Do I have this right

[RUDY850]

smelting lead in to ingots. If I start out with metal that I know is lead in my pot.

And it all melts down. Then I adjust the temperature to the lead melting point.

Then if I add wheel weights that are the good ones. (no zinc ones) they will sink and the metal clip Will come to the top.

But if I happen to put a zinc ww in the mix should it float on the surface of the melted lead. letting me know to immediately remove it.

I did melt some ww the other day for the first time picking out all the ones that looked like they were the zinc ones before the melt.

But after seeing some pictures of zinc ww. I think I might have still put some in the pot and melted them with the good ones.

I did not have a thermometer then. And just heated it to all was melted.

I did not notice any foamy stuff like others have noticed with melting zinc ww

After removing the metal clips from the surface. It did not look that bad. Then I added some candle wax.

It flamed up and I mixed it for a while then skimmed the top After leting it set for awhile. There was not very much to skim just a lite layer

The temperature of the lead was probably pretty hot the whole time doing the above things

[Buckshot]

................That's pretty much how it's done. With the proliferation of ersatz WW's out there it IS a good idea to check close. I haven't rendered down any WW's in quite awile. When I do I think I'll get a 4x4 piece of plywood and lay it on a couple sawhorses and dump out each container in turn to go through them.

Yeah it's a pain to sort through the valve stems, cig butts and other crap looking for zinc WW's but it beats the heck out of messing up a harder and harder to get comodity.

................Buckshot

[Down South]

Buckshot is right. It is a pain to sort through several 5-gallon buckets of WW. The way that I do it and so far it has worked well for me is. If you can limit yourself to just doing a pot full at the time. As the melt comes up to just high enough temp for the clips to start floating. Scoop the clips off. The temp still won’t be high enough to melt zinc and the zinc WW will be scooped out with the clips. I’ve got a few Zinc WW from my last batch last week that was scooped out with the clips.

[DLCTEX]

The zinc weights will float long after the lead ones have melted. I do same as Down South and scoop them out with the clips. DALE