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View Full Version : Melted some wheel weights today.



MarkK
04-16-2007, 12:39 AM
Melted some wheel weights today on a coleman stove. Skimmed the clips out, fluxed with candle wax and old solder that smells like pine resin. Poured into old muffin tin. The tape on WW ingots came out nice and shiny but the clip-on WW ingots came out whiter (not shiny) in appearance. Is this typical of the clip-on WW? Methinks I will need to flux again - not so sure I got all the crud out. Plan on making up a batch of WW-linotype alloy for casting da real boolits. Thanks, MarkK

NVcurmudgeon
04-16-2007, 01:50 AM
MarkK, I guess you ingotized the stick-on weights separately from the clip-ons? The different appearance is because the two types of weights are made of different metals. The shiny ingots made of tape-on weights are pure lead, or as close as we get with scrounged material. The pure stuff is good for trading to muzzle loader shooters for more clip-on weights. The ingots made of clip-on weights are an alloy of lead with a little antimony and a very little tin that makes pretty good boolits for most purposes.

cohutt
04-16-2007, 06:59 AM
I've smelted more pure lead than ww, the pure stuff is smoother and even has a little rainbow or irridescence (? -2 for spelling) reflection in it sometimes. When i finally got around to ww, i was surprised how much more shiny and "silver" looking it was. Also much more of a "ding" when handling.
I've had good results with cowboy loads in 44 that are 50/50 pure/ww. (pure is easier for me to get than ww, so i stretch ww's supply out by diluting with pure when i can).