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Ok, to answer a lot of peoples questions, the melting and slow cooling of these metals is a critical step, as many commercial metal samples are rolled and such and this destroys the crystal structure, so first try just that with your metal samples. Also make sure they're pure. Just because something is "aluminum" doesnt make it pure aluminum, in fact it can have some other metal in it that will prevent it from crystallizing properly, but sometimes this isn't the case. The easiest way I've personally found to do this is by melting a few post 1982 pennies as the newer ones are zinc on the inside (Illegal schmleegal,Its my money and I'll do what I please with it). They can be melted over just about any kind of heat source (wood fire, bbq briquettes, etc). Once you do that, skim off the oxides and copper from the top with a steel spoon and pour it in a small heat-resistant container. You can actually see the crystals on the surface without any hydrochloric (muriatic) acid when it cools, but you can do that too, just dilute it a bit. You can probably do this with lead sinkers or tungsten/bismuth ones (pour off the bismuth), but I haven't personally tried it, and I'm not sure if bismuth is oxidized by HCl