Found alot of Zinc/Metal WW in todays cast

[hunter64]

I picked up 8 buckets of WW from a local tire shop and about gave myself a hernia getting them into the garage. I had the day off so I decided to get busy and make some 25 pound ingots. So far I have 300 lbs in 25 lbs ingots so a little less than 1/2 done. I sorted what looked like possibly zinc or metal and the pure lead stick-on's into other buckets and proceeded to work away. I have 3/4 of a 5 gallon bucket of stick-on's all ready and about a 1 gallon pale of zinc/metal WW. I kept the temperature low, just enough to melt the lead WW and put in the questionable ones and sure enough they are not lead, all floated to the top. I used to get one or two weights per 5 gallon bucket but this run is handfuls. I can honestly say that I probably have a life time supply of lead now so I am not worried but it looks like more and more that lead will slowly be phased out over time. Anyone else finding alot of Zinc WW in there batch's?

[cbrick]

Yep, zinc, steel even plastic and who knows what else. That's why I have been collecting all I can get for the last couple of years. I would have a pretty good supply by now if only I would stop shooting it up :-D. Right now I have about 1000 pounds of clip-on weights in ingots and about 300 pounds of stick-on.

I'll continue to grab all I can while the getting is good. I would rather die with a ton of ingots in the loading room than live 20 years with none. :wink:

Rick

[stumpjumper]

what tempature do you melt your ww at to keep from melting the zinc. thanks

[cbrick]

According to the periodic tables zinc melts at 787 F so when proccessing WW I keep it at about 650 and anything that even looks like it might float comes out.

Rick

[NVcurmudgeon]

hunter, if you check your floating WW with a magnet you may find that most of them are steerl or iron. I have found maybe four zinc weights out of the last half ton I have smelted, and they were all marked "ZN." So far, stick-on weights have been mostly pure soft lead. There are some smaller stick ons that won't bend, will float, and are steel. I like to soak the stick ons in gasoline or kerosene to make the tape fall away before smelting. Finally, out of that 1000 lbs. of weights, I found two plastic weights, the very light weight is a dead giveaway. Like you, I keep the smelting temperature as low as possible. So far, so good.

[UweJ]

We have the same problem here, gov.is forbidding lead as WW. But there are 2 exceptions to the law and they are great.
Buses and trucks. They can keep their lead weights,and boy do they have weights. Approx.400gramm on each wheel,which should be pretty close to 1lb.
Since we know this we check the places which service trucks and buses also farming machines.
Zinc is the most common now on cars over here so it isn´t worth going to regular tire shops any more.
I have found some pretty good suppliers of lead elsewere though.
Uwe

[hunter64]

NVcurmudgeon: Yes, most of mine that I have found so far actually have ZN or even FE right on them. There are alot of weights that are really light colored and you would swear that they are zinc but just painted, so I guess the high end chrome/aluminum mags don't have ugly weights showing. Found lots of steel stick-on's also and I am sure when I melt down the 5 gallon bucket of stick-on's I will find some that I have missed. Lead melts at 621F so I am like cbrick, I keep that temp as close to 650 as possible and then you don't have to worry.
Uwej: no kidding about the big weights, the tire shop I got them from was in an industrial area and once in a while you would find a huge weight about 300 to 500g.