Finally found a lead source!

[BCall]

I had been searching for somewhere to buy lead around here for a few months. I have just started casting, and no one around here wants to sell wheel weights. The salvage yard here wouldn't sell anything either. I had to buy some lead from a member here, and i bought a little on e-bay. Today I decided to check a tire shop nearby. I had checked before, but they had said no. I figured i would try one more time. I guess they had been selling them to another guy for .50/lb, and he was taking all they had, but about 6 months ago, he quit coming. The manager said he had not heard from him in some time. He asked if i would come pick them up each month, and I said heck yeah, but at .30/lb. We finally agreed on $40 for a 5 gallon bucket FULL. I think there's more than 150 lbs there, but he agreed.

Then he said about 2 weeks ago he had to have salvage come and pick up. Guess he gave him like .10/lb for about 1500 lbs he had piled up. Said he had to get rid of them, couldn't wait no more. Then he said he would keep the rest for me now on if i will come once a month to pick them up. Now I finally have a regular source, and I feel much better about the price. Mot the best price, but something I can live with. Now maybe I can get better at casting, instead of chasing lead around. Thanks, Billy

[JFriis]

Congrats on finding a source.

In my experience a 5 gal. bucket filled to the brim with WWs weighed 140#'s on average.

[bbs70]

Great score.
30 a lb doesn't sound bad to me, especially considering how you said they were to find .
Right now I'd be happy to find ww at 30 a lb around here.

[FN in MT]

I'm in a similar situation in that WW's are somewhat available but A local guy buys them all. Yesterday I finally scored 100+ pounds of WW's for $20 from a small shop. Nice deal is they are almost all large truck weights or larger car weights. So after two full plumbers pots of weights I barely filled a quart can full of clips! Ended up with 95 pound of ingots.

This guy agreed to save them for me. Seems I helped him out once with a flat tire way back when I worked on the Hwy Patrol and he remembered me!! Finally! Payback for a good deed! Just like Earl and his karma! LOL.

FN in MT

[jdgabbard]

Yeah, but after smelting your probably only going to end up with about a 100 lbs. Last time I smelted I did about 30 lbs which after skimming all the crud and clips off I yielded 21 lbs give or take. I need to find a reliable source. The guy that was selling me all his weights has all but quit selling tires. No body is buying them from him right now. Which is bad news on my end.

[Randall]

I have one local salvage dealer who will sell to me. He gets .40 cents a pound but he is the only source around. I think he sells to me because he gets our old pallets from us and he borrowed our lift a few times.

[FN in MT]

Another source that can be useful. Especially for bar TIN. Just got a 10# box of 1# tin bars today. Total cost to my door was $103.

FAR cheaper than any other source I've found for tin. And they have all the bullet alloys one might need as well.

http://www.rotometals.com/Bullet-Casting-Alloys-s/5.htm


FN in MT

[The Dove]

I will buy all the ww's I can while they last. The west coast stuff about no more lead ww's will spread like wild fire and SOONER or later, the lead ww's will be a thing of the past. Just my opinion.

The Dove

[BCall]

Well, I just finished sorting my first bucket of wheel weights from my new source. I've melted down about 2/3 of it so far, and I've gotten about 70 lbs plus or minus a little. Still got 1/3 to go, but I sorted out the rest of the trash and other stuff. Bucket really had very little trash in it, only 1 tire stem, and only a handful of what seems to be zinc wheel weights. The majority were lead, alot of them were painted, but I could usually tell by dropping them on the concrete(I think). Had a couple I missed that didn't melt, just scraped them off the top with the clips. I also sorted about 4 lbs of stickons- gonna use them for slugs.

I did however find a number of steel stick on weights. Even missed one in the melt, just skimmed it with the rest. But there was quite a number of steel stickons. Even so, looks like I'll get somewhere between 100-110 lbs when I'm done. I can deal with. Hopefully I'll get more soon. Billy

[lead Foot]

Your lucky, I ran out of soft lead. Went to town and bought 10kgs for $30 that's $3per kilogram.
They will sell you any thing at the scrap yard here even there mother-in-law.

[The Dove]

Hey lead Foot

If that's the case, my M-I-L would go for a bunch. HAHA

The Dove

[Fish_N_Russ]

wow I guess I was lucky to get a 5 gal bucket full for $30 the other day at Les Schwab's......dont know how heavy, but I can hardly lift it up!! They had more but ths should be enough to last me a good long while

[orygun_native]

wow I guess I was lucky to get a 5 gal bucket full for $30 the other day at Les Schwab's......dont know how heavy, but I can hardly lift it up!! They had more but ths should be enough to last me a good long while

I miss good old Les Schwab's we don't have them here in WY. I haven't had a lot of luck in my town even though there are tons of tire shops. Scored big in a town 60 miles away and I came away with what I think is close to 400lbs of WWs, gratis, that's free bro. Took some donuts over with me and I'll have to stop back by with some more treats when I'm through there again.

On a similar note I've found two tire shops in town that pretty regularly have 5 gallon buckets full of WWs for $25-$30, is that a pretty standard rate? I'm thinking I may want to buy 4-5 while I can now. I have a feeling that in 5 years when there's potentially no lead WWs I may be kicking myself for not buying when I could. Any thoughts?