Wheel weight culture ...

[MUSTANG]

Well; I am good to go on Isotope Lead for some time; but I MAY have to resort to melting down the 1000 lbs or so of Lead Diving Weights I still have in storage - gave up my SCUBA INSTRUCTOR status several years ago so I no longer use the Dive Weights for training - but still have all the equipment. These weights were all cast from either the Oldddddd Lead Telephone Cable or Wheel Weights - NO ZINKER-STINKERS in those weights.

[Cosmic_Charlie]

Had my first wheel weight smelting session this morning. Was supposed to be sorted but I found maybe 20 lbs of zinc ones. Out of 113 lbs I wound up with 75 lbs. of nice ingots. Fished a half dozen zinc ones out of the melt that I had missed. A bit more work than soft clean lead but worth it to have that antimony in there. Dumped all the dross, zinc and clips in the trash. Paid $40 for that 113 lbs.

[bangerjim]

. Paid $40 for that 113 lbs.

And what $$ amount do you value your time and effort and fuel to acquire and process theses ingots?

Not worth it to me, even at you 35¢/ pound average basic cost.

I sell my engineering time at $150/hour to customers, so that is what I value my spare time at also.

If one is retired and tons of time on their hands, then maybe it might be worth all the effort/time/money/fuel to render a few lousy pounds of Pb out of buckets and buckets of garbage. I would rather buy it on here in ingot form already cleaned & processed........if I ever have to. Got tons of the stuff stored away.

[Walks]

I've given up on finding WW in SoCal. My Mechanic gave me 5lbs of COWW. Got a total of 9 COWW's. The rest were either Zinc or Iron.
Scrap yards Wil NOT sell lead of any kind.
Some sort of LA County Ordnance.

[Cosmic_Charlie]

And what $$ amount do you value your time and effort and fuel to acquire and process theses ingots?

Not worth it to me, even at you 35¢/ pound average basic cost.

I sell my engineering time at $150/hour to customers, so that is what I value my spare time at also.

If one is retired and tons of time on their hands, then maybe it might be worth all the effort/time/money/fuel to render a few lousy pounds of Pb out of buckets and buckets of garbage. I would rather buy it on here in ingot form already cleaned & processed........if I ever have to. Got tons of the stuff stored away.

I am retired. The cost of the propane is negligible, been using the same partial tank for 3 years and probably smelted a quarter ton of lead. As far as the time goes, well, a hobby need not be practical, only pleasurable and I do enjoy making ingots. I suppose one could just buy commercial cast boolits and work a couple extra hours now and then. I'm sure there are plenty of guys here who would be happy to make your boolits for you for $75 an hour and you would save $75 an hour by working instead.

[fredj338]

I've given up on finding WW in SoCal. My Mechanic gave me 5lbs of COWW. Got a total of 9 COWW's. The rest were either Zinc or Iron.
Scrap yards Wil NOT sell lead of any kind.
Some sort of LA County Ordnance.

I gave up on ww here in So Kalif about 7y ago. Just way to much non lead to bother with. I have maybe 1500# of diff alloys, more than I will probably use but I keep taking it if I find it free or cheap.

[downzero]

Had my first wheel weight smelting session this morning. Was supposed to be sorted but I found maybe 20 lbs of zinc ones. Out of 113 lbs I wound up with 75 lbs. of nice ingots. Fished a half dozen zinc ones out of the melt that I had missed. A bit more work than soft clean lead but worth it to have that antimony in there. Dumped all the dross, zinc and clips in the trash. Paid $40 for that 113 lbs.

I scored close to 250 pounds for about the same price this spring. I haven't been that lucky since, but I'm going to keep trying.

[Winger Ed.]

And what $$ amount do you value your time and effort and fuel to acquire and process theses ingots?

I quit looking at life like deposits and withdrawals in a checkbook several years before I retired.

Then, as now; a lot of the things I do, I do them simply because I want to and never consider the cost.
As far as scrounging and casting goes- its a lot like buying a good steak or target shooting:
If I really wanted to save money, I wouldn't do it at all.

Another benefit is that it keeps me out of those crooked BINGO parlors.

[white eagle]

I have a couple of buckets of ww that I got some years ago
those aren't sorted but I do have another that is sorted
I actually never use ww I always seem to either go to
binary alloys or isotope lead
well some day I may use them but for now I am happy
with my binary alloys

[slim1836]

I have less than $20 in the several hundred pounds of lead having most of my lead given to me or found on the roadway in my many years of roadway construction. If I had had to buy lead from the beginning I may not have gotten into casting. It's a hobby, from wheel weight to meat.

Slim

[Cosmic_Charlie]

Got to tell you, visiting that scrap yard on U.S. Hwy. #2 that a member here clued me in on was pretty enjoyable. The owner scrounges lead too for his stock car racing hobby. Down to earth fellas.