Latest score from tire shop with breakdown from sorting

[BK7saum]

Picked up a bucket of wheel weights yesterday. Just got through sorting and found the bucket to contain

62 lb 15.8 oz COWW. 81.7%
4 lb 6.7 oz SOWW. 5.7%
6 lb 13.7 oz steel/Fe. 8.9%
1 lb 8.2 oz Zn. 2.0%
1 lb 5.4 oz plastic coated. 1.7%

For a total of 87.4% lead wheelweights


I was pretty surprised at the amount of COWW but this is a tire shop in a rural area. The tire shops from larger towns have a higher Fe and Zn percentage.

[scottfire1957]

Excellent!

Edit: That is actually close to the very small sample I picked the other day. About 12# clip ons, 2# stickons, about 2# of Fe and Zn.

[Crazyrcflier]

What part of oklahoma?

[lightman]

Thats a really good % of lead. Lead ww seem to still be around here, too!

[bangerjim]

Glad someone somewhere can find PB weights. Most find none or a large % Zn & Fe.

I will stick to mixing my own casting alloys from the basic alloys. Faster and much cleaner that melting filthy dirty weights.

[lwknight]

That is a really good find. My last batch was by volume 60% junk and by weight 50% junk
The only thing good was that I got an unusually high antimony content.
Probably because of some really old WWs that used to be like 9%

[BK7saum]

I have found those to contain a steel core with 1/8" or so of plastic around it.
Brad

[Ole]

Congrats!

I found two nice-sized weights laying in the street today.

[Yodogsandman]

I just started sorting 4 buckets of WW. I've only got down about 4" in one and so far it's running about 50% COWW, 30% SOWW and 20% steel and zinc WW. It's taken 2 hours just to do that! This is my first time sorting WW's, I just ran out of the free WW's from the 1980"s. Wish I grabbed a lot more when I could! You'd think a ton was enough, right? I never had to sort them, they were all COWW's! So, stock up on what you can, this might be the best it will ever be in the future for cheap WW's!

[AFK]

Came across this weight yesterday, never seen an all plastic weight, cept the clip. I cut into it just to be sure it wasn't a thick coating, nope, nothing there but plastic and the metal clip. Marked 1/2 oz and MC.

I scored a small batch of free WW last week and I ran across a coupe of these as well. I hadn't encountered one yet. I too cut in to it and it was solid plastic.

[konsole]

Came across this weight yesterday, never seen an all plastic weight, cept the clip. I cut into it just to be sure it wasn't a thick coating, nope, nothing there but plastic and the metal clip. Marked 1/2 oz and MC.
Attachment 127903

I have 2 types of those next to me. One is plastic and weighs 1/2-oz, and the other is plastic coated steel and weighs 1.50-oz. They are the same dimensions. I usually find around 10 of them in a full bucket.

[konsole]

I also just got done sorting weights from my trips yesterday and the day before, and this is what i have....

Total weight - 422.4
Lead COWW - 264.6 (62.6% of total)
Lead SOWW - 40.4 (9.6% of total)
Steel - 91 (21.5% of total)
Zinc - 26.4 (6% of total)

These weights are including the steel clips, but not the buckets themselves. I figure a full bucket of clips probably weighs around 30-lbs and I'll probably end up with about 1/2 a bucket of clips from the lead COWW. So it looks like I have around 290-lb of lead.

[lightman]

yodog, the sorting gets easier after you do it for a while. You get where you can tell the zinc and fe without cutting every one of them.

[Yodogsandman]

yodog, the sorting gets easier after you do it for a while. You get where you can tell the zinc and fe without cutting every one of them.

Thanks for your encouragement! I've already quadrupled my output...just a slow learner, I guess! That, plus it's a little cold outside, even with a little heater on my feet. No worries, I just want it all sorted by spring. I should hurry though, the tire guy says he'll have 4 more buckets ready about March

[Scooby]

I have several tire shops I get from, some of them have higher end cars with nice rims and use a lot more stick on weights. When I get weights from my buddy who works at a dealership there is almost always way more steel and zinc than lead. When I first started sorting it took me about an hour a bucket, now I can get a bucket done in about a half hour. I have hand sorted several tons of wheel weights for my shot making set up. I still weigh before sort and after and record all in a book, not sure why I do it I just do. Happy sorting!

[BK7saum]

Sometimes you just want to know how you did. I don't record my results anywhere. But sometimes I just like to see what the breakdown is.

[konsole]

I'm probably done looking for weights for atleast a couple weeks, so I finished sorting what I had and this is my final result.....

These numbers are after subtracting the weights of the buckets, subtracting a small amount for adhesive and dirt type junk, and guessing the weight of the steel clips and adding that to the total steel weight.

Pbcoww - 383.2
Pbsoww - 70.4
steel - 166.6
zinc - 37.2

So it looks like lead will be 69% of the total "metal" that I sorted. From now on when I see a bucket of WW's I'm going to estimate that 2/3 of the total weight will be lead. Full bucket of roughly 125-lb would be 82-lb of lead, and 1/2 bucket would be 41-lb of lead, etc. etc.

[Yodogsandman]

I finished sorting my first bucket, here's the rough results. Before starting, the 5 gallon bucket as received, was filled to the very top. Note that I stuck the steel and zinc together in one junk bucket. Weights include the bucket weight and clips. Weighed on a cheap, 0-500 lb spring scale. Increments are by 5 lbs so, I had to guestimate between the lines. Weights were taken at eye level by hoisting up with a hand winch.

PB COWW+ 5 gal bucket-104lb
PB SOWW+ 2 1/2 lb bucket-32 lb
FE+ZN+ 2 1/2 gal bucket- 44 lb

Also noted that buckets of lead seem much heavier when you're 30 years older. I used to carry two buckets at a time, one in each hand. Lead WW's must be heavier on the new cars. Another good reason to stock up in your youth.

[konsole]

Yodosandman,

The weight of your 3 sorting buckets, plus all your metal weighs 180-lb?

I thought 150-lb was about the maximum that a 5 gallon bucket has?

I have four 5-gal buckets of Pbcoww and each bucket is about 2/3 full and weighs just about 100-lb each. So a full bucket of PBcoww would weigh about 150-lb. If a full unsorted bucket contains 44-lb of FE+Zinc, and the rest lead, then the bucket should probably be closer to 125-lb. 125-lb plus the weight of 2 extra buckets should be around 125-130-lb. Your number seems heavy by about 50-lb.

[Yodogsandman]

You're right! I had to go look. I did mention that it's a cheap spring scale. Well, I forgot to check where the plate was located that shows the increments. The pointer is pointing at about 7 lbs. So, each weight I took is off by 7 lbs. The 104 lbs of COWW should be say, 97 lbs and so on. You got me!

I took three weights, that's 21 lbs off. then add the weight of the buckets. Gets pretty close, then.

Shhh, I weigh my deer with this scale.