new wheelweights

[27judge]

i have a chance at some brand new wheel weights never used ,what are they worth tks ken.

[odfairfaxsub]

i got some one time. they gave me boxes when i took the old ones. they are honestly no worse or better than old ones. you have to melt them witht he paint off the same as old. i do like the old ones as sometimes they are unpainted and dont have that crazy noxious fumes from burning the paint off.

[27judge]

These are unpainted in the cardboard boxes, its about 300 lb tks ken.

[mold maker]

As, long as they are lead, WWs are WWs.
You didn't mention where your at. You might be doing them a favor, if in a state where they are considered hazardous material.

[Defcon-One]

Sounds like someone got stuck with them after the law changed. You might get a real deal!

Maybe $0.20 - $0.50 per pound. They are cleaner, that is about it. Unpainted ones melt real nice and clean, but you still have a pile of steel clips to deal with.

I usually ask what they want first. That sets the top price, then I offer my low price and see where it goes, only coming up if I have to. It is called Negotiation!

Good luck!

[Gliden07]

My Local Junkyard was paying .20 for used 2 days ago. I would call a local scrapyard to see what there paying then offer a little more. If there not painted they'll melt nice no stench!! My local tire guys gave me 80 pounds used for free!! Bought um Coffee and Doughnuts they thought it was GREAT!!

[oldred]

I mentioned this a while back but apparently some places are trying to just get rid of their lead, new or old! I was at the local farmers CO-OP buying some farm supplies and I just happened to ask the guy in the tire shop if they had any old scrap wheel weights, he said back your truck into the shop and I will give you what we have. They loaded about a five gallon bucket of tobacco juice contaminated old stuff and about 40 or 50 pounds of brand new still-in-the-boxes lead weights. I didn't ask why they wanted to get rid of the new ones I just lit out of there with my newly acquired loot before they changed their mind!


Like has already been pointed out the ingots/bullets cast from the old dirty weights are identical to the ones cast from the new stuff.

[12DMAX]

To answer your question, they are worth no more than the scrap yard is paying that day. Well maybe a dozen donuts thrown in for good standing.

[lwknight]

All lead is some millions of years old so plus or minus a few years don't really matter much.
Buy as cheap as you can but don't cut yourself off by being too cheap and insulting the hand that feeds you.

[27judge]

I finished up with 4 5 gal buckets of new weights.Cost me 3 doz steamed crabs and 4 lb steamed shrimp, pretty good deal being i own a seafood business. tks for your repls ken

[LightsOutND]

I am a new caster, I just got a couple buckets of used WW from the local Farmers Union for free, probably around 200 lbs. I have been trying to look at these threads and see what the easiest way to tell which are lead and which are zinc. I have read that the zinc ones have a much higher melting temperature, and if you melt your alloy at a lower temp, you can just remove the zinc ones if there are any in there as they will float to the top. So my question since I am a newbie is what temperature should I shoot for? I have a casting thermometer and there are marked settings on my Lyman pot, but I know I can't expect the marked settings to be perfectly accurate. This seems like the easiest way to do it from what I've read as long as you babysit your alloy, and I plan to. I am planning on casting GC .30-30 bullets and GC and non-GC .44 Mag bullets (very mild loads in the .44) for starters so that's what these WW will be used for. Thanks in advance for any input you might have.

[AlabamaEd]

There is a sticky at the top of this forum on how to sort WW. I recommend that you read the sticky and learn how to sort WW, it will pay off for sure. Do not depend on zinc WW floating to the surface and not melting. There are also stuff on utube on how to sort WW. Hoping zinc floats to the top will for sure get you a batch of contaminated WW. Good luck.

[H.Callahan]

I've found the easiest way is to sort first using a pair of diagonal cutters and taking a test cut on the weights. If you can easily pot a dent in them, they are almost certainly lead. If you can't mark then easily, then they are something else.

As a secondary measure, I keep the smelt under 700° F and skim as soon as everything as possible.

Oh, and a big 2nd on the wheel weight sorting sticky. Mucho good information there!

[LightsOutND]

Thanks for the replies. I read the sticky plus a couple other threads, that's where I got the idea that it might be easiest to keep it low and skim everything off, but it sounds like I might be asking for trouble if I tried to do that. So basically you sort them by seeing which ones are easily marked with a side cutters? If that's the case I am glad I hauled those things home because I can mark just about everything I tried when I started to look through them. Of course I was using my trusty pocketknife but it sure cut like lead to me. Do the zinc ones seem more like steel when you take a side cutters or knife to them? I know I'm probably asking questions that are pretty subjective but I am just looking for a place to start.

[largom]

Your side cutters will mark the zink weights but you can easily feel the difference in pressure required from standard wheel weights.

Larry

[Hardcast416taylor]

Zinc and iron weights have a different looking front than lead weights. They also have the letters Zn or Fe on the front. As has been said side cutters or end nippers will not penatrate these other weights but will cut in on lead. I first sort by using a 1" round 8" long magnet to thin out the Fe weights and other ferrus metals. The Zn can be sorted by melting the pail of weights at temps of under 600 degrees and maintain this lower temp as Zn won`t melt nor Fe but lead will. Just skim the foreign weights off the top as slag along with the steel weight clips to be sold back to the junk yard.Robert

[bumpo628]

Thanks for the replies. I read the sticky plus a couple other threads, that's where I got the idea that it might be easiest to keep it low and skim everything off, but it sounds like I might be asking for trouble if I tried to do that. So basically you sort them by seeing which ones are easily marked with a side cutters? If that's the case I am glad I hauled those things home because I can mark just about everything I tried when I started to look through them. Of course I was using my trusty pocketknife but it sure cut like lead to me. Do the zinc ones seem more like steel when you take a side cutters or knife to them? I know I'm probably asking questions that are pretty subjective but I am just looking for a place to start.

With zinc, you will feel no movement when you try to cut them with side cutters. It feels like steel basically. There will probably be a very small dent where the cutters were, but it's barely enough to feel with your nail. Cutting into lead is much easier and the differences will be obvious.

[LightsOutND]

Thanks. Well it looks like there are a couple of methods. I think to be safe I will sort a couple of coffee cans very carefully to get a feel for what's what. Most of them seem to be marked, I will compare them to the markings listed on the sticky to see what is zinc. I have found a couple that are marked as zinc and they definitely are lighter, it looks like most might be lead alloy so I think I lucked out with the tire shop. Now that I have a couple that I know are zinc and a bunch I know are lead I have some control samples to work with so I will break out the side cutters and get a feel for the different alloys like you guys do. Thanks for all the replies, I really appreciate the help, you guys pretty much answered all the questions I had about WW's.