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Have the opportunity to buy buckets of old clip on wheel weights all of which are lead. Although I’ve smelted a bunch of COWWs, I’ve never weighed them before and after smelting. Could anyone share with how much the ingots weigh compared to the raw wheel weights?
Thx, sierra1911
It will depend on the size of them.
The clip weighs the same, but the weight part has a pretty big span.
Are yours mostly the long ones or the short ones?
You'd need to weigh few pounds of them before and after to strike an average.
I figure with the Tin and other additives in wheel weight alloy being more valuable than pure Lead,
if you subtract whatever the clips weigh- it'd about average out to wheel weights being about the same value as pure Lead.
Plus, there is usually a bunch of stick on pure Lead weights in there too.
But I wouldn't pay as much for them because they need to be melted down before you can use them.
In the old days, you could buy wheel weights from the scrap yard a little cheaper than pure Lead for that reason.
If you're not buying from a scrap yard, it's a 'make your best deal' situation.
Ask yourself how many others want to buy the stuff, and what will the guy have to do or go to sell them otherwise.
Like Winger Ed said, it depends. I figure around a 12% loss due to clips. It can be more if the bucket has broken lug bolts, brake pads, valve stems, ect mixed in. My 12% number was for clean weights before and after smelting. If I flux well and the clips shed all of their lead I sell them as scrap. Only about 10 cents a pound but if I sell my scrap brass, steel weights and zinc weights all in one trip its a little cash back. I once sold 628 pounds of clips!
As noted, depends on size. If small wts, maybe 15% loss. If bigger, like 3-4oz, maybe 10%?
When there's no zinc or steel, I end up with a 90% yield on average.
I suspect the glue on weights are pretty much all lead without too much alloy, One perhaps may want to set these on the side for soft lead in ones ''musket''
Thank you all for the info. The seller has five 5 gallon buckets plus hundreds of pounds of other lead such as large phone cables and race car (mystery) lead.
When I get a batch of used wheel weights I sort out the zinc, steel and plastic prior to smelting. Fortunately the shop where I get them does a pretty good job of making a bucket of clip on and a bucket of stick on weights. The stick on wheel weights are essentially 100% lead. Confirmed by a Castboolits member that does XRF analysis of weights, and has a chart of the appearance of the different weights. I run my smelting pot at about 700 degrees F to prevent melting the zinc weights I might have missed in my sorting. I smelt COWW in one batch and SOWW in a separate batch. For COWW 12% sounds about right for the amount of scrap from the clips. SOWW is essentially 100% yield less about 1% for the adhesive crap that melts off and is scrapped off the top of the melt.
The yield out of a bucket of COWW ranges from 40% to 60% of usable allow versus the zinc, steel and plastic waste.
Ah, race car lead. All the NASCAR contenders have lead weights mounted to meet the required weight limits if their car is too light. My COWW and SOWW source shop is run by a guy that does drag racing and there they will use the weight to meet requirements or add weight to help keep the nose down.
I had a couple threads going a while ago when I came across a whole bunch of lead from an estate of an old reloader. This was ALL lead wheel weights. Out of 1500lbs. of weights I got 1350lbs. of ingots. I think there was roughly 12-15lbs. of dross and the rest was clips.
https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...Linotype/page3
I get a free 5 gallon bucket of wheel weights every month. After sorting, melting, fluxing, and pouring into ingots I average 65% conversion to ingots. Zinc and steel are culled. Stick on and clip on are segregated. Stick on ingots are with Lyman mold. Clip on in muffin tins. I do fairly large amounts when I convert to ingots. The clip ons yield average 90% conversion to ingots. I keep the melt at 675 Fahrenheit or lower to avoid melting zinc that I may have missed in the sort, which happens sometimes.
When I have only lead COWW I average around 10%-15% loss by weight. This was over about 1,500 lbs. These were mostly car weights, very few large truck weights.
It looks like my 12% loss is in the ballpark for what your guys are seeing.