Wheel weights??

[mikeym1a]

Visited the local salvage yard today. Actually, stopped at one of the two major tires stores in our small town, and was told that corporate required them to sell the old wheel weights to a salvage dealer, and mail the check to corporate HQ. How's that for tight? Anyway, I decided to go to the salvager, and he indeed had a small barrel of WW's. I got a partial bucket for 50cents/lb. How does that sound? The other tire store gives me their weights, but I always tip the guys in the back for saving them for me. First time buying WW's. They looked good. Had several 14oz weights in there! Was this a good price? Not as good as free, but, was it reasonable? If so, I'll go back and get more. I only got maybe a 1/4 of what they had.

[Smoke4320]

prices vary greatly depending on where you are .. I have seen 35 cents to 80 cents .. biggest thing is to not pay of too much steel or zinc weights

[bangerjim]

I pay $1.25 per pound for SOWW's and pure Pb. COWW's...I talk them down due to the steel in there I do not want.


I scored 95# of REAL lino the other day for that $1.25 price.

I own an old printing press and over 800# of type for it, sorted in type drawers by font. I have played "printer's devil" many times and set type for Christmas cards and invitations. I will never melt that down. It is that super-extra hard type that is over 100 years old.

Only 3 years ago I was buying Pb for $0.30 a pound! And scrap brass bar stock was $1.30/pound.

My.......how times have changed .........in these days of Obama and the EPA run amuck.

[dragonrider]

.50 cts a pound is not bad, if hopefully, you got mostly lead and not a lot of zink or steel weights. You should probably go back for the rest.

[mikeym1a]

.50 cts a pound is not bad, if hopefully, you got mostly lead and not a lot of zink or steel weights. You should probably go back for the rest.

I smelted about 1/3 of the partial bucket that I got this afternoon. So far, very little Fe. I've seen 1 Zn. I had 1ea. 16oz, 4ea. 14oz, and 6ea. 12 oz weights. Those babies make the large car weights look little! Last weekend I bought an LP fish fryer. I took an old freon can into work, and got the guys in the shop to cut it apart and put handles on it. Made its virgin run this evening. When I quit, I 39lb +/- . That would have taken me so much longer with my little electric pot. I'm sorting through the lot, and picking out the obviously lead alloy weights, and smelting them first. The painted and plastic coated I'll do Last. But, so far, very little iron or zinc. Quite a few of the lead stick-ons. So, it seems I got a good deal. I have a few dollars left over, so, I'll go see them tomorrow. I really like my big pot!!!:-)

[Vinne]

Now a days 50 cents is a very good price. Get all you can get...each day it may get harder than the last.

[sleeper1428]

I own an old printing press and over 800# of type for it, sorted in type drawers by font. I have played "printer's devil" many times and set type for Christmas cards and invitations. I will never melt that down. It is that super-extra hard type that is over 100 years old.



Man, does that ever bring back memories!! Back in the early and mid 1950's when I was in Junior and Senior High School we had a print shop where a few select students from the woodworking class were taught the fundamentals of typesetting using hand held 'sticks'. I still remember our first assignment which was to commit to memory the exact layout of a type tray so that you didn't have to refer to a chart while setting type. We had a couple of old presses that were donated to the school when the local newspaper converted to linotype machines. One was an old platten press while the other one was a fairly high speed French roller press. We did all the printing for both the Junior and Senior High Schools including note pads, announcements, etc, etc. And we had SOOOO many trays full of high Brinell hardness type!! At least four racks, each containing 30 or more trays - each tray being a different font - plus lots and lots of hard lead leading strips for separating lines of type. I'm sure that most of that type was also quite old, probably well over 50+ years at that time. Lots of fun and I sure wish I'd have been into casting at that time 'cause I probably could have gotten a lot of that old type when they finally scrapped the print shop.

Thanks for the great memories ....

sleeper1428

[mikeym1a]

Some of the weights were stickons. Some are obviously lead, very soft, and very heavy. A few were Fe, but, I got some that were not the usual dark grey of the lead stickons. I had a pair of tin snips on the bench, and it would cut into them with very little effort. Not sure what they are. They aren't marked. They are a light grey, almost shiny. Anyone have any ideas what they are?

[bangerjim]

Man, does that ever bring back memories!! Back in the early and mid 1950's when I was in Junior and Senior High School we had a print shop where a few select students from the woodworking class were taught the fundamentals of typesetting using hand held 'sticks'. I still remember our first assignment which was to commit to memory the exact layout of a type tray so that you didn't have to refer to a chart while setting type. We had a couple of old presses that were donated to the school when the local newspaper converted to linotype machines. One was an old platten press while the other one was a fairly high speed French roller press. We did all the printing for both the Junior and Senior High Schools including note pads, announcements, etc, etc. And we had SOOOO many trays full of high Brinell hardness type!! At least four racks, each containing 30 or more trays - each tray being a different font - plus lots and lots of hard lead leading strips for separating lines of type. I'm sure that most of that type was also quite old, probably well over 50+ years at that time. Lots of fun and I sure wish I'd have been into casting at that time 'cause I probably could have gotten a lot of that old type when they finally scrapped the print shop.

Thanks for the great memories ....

sleeper1428

Glad to help exercise the olde grey matter! I have hauled that press (weighs 1300#) from MI to WY and now down to the Southwest. It is a lost art to set type. Now I do it all in Publisher and Word and a laser printer!!

But the olde ways are still fun. 5 years ago I bought 14 more drawers full of old type (32 to 120 point font) full sets on ebay for about $50. Today that old VERY hard lead is worth a lot, but I will never melt it. I use it to print on rare occasions. And it come in handy used in the 3 hot foil embossing machines I have. Especially all the fancy printer's ornaments and fancy adders.

But back to boolits!!!!!!!! [smilie=2: bangerjim

[mikeym1a]

smelted down the last of the obviously lead WW's this morning. I got about 15lb of the plastic coated or painted ones left. So, so far I have 70lbs =/- from the initial 86lbs. I had about 10lbs from the tire store, so, about 60lbs net. Very little Fe or Zn. So, today, I went back and got the rest they had, 120lbs. AND, a guy selling old radiators came up to me as I was putting them in the trunk, and asked me what I did with them, and of course, I told him I made boolits! He said he had some he needed to get rid of, I asked him how much, and he said about 15gallons worth! I asked how much and he said $60.00! I got his number, and will definately call him in a day of so. Gotta get all the junk out of the old truck so I can go get them! I think that will be all I need for a while. And about all I can afford for now. Personal property taxes due, as well as real estate, plus home owners insurance. Good thing I'm scheduled to work for a while this coming month! I'll need the extra money.

[mikeym1a]

getting back to original thought.... This was a good deal. So far, I have smelted out 110lbs of WW's. That is, I started with 134lbs, and had 110 when I was done. About 2lbs of Fe, 1lb of Zn, and the rest in clips, and misc junk. I really do like my new pot. It would have taken me a week to clean up that many WW's with my electric pot. And, I've still got 86lb of WW's to go. Some day soon, I'm gonna have to start shooting this stuff. But, in the meantime, 'Melting stuff is FUN!!'.

[GlocksareGood]

I pay $0.35/lb for wheel weights at the scrap yard. The amount of steel and zinc can vary but the scrap dealer has mutiple 55gal drums of COWW and SOWW. I plan to buy somewhere around 1200-1500 lbs of COWW and 500lbs of SOWW. I have about 650lbs in the garage that i am sorting thru now.

[Hardcast416taylor]

If that guy you met has radiator shop drippings from repairing radiators, GRAB ONTO IT! that very possibly is high tin solder and that pail will be worth getting. Robert

[mikeym1a]

If that guy you met has radiator shop drippings from repairing radiators, GRAB ONTO IT! that very possibly is high tin solder and that pail will be worth getting. Robert

Now there is something I hadn't thought of. There is one radiator shop in our small town, and one or two in winchester, the next town over. Think I'll give them a visit. Can't hurt. That young fellow works at a card repair place, and get his wheel weights there. I'm gonna call him this afternoon and see if he is available and go get those WW's. If he really has that many, that is in the neighborhood of 300-400lbs. Thursday and friday I got 210lbs from the local salvager, and another 15lbs from my tire place. Good stuff. I realized 175lb of alloy, 4lbs Pb from stickons, 1lb Zn, and 7lb Fe. The rest was clips and dirt. If I do get the young man's WW's, that'll be it for the rest of the month. No more play money. Darn!!

[mikeym1a]

Got the wheel weights. About 300lbs. He said to call him in a month and he should have an equal amount. I've processed about 120lbs so far. Zinc heavy. I got about 75lb of alloy, 8lbs lead from stickons, and 24lbs zinc. Still, for the price I paid, I'm getting my monies worth.

[mikeym1a]

finally finished processing that batch of WW's. The total came to 250-260lbs. It had 38lbs of zinc, about 25lbs of iron ww's, and various trash. I realized about 180lbs of alloy, and about 20lbs of lead from stickons. Waiting for my Lee hardness tester, so I can see how pure these stickons are. This young man says he gets this many WW's per month from the auto repair place where he works. He said he uses some of it for his race car (he has a dirt track car) but can't use all of it. I even got a 30 gal drum, as evidenced by the thick oil in the bottom, at no extra charge. yuck!! If he can deliver the same each month, I'll be happy. If it starts to run to heavily to zinc and iron, we'll have to renegotiate the price. So far, though, so good.:-)

[el34]

In my experience ingots from SOWW measure around 6.2BHN, ingots from COWW are around 9.5BHN. Pure lead is 5BHN.

It looks like the folks that are active in the pursuit of lead occasionally run into great surprises, yours was a big one.

[mikeym1a]

Yeah, there was a lot more zinc and iron than I was hoping for, but still, it wasn't too bad. When I get some more money, I'll go back to the salvage yard. That load was very clean. My problem now is I have to rearrange where I have the ingots stored. These two new batches are taking up a lot of room. Time to clean up and throw out some junk!!

[gunoil]

been lucky on ww's round here. And friends keep bringing ingots by they've had or found at estate sales.

[mikeym1a]

On my last trip back from the VA Clinic, I got off the interstate, and came up US11. Saw quite a few tire stores. Gonna make a day trip soon in the old truck to see what I can get. It's a pleasant ride, even if I come up dry.

[shadygrady]

grab that zinc for me

[22lover]

Last big bucket I bought was $20 and it was MUCH more zinc and steel than I've had before. I imagine the % lead was around 35% or so. It yielded about 60lbs of alloy.

[Liberty'sSon]

Mikeym1a, just to clarify, Shady Grady posted in this thread. Save your zinc weights, he will swap them with you for clip on weights. I believe he does have a 40# minimum. So far I have run into only a few, but a am saving to make a swap one day.

[fredj338]

I would buy all I could @ 50c/# if you could hand pick. Going forward, the lead ww is a DoDo bird waiting for EPA extinction.

[mikeym1a]

Yes, I did go back and get all the salvage yard had. It was nice clean stuff. The WW's I got from my new acquaintance was about 30% zinc, but not enough to send to shadygrady. (I did see his post.) But, I do have some more places to check. Perhaps going in search of WW's is time intensive, and maybe not cost effective on the eyes of some, but, for me, it's the thrill of the chase, and a feeling of reward when I am successful. I inventories my stash this evening. I have +/- 400 of refined WW's, and about 125 of #2. Guess it's time to make some boolits, and do some shooting.