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Thread: Zinc Wheelweights

  1. #81
    Boolit Master
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    Voltmeter? That's a new one to me. If you get a bottle of muriatic acid from the hardware store(unless it too, is banned now!!) it will fizz like the bajasus on zinc but just bubble slightly on lead. Steel reaction will be somewhere in the middle, tending more like lead. Zinc in acid will make you sit up and take notice. I don't worry about steel, it floats on the melt, just skim it off, done. There's another posting running around about using sulfur to clean up a molten mess of zinc contaminated lead, sounds like it should work............Lee
    Been paddlin' upstream all my life, don't see no reason to turn around now.

  2. #82
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    Has anyone ever tried sorting by using a voltmeter, i don't have any zinc ww to try it with but if anyone wants to try let us know how it turns out.
    I would doubt that you would have any luck that way. I have no idea what readings to expect but I'm sure that the coatings would make it difficult to get an actual contact.
    With 100s of WWs to test, any difficulty at all would be a tedious nightmare.
    Sent from my PC with a keyboard and camera on it with internet too.
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  3. #83
    Boolit Master
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    BTW, get a bottle of "The Works" toilet bowl cleaner. 20% hydrocloric acid and that will make the zinc jump up and take notice........
    .
    .
    .(Ya know I ain't green, but the stuff mentioned above, IMHO, is probably one of the worst stufffs you could ever put down a drain.............
    Last edited by Lee; 01-30-2010 at 10:10 PM. Reason: op-inions
    Been paddlin' upstream all my life, don't see no reason to turn around now.

  4. #84
    Boolit Master
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    Hey Guys, I found this web site [http://hb-ok207.en.alibaba.com ] that lists a lot of pictures of ww's with the various letters and #'s on them and the composition of each. This is a ww manufacturer in China. Might help some.

  5. #85
    Boolit Bub
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    And, for fishing out those steel and iron pieces and the Zn weights with steel clips, I use a garage floor magnet. It really does a job at fishing out the steel. Then, I skim the remainder and flux the batch and make ingots.

    DD-DLoS

  6. #86
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    it's little johnny's turn who is waveing franticly in the back row.
    i believe in the kiss principle. i use a sharp hard steel blade knife.
    the knife will dig in the lead ones and not in the others. as long
    as u can stay focus on which bucket is which. no more than 2 shots
    of scotch when ur doing this.
    jb

  7. #87
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    How about just looking for the rivets? I've yet to see a lead WW that had the clip riveted on or a Zn/Fe WW that didn't have the clip riveted on. Has anyone seen a zinc or iron/steel WW that had the clip cast into it?

    David

  8. #88
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    OK, I haven't looked at this thread for a while. After looking back a ways it seems that some zinc is slipping in as stick-ons. They should be easily identified because they will be far harder to bend than lead stick-ons.

    As noted earlier, weights marked AL are not aluminum. They have a plastic coating on them that goes away in the smelting process as do a lot of the newer WWs.

    Smelt at about 650 degrees F by the thermometer and any that slip by will float to the top unmelted. As much as I hated to shell out for a thermometer, I have never regretted buying one. It makes casting much easier by eliminating a lot of guesswork. I also discovered that the thermostat on my furnace may have drifted quite a bit. I had adjusted it to match the thermometer about 2-1/2 years ago after giving the melt plenty of time to stabilize. Two nights ago I couldn't get the boolits to not wrinkle. When I checked it I found the melt to be 40-50 degrees cooler than where the thermostat was set.

    David

  9. #89
    Boolit Grand Master

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    Quote Originally Posted by David2011 View Post
    How about just looking for the rivets? I've yet to see a lead WW that had the clip riveted on or a Zn/Fe WW that didn't have the clip riveted on. Has anyone seen a zinc or iron/steel WW that had the clip cast into it?

    David
    Yes there are now some poured zinc weights. I have only found a couple, but they do exist. I was surprised at the lack of rivets.

  10. #90
    Boolit Master on Heaven's Range
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    yup...found a few with no rivets also
    "HMMMM.........It wasn't spos'ta do THAT!"

  11. #91
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    The only zinc weights I've found were cast - only rivets I've found were in steel weights. I had a PILE of WW I THOUGHT might be zinc , but after getting a good thermometer, found most were good stuff.

  12. #92
    Boolit Master


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    Thanks for the new info.

    David

  13. #93
    Boolit Grand Master

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    There are lead WW that look like they are riveted, but are cast. The clips must all have the holes now, so the lead goes thru it and kinda looks like it is riveted.

  14. #94
    Boolit Man

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    My last batch of WW had more Fe and Zn w/o rivets than with rivets. And now I'm getting both Fe and Zn stick-on WWs in the bucket, too.

    FYI, all but one of the WW's marked 5 grams was Zn or Fe, both stick-on and clip-on.

    This is in Central Texas, YMMV...

    Carl
    "The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not" - Thomas Jefferson

  15. #95
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    Wheel weights

    I was in the diving weight business for twenty years, Sold 500, 000 lbs of lead
    a year. When I would melt down WW's, the zinc weights were the last to melt.

    I would pull them before they had a chance to melt. Also I found that lead with zinc in it could be helped by adding builders sand to the melt, Stir it in well, the
    zinc will stick to the sand. Remove the sand, try again.



    Mike Circle
    circle141@msn.com
    727-544-1295

  16. #96
    In Remembrance


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    I have posted on other threads about zinc, but haven't on this one. I did some experimenting with zinc contamination and some of my observations are as follows. Zinc requires a lot more heat to melt. The most foolproof method to avoid contamination is to watch the melt and when the lead goes from slush to barely liquid, skim out any floaters. According to Lyman zinc will alloy with lead to about 2% only. Excess zinc will separate and float as a slush (oatmeal is an apt description) and can be skimmed off. The remainder is not very detrimental to casting good boolits. I have tested them for maleability by smashing them with a hammer on an anvil. The boolits compare closely with WW boolits. The color is more like the color of sterling silver (whitish). It generally requires a little more heat to get good fillout, but is less likely to frost. Many have proclaimed you will ruin your casting equipment if even a small amount of zinc slips into your melt. Not so. You may have to clean the spout of your bottom pour if you have a higher percent of zinc, but it is not any harder to get out than dirt from smelting WW in your casting pot. Moulds show no effect at all. If you contaminate your melt with zinc and want to throw it out, I'll pay the shipping if you'll send it to me. DALE
    I will also say that contamination can be more of a problem for ladle casters than bottom pour guys, as the zinc floats and I have cast boolits until the level drops to where the zinc reaches the spout of the BP.
    Last edited by DLCTEX; 02-25-2010 at 09:20 PM.

  17. #97
    Boolit Mold 1911Clone's Avatar
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    Red face

    Zn DEFINITELY zinc.
    Fe DEFINITELY steel.

    I was curious about the AL ones in this batch... Does that mean they might have some Aluminum in them? Or are they lead? The seem to be a fairly soft metal, but then again, Aluminum IS a fairly soft metal.

    Anybody have any idea what these 'Type' Code letters are or mean?

    [/QUOTE]

    AL means that are for use on Aluminum rims. Come on guys, Light aluminum being used for wheel wright? I don't think so.

  18. #98
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    some of the codes on some ww indicate the style of rim the can fit on.For instance,most GM alloy rims use a ww with a MC on them.Other designs use AL,AN etc.I always check the ww two different ways.One by melting at a low temp and the other before melting by trying to cut it with a side cutters.
    Zinc and steel can hardly be cut or even make dent while lead cuts fairly easy
    Last edited by ubetcha; 04-07-2010 at 09:18 PM.
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  19. #99
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    Slightly off topic; Ive been going around to garages around here to try and get used wheel weights to get my lead stock up ( currently 130 lbs!). Today some schmuck tried to tell me that he had a guy paying him FIVE DOLLARS A POUND for lead wheel weights. uhh yeah next place on the list...

    for clarification all the local scrap dealers quoted me their buying price of 40C a lb and 1$ selling per lb.
    Last edited by Colt .45; 05-31-2010 at 10:22 PM.

  20. #100
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    You should have offered to sell him all he wants at $2.50 a pound. That way he could double his money without having to do any work.


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Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check