Burning 50lbs of Thermite Made From 400 Soda Cans

I make thermite from aluminum drink cans.

[pnadk]

Only on Cody's Lab: Just a cosy bonfire in my back yard... It seems my shovel is on fire...

[dhawthorne]

Basically, you have a big chunk of pig iron. This is the end product of the iron smelteries along the Susquehanna River. Coal, iron sands and the wood for charcoal was brought down by train and barge from around Centralia and Halifax, smelted and poured into buildings with floors covered in a thick layer of sand (that would turn green from the iron contamination, similar to that used in the stems of Alsatian wine glasses). The slabs would be broken up and sold to blacksmiths, iron-wrights and steel mills, often finding it's way up to Pittsburgh.

Pig iron is rather useless on as is, it takes another melt or a lot of really hot, folding and forge welding to become something strong enough to be used as anything other than a paper weight. The reason you take this intermediate step is because transporting it in this form removes a lot of weight and volume. The Susquehana Valley was the logical place to set up these foundries because it was the shortest distance, near a lot of water from the sources of all the materials needed and you can let gravity do most of the transportation for you.

[integza]

Seeing you crush those cans was the most satisfying thing I've seen all week

[An_Attempt]

Reason for the lip lifting off the sand: The thin aluminum rim cooled faster than the thicker Iron center material. As such the rim material contracted first and then solidified. After that, the thick center material solidified and contracted pulling the rim material up off the ground. This is a problem that you need to consider when 3D-printing large metal parts, so much so that the print novel needs to have a live physics simulation running to compensate for thermal contraction. At the end of the day, it comes down to thermal contraction and geometry.

[henrique]

18:30 it is amazing that at this point you could just keep throwing more cans to keep a really warm fire.

[TheEcoHome]

Love your enthusiasm for these projects! I'm starting an education to become a biology teacher and I have a book on chemistry laying around that I really need to read beforehand to refresh my memory of the subject because the last time I had it was in 2015.. Your channel has taught me so much over the years though and I really appreciate you and your channel! Can't wait to try out chemistry experiments with my kids and teach them about beekeeping and the lot. Hope you're having a lovely day!!

[NewVegasMPx]

Working in a fabrication shop, I love how easily accessible the materials are for thermite. Literally just laying on the floor.

[MoonberryJam]

2:12 Crazy to think this stuff used to be more expensive than gold, but now one can cast multi-pound ingots of it from casually discarded drink containers

[Timalick]

This video was a BANGER!!! Definitely got me nostalgic to the good old days of YouTube and CodysLab. Thank you!

[nazamroth]

Imagine walking along the street and you just see a guy giggling around a pool of molten, violently exothermic "lava", occasionally stirring it with a flaming shovel.

[Vikingwerk]

Classic CodysLab; questionably safe science experiments in the back yard!

[ralphralpherson]

(70 year old Cody lays in the Hospital)
Doctor: Well, it could be heavy metal poisoning, an environmental allergy, or radiation... have you spent any time around metal dust, radioactives, chemicals, mercury, or heavy metals?
Cody: boy... well, how long you got?

[PeakOfHumor]

Since no one is talking about the intro, I appreciate your effort on it.

[turninonthescrew]

Me at the halfway mark: "Yeah, that was a pretty cool video. Nice one, Cody."
Cody: *(pulls out 50lb bucket of thermite)*
Me: 😳

[doragonsureia]

19:02 I recognise that big smile from a mile away. The smile of a kid who startet a big fire and is in awe of it's flames! I love making fire

[Nighthawkinlight]

Pretty excellent result! I like the idea of only using a small amount of highly processed material. I wonder if you could get away with only a couple lbs of thermite to get a big flowerpot of crushed cans going.

Also you should make another iron ingot like that and cut it down the middle. Give it a polish and boom: art.

[mikeblair]

I'm a blacksmith and I've been watching you since you started this channel.
In smithing we use slow cooling out of the wind and weather to create a smaller grain structure. This is called normalizing. If you make a work-piece too hot you create large grain structures and brittle steel. So that's when you normalize it.
You heat it to the critical point ( so hot that its non-magnetic). Then you heat it a bit more. Then you normalize it. You do this several more times until you're heating it to magnetic. The more you do this the smaller the grain structure size will be.
I theorize that it was the overnight temperature and snowfall that cooled the iron quickly. Cast iron will always have a larger grain structure than steel, but I think that the fast cooling and possibly other minerals created conditions for the much larger grains/crystals.
I would give somebody else's left eye to do a smelt to make wrought iron with you. I might just give my own left eye to run a smelt, but sadly I already lost my left eye when I was 21, so someone else's it is. Any takers in the comments? Thanx for the video. They're never boring.

[Gandhi_Physique]

I just love that you don't use super high end lab equipment for a lot of things you do (maybe all, idk). These random things are so cool. I bet you've learned so much from doing all this random stuff.

[Ms.Pronounced_Name]

18:40 I was 100% expecting you to toss a few additional prepared cans in, like adding logs to a fire

[smoothwalrus]

Cody originally got demonetised because he made gunpowder out of his own urine.

Now that he has been monetised again, he's teaching us how to make thermite 😂

Never change, Cody. You're the best.