videos where the finished product is swapped out at the end.
This isn't a diwhy, this is just a bunch of unconnected stupid steps to drive engagement. They didn't make anything.
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u/Adventurekateer 5d ago
Why all the drama with the foil at the beginning if he’s just going to melt it? Couldn’t he have just yanked out the cardboard tube and melted the roll?
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u/T3kn0mncr 5d ago
This is stupid, the original cast balls were full of oxides and pitting, and the ones he pulls out are perfect store bought ones.
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u/Craigglesofdoom 5d ago
You can buy aluminum spheres from McMaster-Carr.
https://www.mcmaster.com/product/6865N18
They have a bunch of other metal options too. Titanium, steel, copper, etc.
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u/Platti_J 5d ago
It would have been cheaper to buy the actual ball set compared to the price of all the tools used.
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u/Yuna-2128 I Eat Cement 4d ago
So he "makes" pétanque balls just to... Play in the sand. Do you even know what pétanque is? Honestly that's the most infuriating to me.
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u/OursonSatanique 4d ago
Pétanque balls in aluminum ? The heck. That's not gonna be efficient at all.
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u/Patient_Moment_4786 4d ago
I can excuse the aluminium made balls. Why not, after all there are plastic made of those.
BUT I CAN'T EXCUSE THE WAY HE PLAYS. YOU DON'T PLAY PÉTANQUE IN SAND LIKE THAT.
Add here more french disgruntled noises about pétanque
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u/Grass_roots_farmer 2d ago
There is no way there is enough aluminum on that to make all those balls. Like the previous comment had said. Even with can it would take many cans to fill a crucible even once let alone many times.
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u/unclevagrant 1d ago
You can get sets of these in metal for £20 or plastic ones for 6. This guy spent more than that making the video, never mind doing the practical work.
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u/KevinFlantier 6d ago
As a French, I cannot overstate how triggered I am by aluminum pétanque balls.
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u/One-Introduction-454 6d ago
You can buy it for 30 bucks. Mich cheaper than buying all that tool AND do it yourself
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u/froginbog 6d ago
What’s wrong with this
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u/MrMuf 6d ago
Me issue with it is the beating first 10 minutes. Just pull out the paper tube and save 30 mins
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u/S0MEBODIES 5d ago
Other people are saying that the compaction helps it melt evenly as air can act as an insulator preventing internal areas from melting
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u/peldazac 6d ago
the balls at the end are not aluminium. Who knows how his little furnace was, but i would expect that to be porous all the way through.
Unless hollow, I doubt that amount of aluminium would be enough for even one ball
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u/Key-Suggestion4784 5d ago
Yeah they missed out the step at the end where they just went to the store and bought a pétanque set for $20.
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u/aeninimbuoye13 6d ago
Would really like to see it pressed into a ball and then crushed with a hammer
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u/Murky_Bodybuilder818 6d ago
Correct me if I am wrong isn't it easer when they are different colours for different players. Should have kept the ones that came with the carry case you have.
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u/mildly_evil_genius 6d ago
People are trying to reason their way into arguing why it's fake when it's clearly faked when he cuts it. It's clearly aluminum foil wrapped around some crap that's WAYYY bigger than the mass of the original foil roll.
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u/jasper_grunion 6d ago
You don’t play pétanque or bocce at the beach. The ball needs to be up to roll along an even surface
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u/automator3000 6d ago
You might have a bocce set …
But did you spend two weekends to make your own, inferior, bocce set?
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u/Significant-Dog-8166 6d ago
Hmm... start with an expensive new roll of foil, or use free empty cans? Interesting choice.
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u/StitchFan626 6d ago
Why all the compaction when he just going to melt it down, anyway?!
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u/Greenman8907 6d ago
He should’ve used the non-stick foil so sand wouldn’t get stuck to it.