I've made brake rotors out of Lead, Aluminium, and Copper.
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- Опубликовано: 17 окт 2022
- In this video, I make Brake Rotors from scratch auto of Lead, Aluminium, and Copper alloy. I chose these metals because they are very different one to each other.
It was relatively easy to cast Lead and aluminum. The tricky part was to cast copper because of its height melting point (1084.62 °C, 1984.32 °F).
I didn't know what to expect when I tested the brake disc made of copper alloy. I thought it would melt, but it didn't.
For the Rotor made from aluminum, I melted cans made from aluminum alloy Al 3004 / Al 5182 and some Grounding wire Al5052. I was not surprised that it is brittle and breaks into pieces subjected to massive forces.
Lead is very soft and highly malleable. It made a spectacular show in our video; because of the friction, the Disk started melting, spurting like a stream, and solidified instantly before falling to the ground.
Rotors Weigh:
- Original cast iron 3,9 kg/8.5lb
- Lead 8,2kg/18lb
- Aluminium 1,7kg/3.7lb
- Copper 5,6 kg/12.3lb
The moral of the story: Don't make brake Rotors out of Lead :)
Enjoy!
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WARNING: This video is only for entertainment purposes. If you rely on the information portrayed in this video, you assume responsibility for the results. Have fun, but always think ahead, and remember that every project you try is at YOUR OWN RISK. 
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the real heroes in this whole thing are the wheel bearings. How they lasted through all this without the grease boiling out and grinding to a halt is amazing.
Can't boil fluid that isn't there. 🤣
No weight load on them
The real Heroes are the axles joints, the diff-gearbox and the head gasket
@@gillespriod5509 gearbox went boom… no hero to me. How dare a CVT not handle a 200km/h brake check with no road resistance smh😤😤😤
@@stemartin6671 I was thinking more of the red hot rotors directly attached to those bearings.
The gearbox blew up, and they have a *spare one just laying around* absolute legends
We have a used spare parts shop nearby 😀 lucky us
Can we just appreciate their willingness to grenade a gearbox for the sake of content?
Edit: nevermind, they basically toasted the entire car
Well, i have alot of spare gearboxes since my job is repairing cars, they are easy to sell so i keep all the stuff of the cars people decide to scrap, Also you can buy good ones at the scrapper for cheap, nothing strange this shop used one to have fun
@@Carhax mad lads
Diff blew it looks like cause he has one wheel on the ground
I like videos of people actually doing what the title says instead of yapping for 15min and then the last 2min of the video is the actual thing
The answer to what would happen if your brake rotors were a bit softer or more brittle. Love how the lead tore out and shook the whole suspension. This is the video the world needs.
I think machining the rotors first would help a lot
yea im surprised they werent balanced as well :D
did you not see the lead one? mans was basically maching that shit
I did think the same. Throw them on a lathe first to balance them. Poor shock was going crazy.
no lathe?
I think that's what he was doing lol
That was fun.
I will admit, I figured the copper would last the longest but I though there would be more damage to it.
yeah, they lasted pretty damn long if you ask me, if youre in a lets say some postapocalyptic environment unable to melt steel, this would be an alternative for some decent breaking :D
Can also re-melt and recast as well
Copper work hardens that’s probably why
Wish they had times lasted and steel brakes for comparison. So we have a picture of how many copper brakes we need to cast to last as long as steels.
If the copper rotor had the cooling vanes that a standard steel rotor does, and maybe even some slots in the rotor, it would probably have done even better in cooling itself.
I am willing to bet that this person has never been bored in their life. I'm not sure why this was so entertaining. It just was. Thanks.
It is interesting to see how the properties of the different metals are. You can see the aluminium easily solidifies when pouring, but creates very little slag and a far more clean pour than the lead
Gotta appreciate how your team was willing to expose themselves to a bangload of lead dust for that last experiment with the lead rotor! 🤗
Hope nobody is trying to conceive in the next 2 years
That's what I was thinking😂
You walk down the city streets inhaling brake pad dust all your life wtf the difference mate
@@robwells5753 they're not made of lead though
@@robwells5753 the difference is it's not lead 💀
Can we just take a minute to appreciate that editing? Solid 10/10
Edit: put the disks on a lathe to make them smooth and perfectly round, would probably make a big difference
And then spin them on a ceramic/high quality bearing to find the heaviest points to remove some material and balance it, that lead one was fucked haha
machine them so they are perfectly flat as well...
WHY WOULD WE WANNA SEE AN EDIT?. I I THINK ITS SATISFYING TO JUST WATCH HIM CHUCK THE MAT IN THE FLAME CUP ON 2:18!.
AND HAMMER HOLES IN THE RED SAND AND SMOOTHEN IT AFTER 1:53!.
drill and slot them while you're at it 🤣
your brake discs look amazing, but we can see how hard it is to produce them perfectly even without imbalances
Even real ones are not even, they are supposed to be machined to make them even and true. This was a very poor attempt.
@@jameshisself9324 100% agree, this vid was the dumbest thing I've seen in a long time. It proves nothing.
@@jameshisself9324 I don't think they had the intention of creating perfect discs. They just had to be good enough to fit. Nothing more.
@@mrxnoname93 I see that is what they thought, and apparently you as well.
Rotors are turned to make them balanced
No words to describe videography and the hard work required without passion and determination its impossible
Am I the only one who has the impression that at any moment something can pop into my eyes?
Well I'm already wearing safety glasses, so...
This is why I have glasses instead of contacts. I also make sure to get high strength plexiglass or whatever composite they happen to have that year.
I put my hand up when that piece flew off the aluminum lol.
Safety squints
Nope
Absolutely insane seeing just how soft lead really is, it stretched right off the bolts!
@@enriqueamaya3883 brother what
Why do you think they use it as flashing on buildings , it's easily shaped by hand and hammer,
The lead did not disappoint. Absolutely ridiculous. Love it !
Great video brings back so many memories of my early engineering years thank you. Just one point if I may the first sand you put into the frame should always be sieved through a fine mesh. This will ensure that the surface is as smooth as it can be. The parting powder the same, I used to keep mine in a hessian sack and pat it over the mould using my hand this gave a finer covering again it helps ensuring the surface stays as smooth as possible reducing machining to a minimum.
The amount of work that went into this video is impressive!! I’m blown away!
just some guys got bored and wanted to mess with something.
The failure on the lead rotor was amazing! The copper actually looked like it could be a viable option. I would be quite interested to see a video where you cast a full set of copper rotors (with some machining to insure they're properly sized and balanced) and test them for performance, reliability, and longevity against standard rotors.
With the small drawback that 4 of those in solid copper would probably cost more than the car 🤣
@@stespin it wouldn't be the first time someone spent more on mods than on the car itself!
мідь зітреться в 2- 4 рази швидше і коштує дорожче а у всьому іншому вона краще за сталь (за станлариний сплав дисків)
Unless you want to burn your tires. Copper is a good heat conductor.
I am curious about bronze.
Brass would be idiotic, because it's used specifically for metal on metal sliding with low friction.
Actually, that makes me curious about brass as well.
Absolute legends, making a gearbox replacement look as easy as if it were a brake rotor
6:39 "hey dude do you smell clutch.. what do you mean this is an auto?"
These are pretty nice option when you are broken down on the side of the road in need of a new disk, but happen to have have access to the materials, a furnace, the stuff for the mold, and all the tools needed to make it work, possibly a lathe too, then this is absolutely a lifesaver solution so you can limp home and get a new disk. Especially how sticky the aluminium becomes when heated up, you wont even need to press the pedal after a few miles😂
Even better if you have a Forge, CNC machine and heat-treatment furnace in the boot as well.
Would still be faster than waiting for the fucking RAC tow truck.
@@shaunpaulcroft hahahaha, great point aswell 😂
Making quality content as always man! this'll blow up mark my words!
Wow, there's going to be a ton of dust, my lungs hurt just watching😱
I never thought they'd go to the extent of sand casting copper, aluminum and lead to replicate brake rotors.
These are things that an average hobbyist would never try, as they would take too much time and effort. But they actually did it.
Nicely done! "Achieving these things silently" - it's been a while since I've seen the true essence of a RUclipsr.😂
The pour of the aluminium is on another level.😮
7:02 R.I.P gearbox cover
You should try to get them surfaced. It would be an interesting process to see and would prob make them last a lot longer in the test. I feel like the break pads possibly going over the low spots and crashing into high spots might have caused premature wear.
Think vents in the rotar itself would be a good idea, like rotate that do more than 50% of the braking all have.
premature wear? they EXPLODED xD
We call these self clearancing rotors
@@mikeznel6048 I don't think the vents would be cast-able
@@5150_Designs tricky, but could be done. Set wood dowels into the cast would do it, but getting it to be balanced is the tricky part.
It's awesome to see solid metal literally on fire.
i was overcome with a warm exuberant joy when you used the bullet time sweep sfx
Well we know if he ever becomes a big rotor company he'd definitely have the best quality control process
FAQ: How much destructive testing do we do? Answer : Yes
The lead expanding and using the caliper as a lathe was hilarious. Also i was extremely impressed by the performance of the copper rotor.
wow.. I love the detail in the first step... the cast making.. then skipping rather repeating the boring sections (not boring but repeated).. makes the video much more enjoyable. and the floor remained spotless...
To be honest , your team is doing such a brilliant work , Hats of to you guyz, really apriciated your work , nicely done bro 🙂
9:12 the fire makes it perfect for a album cover bro
This was really cool to watch. Thank you and anyone else who helped make it happen!
Thats such an awesome way to light the crucible, dropping a lit match down.
0:17 this scratches my brain nicely
You know I never once wondered what other metals could be used as a rotor. Thanks for answering a question I never thought to ask 10/10. I wonder what other questions are just waiting to be answered.
Nice bit of casting. That was fascinating to see materials pushed to their limits. Hands on with different materials is so important to understand their differencies.
Sweet let's all get lead discs, really enjoyed watching that more please
Lol, I am glad he used the proper cris-cross pattern when tightening the lug nuts down on his homemade rotors before testing them to destruction. Safety first!
Imaginative, spectacular, instructive - and sometimes funny. Thank you for the experience!
Love the dedication to the cause. They had a spare gearbox on deck ready. Cool to see. Copper held up pretty well for the circumstance .
The total best part of this was the gearbox removal and install followed by test drive 😀
You should've resurfaced the rotors
7:10 NOW YOU BECOME A MEME
How?
Greatly entertaining video held together with fantastic editing!
Now, magnesium.
And titanium
Had to put eye protection on just to watch this ....one of the best RUclips videos of all time
I don't think I've ever seen so much time, effort and money spent on something so ridiculous. Well done! I enjoyed every minute of it! 😃👍
You guys have some balls to finely disperse lead powder in your working space
yeah considering how toxic it is i am really surprised many others haven't pointed this out lmao
balls? more like stupidity.
It'll be fine.
9:07 perfect thumbnail for this video 😎👍
It's so pleasing to watch this. You're what I hoped to be.
On the aluminum brakedisc the reason it shattered is because the friction of the brake pads heated the aluminum disc up mixed with g-foces and uneven casting equaled catastrophic failure. Same thing with the lead disc for the exception of lead is a soft metal so it deformed.
5:20 Copper
9:30 Aluminum
12:00 Lead
The aluminium one grenading itself and the lead one just straight up ceasing to be functional was awesome to watch
I'm surprised the car didn't handgraned
You know your invested when you let all the ads run. A new standard in cocking about. Big up the callipers, bearings, gearbox, arch linings and pads. Not a bad day in the office then.
One of the craziest videos I've seen on youtube. Love it.
Lotus Elise S1 used an aluminum /SiC matrix brake disc. It was not carried through to later production cars.
Copper would work-harden with repeated braking, but could easily be annealed if quenched when hot.
I was hoping to see the lead liquify, but the hub tore out first.
Great video! More please.
Quenching something does the opposite of annealing....
For steel yes, for soft metals it softens them (aluminum and copper alloys)
@@coreyibbitson7940 take a piece of solid copper wire, bend it repeatedly. Eventually it will harden and break at the bend. If you stop bending before it breaks, then heat it up until the colors swirl and immediately quench it, it will anneal beautifully and become pliable once again. Old machinist showed me that trick 50 years ago. Also good to know if you're hammering sheet copper into shape on a shot bag.
I was scared at all the lead dust in the air
I believe you don't even need to quench copper, just the heat does the annealing
Copper did fairly well. Bronze would do better and is actually used for brakes in some applications(like a wench). The aluminum and lead did exactly as I figured.
Winch. A wench is a 14th century service maid in medieval times.
Mmm… wench awghghhgg…
@@derektrieglaff9103 A good looking wench always got the blood flowing in my happy places. Lol
10:37 To my mechanic: "New rotors? Nah, I got plenty of mileage left on these rotors."
Knowing leads low melting point, I really enjoyed the lead rotor!
Super interesting idea! I would have expected the aluminum to last the longest, but look what we learned! Love to see more stuff like this!
Copper lasted because it work hardens.
@@matthewmorgan582 and dumps heat faster
All I see is someone destroying the pad, rotor, and caliper? Why lock the brakes?
A better aluminum alloy might have lasted better looked like aluminum wire and cans were used had he cast the rotor with the tranny they wrecked it might have worked better
@@bdbeckstrand you must have missed the part with the flashing check engine light or when the transmission decided to blow
The lead one would go up on the wall in the shop. Excellent display of carnage.
9:18 The forbidden frisbee
Oh my god.
My neighbours at 3AM
me: just a little off the top
my barber: 4:51
Dude, this is next level content!! 👏🏻
Titanium brake rotors.
got sick of the video after a few minutes, but you put so much work in I sat here and watched till the end, good job
This was so cool and that was a lot of work and time making this video and I appreciate it! 👍👍
Awesome video!! Very good idea! The shavings flying off the lead rotor was crazy!!! I was really surprised how long the copper one held up lol I figured once it for red hot the calliper would just squeeze it to thin to even grab the pads lol very interesting and entertaining!
1:47, sorry, was that a little Salt Bae wrist action?? 😂
Lol. Yes it was a bit before.
I saw that.. LOL
I have also noticed it thats why searching in comments salt bae. haha😂😂
This is actually a great materials property demonstration.
The aluminium pour was absolutely perfect
13:03 Ummmm snow!
**Lick**
I really admire your work!
It would be cool to see you get the sets of rotors machined to avoid parallelism/runout and try this experiment again!
If the video reaches 100k likes, I will go and drive this Kia on NÜRBURGRING 😀
Has mine already :)
with lead rotors :D
It's at 151k....see you soon! 😉👍👍
@@diecast164andmore9 its at 4.5 k
@@harait 🤦♂️ I was looking at VIEWS... you are correct...my bad! And a little wishful thinking I guess.. 😉
Copper surprised me honestly. It seem to transfer the heat pretty good. Like to see a stock steel rotor vs copper maybe slotted copper
Well copper is a better conductor obviously.
copper is a really good conductor of heat meaning you oil will carry away less heat but it also means that the copper is more susceptible to deforming under the thermal load. I'd like to see them try this with inconel.
@@inventor121 Well, Inconel is already used in top-end performance stainless steel rotors, it's stronger than other stainless alloys at high temperatures and has better corrosion resistance, but they tend to be weaker then other stainless alloys when cold so they should be given a warmup lap first on an intense track day. The drawback is that Inconel is very expensive. Roughly $58.95 per pound for Inconel-718 that's been annealed, and can be bought at a minimum size from what I can tell of 1 inch diameter and 12 inches long for 660 bucks. Its not cheap, and it also melts at 1430 degrees Celsius, so good luck melting that down to re-cast it. The better option would be to order a 12x12 plate of 0.375" annealed Inconel-718 for about 1300 bucks and turn it down to a 12 inch rotor. An old 90s Honda Civic has 9 inch rotors, the newer mid-'10s Ford Focus has 13 inch rotors up front, but these rotors are vented and over 10mm thick anyways, and 0.375" is 9.525mm thick so they're a bit skinny for brake rotors anyways. And even then you'd have to make it a 2-piece rotor and bolt it to the bell that holds it to the wheel hub. At least then he'd be free to test the rotor material to the -braking lol- breaking point and put a new rotor on the bell once the old one atomizes itself XD
Well coppers good with electricity so that may be why
Normal brake discs are not steel, they are cast iron.
Also, not only would you end up with a disc that would wear a lot faster, you'd end up with a heavier disc. Why would you want that? Plenty of pads out there that can deal with the heat.
So thats why they dont nake drums out of lead. 😂
It was really interesting, I enjoyed it, and don't be bored because I know you worked hard and spent a lot of time
👍🏼
Whoa! Production quality excellent!
I absolutely busted out laughing when the transmission was replaced in like 3 seconds.
Its amazing when you run simulations testing brakes to failure how well they hold up.
This was more entertaining than I thought it would be
Ngl you deserve this guy's, amazing editing, amazing quality, the sheer dedication, the amount of hardwork..... crazy video completely worth it, Iam not gonna skip ads on this video I promise. 👍
I love how beautifully machined and well balanced they were...
Surprising how well the copper held up. The aluminium didn't surprise me at all, the joys of cast ally, machined billet would hold up better but still be a terrible choice for brake rotors, for hopefully obvious reasons. That lead one though, I mean, it's demise was obvious but I was not expecting it to turn into a shave ice machine.
GM used to use Aluminum brake drums on Camaros and a few other cars. They worked pretty well actually. They just wore about twice as fast, but they were also really light
Im glad I’ve got just normal metal brake discs on my car, !!!! What really was all the point in this exercise..
I like how he finishes them off nicely with that grinder wheel he rigged up to his car
That was the most entertaining thing ive seen in a while. Well done!
7:20 Nice Sport Car dude
It's a mini cooper bruh
@@jahmirthedrifter9922unless mini made vastly different designs in the 2000s im like 90% sure thats a kia
@@foooosh I think it's Mini Kia Hatchback
Nice, I may start casting my own copper rotors
The copper impressed me so much. I looked on the internet and yes, they do actually make copper rotors if you want them.
Wish they could have done some measurements like force on the brake pedal, throttle position, rpm chart to give some kind of idea how well each material braked, and it would have been nice if they had been properly machined and balanced too but it was a lot of work to make the demo as it was and quite interesting as it was. Fun to guess at what will happen ahead of time to self test on understanding of material properties. I guessed lead would go slick almost immediately and not be much brake at all and the meltdown was about what I expected. If figured the aluminum would be a bit more braking force and expected it to seize up pretty quickly. Apparently it got hot enough to go pasty. I thought copper would fade out pretty quick too but hang in longer due to high temp strength and heat transfer.
Lead is what got me really interested. I hope you were really careful with the clean up on that. Handling lead in general, especially in the sense of it becoming particles in the air needs the utmost to care and bring safe.
Remember that the Lord Jesus Christ died on a cross for you because He loves you so much. He then rose up from the dead three days later.
The Ten Commandments are called the moral law, (most of us are lying thieving blasphemous adulterer at heart and deserve hell) you and I broke the law, Jesus paid the fine. That’s what happened on that cross.
By believing that Jesus died on the cross and rose up from the dead 3 days later and not just confessing your sin, but also repenting of all sin you have done and putting all your trust in Him in prayer, He will grant you everlasting life as a free Gift
@@dove3853 what the actual fuck?
the coppper brake disk took some serious punishment
Finely powdered lead all through the workshop. Just what you want for a healthy work environment...
In any event, no surprise. The only one that might make a viable disk/rotor is the copper one, if it wasn't for the cost and what is probably a high wear rate.
Im going to start bringing my warped rotors to this fella.
It would have been good to machine the rotors first to insure there was not runout first and then use new pads with each rotor. If they were machined first and had no runout there would be a lot less variables in the experiment. A lot less vibrations too. Pretty cool test either way.
Vents. Vents is what you’re looking for.
@@mikeznel6048 The lack of the rotor ventilation isn't really anywhere near as important for this experiment and would be incredibly hard to manufacture and not worth the cost for such an experiment. There are solid rotors out there too so it's not unreasonable to have them be solid for this test since it is not experiencing normal breaking on the road.
Would’ve been cool to see it do real stop instead of him hitting the brakes and gas at the same time
@@southernracing2468 I agree. It would have been cool to see breaking distance, and then did high pressure failure test.
I had a customer with a disc rotor like 10:23. Big chunks bitten off.😳🤣
That lead failure was pretty impressive, but expected! 🎉😂. There is definitely a reason why almost all cars use cast iron (grey) rotors. Extremely durable, cost-effective, and well suited for this high heat task.
The car engine in the background is just chilling
I was surprised at how well the copper rotor held up.
copper would do well in a test like this with its high thermal conductivity the longevity would be questonable though and the cost is the final nail in the coffin