Stick-on Weight Composition

[high standard 40]

One of the most often discussed topics here has been the composition of stick-on wheel weights. Frequently it has been stated that with the exception of steel or zinc weights, stick-ons can be considered pure lead. In general this is accurate but I have found some lead stick-on weights that are too hard to be considered pure. These are my findings, at least with what has been available to me here locally.

The first group I am seeing appears to be cut from lead sheets and is uncoated. These are the most common and I consider them to be pure lead or nearly so.



The second group is a painted weight and also seems to be cut from sheet lead but has radiused edges. I have found that these can also be considered pure.



This third group appears to be cast and is painted. These are considerably harder than the two previous shown samples. Most of these I am finding have the same cast in symbol of the circle and swoosh. I have seen this same symbol on some clip-on weights and I have found them to be some of the hardest weights I find using the cutting pliers test. Not very scientific but they are visibly harder. I can only assume that these are original equipment weights and their distibution may not be very widespread. i usually include this group of weights with my clip-on weights.



Have any of you seen these third type of weights and are you observing the same thing I am?

[462]

I've seen the third group, too, and have not been including them in with the first group.

[xr650]

I have seen the third group and tend to agree with you.
I am going to seperate the last that I got, cast with each and oven heat treat.
I think this will give me a good idea of what I am working with.

The second group is kind of interesting to me. When I see these I think zinc. The ones that are lead bend easily. The ones that are zinc have all been stamped zn.

I have been doing a heat treat test and will post results when done. So far the SOWW (these are all SOWW mixed together with some dental lead) are slightly softer than COWW, but not by much.

[largom]

Seen the same thing here. I have been sorting these out into a can of their own. When I acquire enough I will smelt them down into ingots and do a hardness test.

Larry

[Rock]

Most of the long ones that are the top of this picture have been non-lead from my experience. Very hard, difficult to bend by hand.

The short ones with SB are new to me, but SB is the designation for Antimony (although it could be a brand name mark).

[sargenv]

There is one stick on that I don't see onthe above pictures that I will see if I can post a picture to. They might be stick on Truck WW's that are larger and look somewhat different from the WW's above. They are painted and might be similar to the third set of WW's.

[high standard 40]

Most of the long ones that are the top of this picture have been non-lead from my experience. Very hard, difficult to bend by hand.

.

No, these are very soft and can be bent by hand. They cut very easily with cutting pliers. The lower weight is stamped 50, not SB. I think this is the weight in grams.

[9.3X62AL]

The "circle/swoosh" imprint means "California Certified", and represents the starship upon which many California politicians arrived on Earth within. I would not mix them with the rest of my boolit metal.

[legend]

thank you high standard 40,the info helps.

[cbrick]

high standard, I have about 800 pounds of stick-on weights in ingots and every single one of them look like the middle weight in your first picture or bend and cut with side cutters very easily. The garbage truck was kind enough to haul off all the rest of them. I don't care what the rest were made of and I have a high level of confidence what my ingots are.

Rick

[high standard 40]

high standard, I have about 800 pounds of stick-on weights in ingots and every single one of them look like the middle weight in your first picture or bend and cut with side cutters very easily. The garbage truck was kind enough to haul off all the rest of them. I don't care what the rest were made of and I have a high level of confidence what my ingots are.

Rick

Pretty certain those are pure and pure is what some folks need.

[fredj338]

If they won't flatten w/ a hammer or cut w/ snips, then IMO, they are NOT castable & I toss them. The tape wts I am getting are all either veryt soft, near pure lead or zinc, very hard, won't cut or smash.

[MN91311]

Group 2 and Group 3..... anything that looks like those I give the quick magnet & pliers test.

Non-magnetic means lead or zinc. Sticks to magnet, toss it.

Passes the magnet test, proceed to pliers test. Soft is good, hard is sent to the trash can.

Group 3 types that cut with pliers do seem to be slightly harder than other known soft lead types. Maybe alloy, maybe the paint/plastic/coating. I think I will ingotize these along with the clipons, rather than with the known pure soft stickons.

[high standard 40]

Group 3 types that cut with pliers do seem to be slightly harder than other known soft lead types. Maybe alloy, maybe the paint/plastic/coating. I think I will ingotize these along with the clipons, rather than with the known pure soft stickons.

This is what I do. The effort needed to cut them with pliers seems about equal to clip-on weights.

[dwebb210]

I used to be an analytical chemist at a metallurgical laboratory. I analyzed Tape-a-Weights, and found they contained 0.4% antimony, 1.5% Sn, 0.03% As, and the balance lead.

Tape-a-Weight is a specific brand name, so other types of stick-on weights may have different compositions.

[fallout4x4]

I recently got 5 buckets of stick on WW, they are 9.0 on my lee hardness tester.

[Jaybird62]

The last two buckets of WW I smelted (last week) I segregated the stick-ons into two groups that are shown in the first and third photos. I smelted the ones represented by the "circle swoosh" and they averaged 52 on my Cabine Tree tester. That puts them between 8.5 and 9 BHN.

[Bkid]

I am keeping the first gruop in a box. The second group I will put with the WW`S and see what melting temp they are . They may just be painted with some tin in them or zinc?

[Ferdinand]

I just made my first attempt at smelting ww. I didn't bother separating stick-ons from clip type. I noticed a couple stick-ons that didn't seem to want to melt so I scooped them out and pitched them.

Later I sorted the rest of my ww and pulled out the SOWW marked Fe. The others seemed like lead.

[MikeS]

Thanks! I had a bunch of these weights (the third kind) that I had pulled out, and put in with my zinc ones. I just now went out and pulled them back out, and I managed to get 10lbs of lead from them! I tested them, and they test the same as clip on weights.