Yep. I have a clothes washer motor in the shed right now, not getting its windings removed because they are copper clad aluminum.

That is just the problem with it... most of those aluminum coils aren't even copper clad !!! It is just the color of the insulation material ...

 

That is just the problem with it... most of those aluminum coils aren't even copper clad !!! It is just the color of the insulation material

Yep. Been down that road a few dozen times while scraping electric motors.

Same with cheap HID lighting ballasts and battery charger transformers. Way too many have aluminum windings on them too.

 

Microwave oven transformer is your best bet. Chop out the HV secondary, and start winding a bunch of 16ga high temp insulation wire around the core. Wind around 60 turns and take an AC voltage reading. Keep winding until you get 110-120V.

Check this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eSXXnKOW5k

 

I have several MOT's , and have stripped the copper from a hundred others... The ones that do not have their leaves interlaced, are indeed rare, with taking interlaced units apart being a massive waste of effort.

Maybe it's a USA vs Europe thing, I've had perhaps 20 microwave oven transformers apart and have never found one with an interleaved core. The only awkward ones are where there's a mounting bracket welded to the core covering one of the two welds you want to cut.

I like the idea of running two 240V windings in series to lower the flux density (MOTs have very few turns per volt and huge magnetising current because they are normally only used at full load and even then the efficiency isn't a great concern). I suspect you could do one better if you can find sufficiently similar transformers (two identical and one with similar core size) - put three windings on the core and parallel two of them with the third in series. With no shunts, heater winding or HV secondary I think it would just about fit. This would give you an autotransformer with higher output current rating.

I usually hacksaw most of the way through the welds then split with a cold chisel, it's very little effort as the welds are so shallow. I then remove the secondary by driving wedges into the magnetic shunts - this usually mangles the heater winding and batters the secondary a bit but is the best way to do it without damaging the primary (which always seems to be furthest from the I section). Getting primaries off intact is probably the hardest part but usually they will move with bit of gentle tapping leaving some of the paper wrapping stuck to the core. After reassembly I normally hold them together with a G clamp or two for testing and then weld the cores when I'm happy. Without a welder I would probably clamp them with a pair of large jubilee clips.