Ratio of scrounged 5 gal. of WW

[Jaybird62]

A couple of days ago I paid $35 for a full 5 gal. bucket of WW at a local tire shop. Since I wanted to figure out what my final cost per pound I saved everything and weighed it after smelting the usable scrap. Here's what I learned:

17.04 lbs - Steel clips and Fe stick-on weights
5.96 lbs - Zn
9.63 lbs - Pb from stick-on lead
130.9 lbs - WW aloy
1.4 lbs - tire stems, bolts, other misc. trash


The 140.53 pounds of Pb and WW alloy wound up costing me 24.9 cents per pound. Although not exact, it appears that the 5 gal. bucket had 85% useable material.

[DrNick]

That's consistent with what we got two weeks ago processing 450 lbs (3 pails) though we had more Zinc than Iron/Steel.

Nick

[par0thead151]

does zinc have any uses for casting?
does it have a resale value/scrap value like lead?

[snaggdit]

Recently in Wisconsin, I processed several pails. I found very few zinc and Iron WW and stick ons. Probably half what you describe. Are we just farther from states requiring their use now? As we have discussed in this forum, it seems to be heading that way thanks to the green movement. Just seems that Wisconsin is farther removed from the front lines... BTW, thanks for taking the time to take such accurate measurements.

[Jaybird62]

does zinc have any uses for casting?
does it have a resale value/scrap value like lead?

I found a use for zinc today when I was scrounging. One tire shop owner told me that he would save WW for me if I brought some fishing sinkers. When I get enough zinc saved up I'll turn it into fishing weights. Following others' advice on this site, I'll be sure to use seperate smelting equipment to keep from contaminating my stuff I use for smelting and casting Pb.

[Slow Elk 45/70]

Thanks for the information, gives a guy an idea what to expect when scrounging WW
S.L.