identifing zinc before it goes in the lead pot

[Catch]

I am still using wheel weights as my main source of lead. I don't want to mess with zinc but am aware that it is a problem. What is the best way to tell zinc from lead weights? I want to keep them out of the pot to start with. A magnet will tell the steel ones but I am at a loss for an effective way to telll them apart. Lead scratches easily I think while zinc it harder, but is there a better way to identify them? I have a Lee pot which doesn't like zinc either.................Help...............Thanks to all of you that help me so much........

Catch

By the way I will add a solution to those Lee pots that drip no matter what you do.......Mine does, just a drip at a time. Get a cinder block and cut the end off so you have a "H" pattern on one end. Set the pot on top of it. Use a fly cutter to make a hole about 1.5 inches in diameter in the plate under the drip,
Place a tin (steel) can under the plate inside the cinder block and cast away. This really works for me and I empty the can every half hour or so. The drip really drove me crazy but this solved it for me. Hope that is helpful to some of you...........

[Don1357]

Snips will tell you for sure, you can't bite into zinc like you can into lead. But the 100% and easiest way? Lead melts at 621 degrees Fahrenheit, zinc at 787 degrees Fahrenheit. As things begin to melt you can just scoop the zinc out. I do my best to pick the zinc out before melting but it is never a big deal, provided I get it out before I crank the temperature pass 700 degrees.

[MrWolf]

Zinc is a lot harder. As Don said, use sidecsnips on each one to be sure. I personally check each one vs the temp method. Figured I went through that much trouble already that a little more effort to ensure no zinc is worth it. After awh5you will be able to see the majority of zinc right off.

[Camper64]

On another thread someone mentioned using a hacksaw blade to test.

[ChuckO]

I have an old rat-tail wood rasp set in a hole in my table top. It is easy to pass the wheel weight across it if in doubt. This is much faster and easier on my hands than checking with side cutters.

[Bantou]

I use a pair of dikes (wire cutters) that I picked up at the local parts store for $6. It doesn’t take long to clip the end of the weights and saves me a lot of hassle and worry.


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[Cast_outlaw]

Thease are the common ones I find also if you spot a big chunky looking COWW it’s a safe bet it’s zinc if you drop them on concrete they make a tink/ring sound not a clunk scratch them on creat the lead will bite in and the zinc will tend to skate across and if you keep your melt temp low enough they will just Float on top

[kevin c]

I'm the impatient sort who quickly resorts to blasting the top of the scrap pile with a weed burner to speed the meltdown. I'm pretty sure zinc would melt into the alloy with that approach, so my small stock of ww ended up getting sorted by the dyke nipping technique. Laborious and slow, but sure.

[Conditor22]

99% of zinc has "ZN" on it and that's usually easy to see.

I use a big magnet and a pair of compound side cutters.
I tap the WW on the magnet IF it sticks or has a high tinny sound. it's steel or zinc.

If it doesn't stick to the magnet and I 'm not sure I look for the ZN, no ZN but still not sure I grab the side cutters. IF it cuts its lead, if it doesn't it's zinc.

When you get WW that looks like this it's harder

[kevin c]

Years in the water at the bottom of the barrel?

[Silvercreek Farmer]

Take a known lead and a known zinc weight and scratch them on something abraisive like a concrete block. They feel markedly different. The lead grabs, but the zinc just skids. Much faster than side cutters, since you can use two hands at once.

I just put a few handfuls on a cookie sheet and do a cursory visual sort. Good enough to get 90%+ of the steel and zinc out. Don't over heat and everything is fine.

I think folks make rendering wheel weights harder than it needs to be. I smelted 1400 lbs of wheel weights into 900 lbs of ingots in 16 hours over three days. That'll hold me for a long time!

[Don1357]

I'm the impatient sort who quickly resorts to blasting the top of the scrap pile with a weed burner to speed the meltdown. I'm pretty sure zinc would melt into the alloy with that approach, so my small stock of ww ended up getting sorted by the dyke nipping technique. Laborious and slow, but sure.

not really. I do the same and have no issues. The pile of lead acts as a heart sink, it dissipates the heat you are pumping in. Once you get it to melt you stop the weed burner and skim the zinc stragglers.

Just to be clear I sort and take all recognisable zinc out. The thing is making sure the last 5% is picked out takes as long (If not more) than taking out the first 95%, so I just sort and quickly go through my wheel weights once and count on getting the stragglers during the first skimming of the smelt.

[lightman]

I don't trust controlling the temperature to sort the zinc. I hand sort them.

What I do is dump a bunch of weights out on a hard surface, like a sheet of plywood. Set this up in a comfortable place. Then I start cherry picking them, going from the most obvious to the least. I start with the tire stickers, valve stems, lug nuts, brake pads, ect. Then I pick out the stick on weights, sorting the steel and zinc out as I go. Then I pick out the steel clip on weights. These have a very distinctive look and are easy to ID. This leaves the zinc and lead weights. I pick up and look at each weight and start a pile of any suspicious weights to later test cut with a pair of dykes. The zinc just look different after you sort for a while. Most have a Z or Zn on them, but not all of them. After a while the zinc just sort of jump out at you. Like you have a radar for them. The zinc will be a smaller weight than the same lead weight, oz for oz. Lead weights will be skinned up more than zinc weights. While you can cut a zinc weight, they are much harder than lead weights. When you first start, save a zinc weight thats marked Zn and compare it to cutting a lead weight.

This sounds like a lot of work and it can be. But it gets easier as you get more experience. If you miss a steel weight it won't hurt anything. You will not melt a steel weight anywhere the temps that we work at. If you miss a zinc weight you might get another chance when you see if floating on top. Also, a small % of zinc won't ruin a batch of lead although no zinc is better.

And then sometimes you get a bucket of weights like Conditor pictured. Just take your time, use the method that I described and test cut anything suspicious.

[RogerDat]

I use a plastic drawer that sits in my lap as a sorting tray. I toss the obvious items to respective sorting buckets. Items such as Stick on WW's or steal stick on WW's. Then hit the remainder with the nippers. Refilling the tray as it gets emptied.

Having the pile in my lap while seated makes the nip toss motion very efficient. The tray with sides allows me to fill it with a quick dump of more into it as I finish sorting a batch. I also wear nitrile gloves, both because outside of pit toilets not much is funkier than a bucket of WW's and because as someone alluded to the handles of the cutters can get hard on ones hands, nitrile gloves help with that.

One always starts WW's from a cold pot and if any zinc WW's are on the bottom of a pile pinned against the pot bottom they can get hotter than the melt itself. Not a huge issue but a possibility exists for those trapped ones to melt. So far in about 1000 lbs. of WW's have had 3 zinc WW's slip through to end up floating on top a lead melt. After awhile you will recognize the "good" and "bad" ones on sight and the cutters will only be to give a gentle nip (or fail to nip) with little force and pretty fast.

How fast it goes in part depends on the ratio of lead to non-lead WW's. Which can be the other issue. If the vast majority of the WW's are lead then dump, melt skim will work better than if the majority is not lead. Harder to "skim" the zinc/steel off a pot of molten lead if there are more zinc and steel than molten lead.

[kevin c]

not really. I do the same and have no issues. The pile of lead acts as a heart sink, it dissipates the heat you are pumping in. Once you get it to melt you stop the weed burner and skim the zinc stragglers.

Hmmm. My experience is with a 500,000 BTU torch played over pots full of various isotope containers, which invariably start to melt almost immediately when hit with the flame, top down, closest and most directly in the flame path first. Maybe the bigger containers don't conduct the heat like wheel weights, doesn't have much of a heat sink effect, and the pot doesn't heat as evenly.

[ioon44]

I don't trust controlling the temperature to sort the zinc. I hand sort them.

What I do is dump a bunch of weights out on a hard surface, like a sheet of plywood. Set this up in a comfortable place. Then I start cherry picking them, going from the most obvious to the least. I start with the tire stickers, valve stems, lug nuts, brake pads, ect. Then I pick out the stick on weights, sorting the steel and zinc out as I go. Then I pick out the steel clip on weights. These have a very distinctive look and are easy to ID. This leaves the zinc and lead weights. I pick up and look at each weight and start a pile of any suspicious weights to later test cut with a pair of dykes. The zinc just look different after you sort for a while. Most have a Z or Zn on them, but not all of them. After a while the zinc just sort of jump out at you. Like you have a radar for them. The zinc will be a smaller weight than the same lead weight, oz for oz. Lead weights will be skinned up more than zinc weights. While you can cut a zinc weight, they are much harder than lead weights. When you first start, save a zinc weight thats marked Zn and compare it to cutting a lead weight.

This sounds like a lot of work and it can be. But it gets easier as you get more experience. If you miss a steel weight it won't hurt anything. You will not melt a steel weight anywhere the temps that we work at. If you miss a zinc weight you might get another chance when you see if floating on top. Also, a small % of zinc won't ruin a batch of lead although no zinc is better.

And then sometimes you get a bucket of weights like Conditor pictured. Just take your time, use the method that I described and test cut anything suspicious.

This is the way I sort out my wheel weights also, the more you do it the easier it gets to separate the zinc wheel weights out.

[markmars]

Good information A friend of mine gave me a bucket of wheel weights I'm slowly going through them so far have have been zinc or steel.

I tap them with a hammer lead takes a dent easy, zinc takes more to dimple it, and steel wont.

Are zinc wheel weights mostly zinc? If they are alloyed with aluminum it will lower the melting pion.

[kevin c]

Welcome, markmars!

Dunno if the zinc is alloyed. I'd guess not, as I think Al is a lot less dense than Zn. In any case the general experience here seems to be that lead WW will melt before the zinc ones do, provided you work up the temperature of the melt in a way that doesn't hit the liquidus temperature of pure zinc.

[ioon44]

Good information A friend of mine gave me a bucket of wheel weights I'm slowly going through them so far have have been zinc or steel.

I tap them with a hammer lead takes a dent easy, zinc takes more to dimple it, and steel wont.

Are zinc wheel weights mostly zinc? If they are alloyed with aluminum it will lower the melting pion.

Most all zinc ww will have Zn stamped on them but not all, if you are not sure use side cutter pliers, you and cut into a lead weight but the zinc weights won't even dent.

Are you in South West MO?

[markmars]

Most all zinc ww will have Zn stamped on them but not all, if you are not sure use side cutter pliers, you and cut into a lead weight but the zinc weights won't even dent.

Are you in South West MO?

I was I need to update my location.