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View Full Version : Funny thing about price of lead



Fly
06-05-2010, 10:25 AM
I retired here in east Okla.I worked in Okla City most of my life.In the time I
lived in OKC I bought metal of all kinds over the years from scrap dealers
for many projects.

Well I made a run to the City this week & stopped in my local scrap dealer
to see what WW were going for.75 cents a lb I almost fell over.I ended buying
sheet lead for the same price.

I looked to find a network on the net that listed scrape prices for local dealers
from state by state with out success.Maybe one of you know of such a site?:drinks:

Fly

montana_charlie
06-05-2010, 02:04 PM
Wheel weights are an endangered species these days, so the value is rising.
By comparison, the average California Condor is worth about two million...

CM

fryboy
06-05-2010, 02:34 PM
i dont but google is often our friend

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100430112618AAhtKvJ
http://recycleinme.com/scrapresources/PriceHome.aspx

atm most metal prices are down ( good time to buy if u have the cash ) but it's also possible that they will go down even further ...is smelted ww worth a buck a pound ? ( surely beats .70-.80 cents a pound for raw ww ) that would b up to the caster ..for those who cant find it it prolly is for those lucky enough to get it for cheap or free nope

chris in va
06-05-2010, 06:39 PM
I have to pay .65 for WW at the scrap yard. They want the full $1.10 for the pure lead roofing stuff.

They look at me funny when I dump over the bucket and weed out the Zn/Fe and small WW. "Whatcha doin that fer?"

thenaaks
06-05-2010, 06:53 PM
before i paid 65 to 75 cents a pound for ww, i would for sure buy some ww ingots from one of the vendors on this site. i have purchased ingots from 'the captain' (kathie) and couldn't be more happy. you can be sure what you're getting is not contaminated, unlike getting lead off ebay.
to me, it can't be worth it to buy ww at that price and have to smelt 'em myself. surely your price per pound of ingot is over what our vendors are selling for...once you consider gas spent getting the ww, time sorting, clips and other waste, propane to smelt, etc.

XWrench3
06-05-2010, 09:44 PM
these days, you either have to know someone, or do a lot of legwork to find lead at a resonable cost. i can find wheelweights occasionaly. but soft lead is hard to find, anywhere. at least in my area. i have bought linotype a couple of times off ebay, but, i ONLY buy linotype that is still in typeset form. i will not buy ingots of something from ebay. i have about 15 pounds of soft lead on hand, and i am saving every last bit strictly for hunting boolits. i use w.w.'s almost exclusively, with the exception of hot rod rifle loads, where i mix in lino. i would love to mix up a batch or two of 50-50 soft - w.w for handgun boolits. but until i can find a few hundred pounds of soft lead, it just isnt going to happen.

merlin101
06-06-2010, 01:13 AM
I have a hard time finding WW but have an almost unlimited supply of soft lead at .60 lb, from what I'm reading here I guess I should go down and buy some more!

qajaq59
06-06-2010, 08:48 AM
Lead, unfortunately, is like every other commodity. It is worth whatever we're willing to pay for it. And as it gets harder to get we'd better be ready to pay a lot!!

Down South
06-06-2010, 10:46 AM
I've collected about 3-4 buckets of stick on wheel weights that I need to clean and pour into ingots. These are the soft stick on weights that I think that are close to pure lead. I always separated them out of the clip on WW’s. I’ve got 100 lbs or so of sheet lead that I’ll add to the batch when I start on it.
I cleaned a couple buckets of clip on’s yesterday and poured them into ingots. It was raining like all get out here yesterday morning so I decided since I couldn’t cut grass, I’d start cleaning some WW’s. Wouldn’t you know it just after I got set up and started, the sun came out and it got hot. I stopped after two buckets with a couple more buckets left. It just got too hot.

I haven’t been buying much lead. I’ve bought from a couple vendors here a time or two. The lead is still stacked in the boxes it was shipped in under my bench. I’ve got a couple boxes of Lino stacked under the bench too.
WW’s have not been that hard to find. Some AH stole one of my buckets at one tire place. The bucket had my name on it in bold letters on front and back of the bucket. I buy tires, fuel and sometimes service work from these guys to save their WW’s for me.

lwknight
06-06-2010, 08:20 PM
Before paying for lead ask what they are paying for it.
The market is going down lately.
Last I bought was $0.75 per pound for soft lead.

duxnbux
06-06-2010, 11:37 PM
I bought sheet lead and plumbing pipe from a scrap yard for $.75 a pound. 3 to 400 lbs. The nice thing was that they sheared it into managable pieces for me at no extra cost. A few days before I bought some at another yard and they wanted $l.00 a lb but I negotiated and got it for $.90. It was old shower pan lead that had deteriorated pretty bad and I lost 10% in smelting. I guess we just have to shop shop shop.