Burning 50lbs of Thermite Made From 400 Soda Cans

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

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.

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

19:02 The Exact Moment Cody's Lab Became Heisenberg

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.

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.

The most controlled thermite reaction I've ever seen (and I've watched a lot of videos about thermite). I love that instead of just throwing melted slag everywhere, it was able to react more slowly and incorporate all of the aluminum cans and magnetite sand into the final products. When you pulled out that big lump of iron from the bottom was a huge "whoaaaaaaaaaaa" moment.

This is somehow the purest “Cody’s Lab” distillation and a wonderful throwback to some of the long-lost greats that boring old “YouToob” and the “Federal Government” had opinions on - that single-cylinder diesel clacking away, Dad’s ball mill, Cody measuring things, paper plates, “probably won’ts” and all. Loved this, man. Blew my mind to see that reaction consume the whole cans and boiling away like some open portal to the Earth’s core. Bravo.

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

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

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!!

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

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

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

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.

I've been watching you for the better part of a decade and I love that you are still doing stuff like this.

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

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.

I wonder if its posible to polish the iron with those amazing colors and what the result would look like. Interesting experiment and your enthusiasm is outstanding.

Been watching you for about a decade now. Something about ur videos are so entertaining with a mix of American country ingunity and science. Ur a mad lad in the best way possible.