Got 200 lbs wheel weights and want to cast them

[Gundogblue]

Hi all,
I’ve been casting my boolits for a while with very good results, I’ve been buying my lead already done up. But the future son in law works at a tire shop and brought me home at least 200lbs of wheel weights. Some are clip on some are square with double sided tape, I heard the easiest way to tell if they’re lead it to get a good side cutter, if you can cut into them, then they’re probably lead. I read on this forum you can get the double sided tape off by soaking the weights in either gasoline, or mineral spirits. And if I don’t want to do that I can smelt them out side. So I want to know if I have all this straight. First I need a propane burner and either a cast iron Dutch oven, or a stainless steel pot. Put the weights in the pot and fire up the burner, when the weights melt, start fluxing it until there’s no more gray ash coming off the melt. Get a ladle and ladle the melt into ingot moulds, then my ally is ready for casting? Also I used to watch my dad cast boolits when I was young, he used to use 9 lbs wheel weights, and 1 lb 50/50 bar solder to get a Lyman #2 alloy. Some of my stick on wheel weights are pretty soft, will the 50/50 bar solder harden them up enough for cast boolits? I know there’s a lot of questions here, but I sure appriciated your time and patients.
Paul

[Jim22]

Just be careful about getting too big a pot for smelting. That lead gets heavy!. I used an 8" cast iron skillet to melt 10 lbs or so of wheel weights. I could hardly lift it by the handle when full. An over-the-top bail would be better. Also, I used a long-handled magnet to remove the steel clips after the alloy was liquid.

[frkelly74]

Sounds good to me! If you are vigilant about getting the zinc weights out you will be good to go.

[AlHunt]

You've got the basic process. My only advice would be to bring your temps up slowly in case some of those clip ons are zinc or steel. 620F the lead will melt and everything else will float.

My self, I flux once or twice at this point with sawdust and make my ingots.

Congrats on a great score.

[Gundogblue]

Thanks much for the tutorial, I really appriciate it. I didn’t think of the weight factor, I’ll get a pot close to the size of my Lee furnace which holds 10 lbs. picking up a pot full of molten lead scares the bejesus out of me, can’t I get a ladle and just ladle the molten lead into the Ingot moulds? I remember my dad just used to put the wheel weights in his furnace, and use a needle nose pliers to pull out the steel clips as they floated to the top. I need to mention what I’m shooting, and that’s cowboy loads, for my .45 Colt
I’m useing a 255 grn boolit in front of 8 grns of Unique, for a speed of around 800 ft per second, same for my 1892 Winchester in .45 Colt. . For my 1894 Marlin in 44 mag I’m usein a 237 grn boolit it’s the same , 8 grns of Unique. So the they’re pretty much low pressure, low velocity rnds. So in this case can I use those soft lead square wheel wieghs as long as I add the 1 lb of 50/50 bar solder to each 10 lbs of lead?
Thanks again,
Paul

[Pipefitter]

For what you are planning on shooting them in smelt the clip ons separate from the stick ons, then mix 50/50 by weight, add 1-2% tin and you should be good to go.

[OS OK]

I have always worked in 50 pound batches so my turkey fryer and this large cast pot work together pretty well, I don't trust too much lead on top of that ChineeeCheeePo burner stand...and it ain't a speedy operation, takes me most of the day start to finish doing 250 pounds of lead.




I dip with a large dipper with the ladle bent to hang straight down from my hand. These large dippers weigh about 3 pounds with a dip load of lead in them...set the dipper onto the edge of your mould and ease the dipper over gently and it'll not splash...you'll get the hang of it pretty quick.



If you suspect any moisture at all in the wheel weights, bring them up to melt from a fresh pot of cold material like I have here with my collection of lead from my backstop. Never - never add lead to a molten pot as that's a good way to have a steam explosion.



Here's roughly 120 pounds of lead so you will have an idea of what you have ahead of you. Plan to make a day of it, you can carefully sort the crap out of your weights as each pot melts, gives you something to do, find a scraper that fits the pot interior edges well and use it to scrape the pot walls well. That top picture shows what I scraed from the pot after I had cleaned off the floating dross.



Dress for the occasion and for goodness sake...at least wear eye protection, I know we all get confident and lazy but you don't want this lead on anything but that ingot mould.

[William Yanda]

I prefer the stainless over cast iron and find a slotted spoon for removing clips handy. Both sourced from the thrift shop.

[Gundogblue]

I really want to thank all of you for the excellent advice, and your time in order to get me straight on this. They need to rename this forum to Cast Boolit School.
Paul

[Conditor22]

You want to remove ALL the zinc weights, both clip-on and stick-on.
Zinc is usually clearly marked with a ZN. I'm not so worried about the steel "FE" weight because they won't melt.

I wouldn't trust bringing the temp up slowly to eliminate all Zinc WW, the WW on the bottom of the put will get hot enough to melt zinc before the top WW start to melt -- my 2¢

I like to smelt in a cut propane tank

my smelting setup and tools


Good for fluxing and removing clips/big slag. When the flux looks like this I consider my fluxing done for this batch

[redhawk0]

I just went through this last summer. A hunting buddy gave me 2 five gallon buckets of WW from his garage. He'd been collecting them for 15+ years and didn't know what to do with them....anyway...I spend several days on the back patio with three buckets in front of me....one with the WW, one for rejects...and one for good Lead weights. I cut each and every one of them with a pair of lineman's pliers. If they are zinc...you'll know it quickly. they won't even mark. The steel? Also easy to spot...they have weld marks on the clips. The stick-ons? I didn't have as many (maybe 12 lbs worth)...they got cut as well. This told me if they were the "plastic" type (not sure what that material was...but I didn't throw it in the melt bucket.)

When I was done, I had 202lbs of WW ingots and the other 12 lbs of stick-ons (glue and all) went into my plumber/roofing lead melt...I just call it all soft lead. All the clips float to the top and they went into a cardboard box then out with the trash. I must have had 25-30 lbs of them.

I melt with a cut off propane tank as well. I melt about 80 lbs at a whack.


redhawk

[kerplode]

Thanks much for the tutorial, I really appriciate it. I didn’t think of the weight factor, I’ll get a pot close to the size of my Lee furnace which holds 10 lbs. picking up a pot full of molten lead scares the bejesus out of me, can’t I get a ladle and just ladle the molten lead into the Ingot moulds?

Yes, definitely use a ladle of some sort. Picking up a pot full of molten lead is a recipe for a visit to the burn ward.

[Chill Wills]

Just starting out and getting the feel of what you are doing, very small batches are not a bad idea. As time goes on you may want to do much or all of the remaining 200 pounds at once to get consistent alloy.

It takes a little time to put together the equipment to make large batches. Finding someone in your area that is doing it may be a way to not have to acquire everything. I only use my setup a few times a year and have loaned (me) and my equipment to friends to speed up their efforts. And, they benefit from it as well.

[Winger Ed.]

I'd heat the pot kind of slowly, and do plenty of stirring.

If you heat slowly, you can find any Zinc that slipped by ya in sorting.
It melts at a higher temp. and will float up.

[lightman]

Congratulations on a nice score!

I hand sort all of my weights. It takes time but I don't have zinc contamination in my lead stash. It gets easier and faster after you have sorted a bucket or two. I just look at each weight and test cut any suspicious ones.

I smelt scrap in batches of between 350 and 400# because I like the consistency of larger batches. But I have made it a point to build a stand and a pot strong enough to handle the weight.

There is a lot to be said in favor of having a buddy working with you. I have a couple of friends that come over about once a year to use my stuff. We work together, sharing each others labor and my gear.

To cover some of your questions or comments;
I don't try to get the glue off of stick-on weights. When it starts smoking I try to light it. Burning reduces the smoke.

I separate my stick-on weights from the clip-on weights and keep the ingots separate. Stick-on weights are soft lead except for one type.

There are several stickies about sorting weights and there some XFR test showing the alloy composition of them.

Putting the weights in a pot and bringing up the heat is the correct way. Any moisture present will burn off before it causes trouble. Never add material to molten lead!

Adding tin (solder) to lead will harden it but it takes a lot. Some casters blend their stick-on and clip-on weights 50/50 and add maybe 2% tin. I prefer to keep mine separate.

[45DUDE]

If you don't do it like the guys in the photos it will take all day. I wish there was a like button. I like photos.

[44magLeo]

At the beginning of this section there are stickies. If you look at them you will find a thread on sorting your wheel weights.
Another is a calculator to figure out how to mix what you have to get what you want.
I use a cut off propane tank and turkey fryer burner for melting larger quantities of scrap.
I have two of the cast boolit molds as well as two of the redneck gold molds. I have a Lyman and lee molds too.
I have thought about building my own molds from angle iron but have not so far.
Never had much luck with muffin pans. The lead can solder to new ones. Older ones that have some wear may work better.
Leo

[David2011]

No need to soak the stick on wheel weights (COWW) in anything. The tape comes off when you melt them. You said, “And if I don’t want to do that I can smelt them out side.” You don’t want to melt wheel weights inside anyway. There’s usually grease, oil, tire lube, snuff and no telling what else on the wheel weights. The good news is that stuff self fluxes them. You can supplement that with sawdust which is the favorite of many here. It really cleans the lead.

A smelting pot the same size as your casting pot is a slow way to go. A 5 quart pot will hold 100 pounds of molten lead with room to spare. You don’t want to pick up a pot of molten lead of any size!

Melt the COWW (clip on) separately from the SOWW. Clip ons are much harder than SOWW which are essentially pure lead. That will give you the option of blending to make an alloy softer than straight COWW.

Look at the lead alloy calculator in the stickies at the top of this section. You can save it to your computer and play with it for a close estimate to how to blend metals.