Painted WW's

[brad925]

Got about 300lbs of ww's but when i was going through them i came across some that were painted grey. Not sure what these are made of. Was wondering if they wre zinc or maybe steel. Any ideas?

[fatelk]

You should be able to tell by the markings, or by a magnet or melting point.

There are many here that know a lot more than I do (I'm an amateur), but I just melted some wheel weights into ingots. The steel ones, of course, were magnetic and had a little different shape, so they were easy to pick out.

The zinc ones I got had a silver/gray paint on them and were marked Zn. They were harder to pick out so a few made it into the pot. I watched closely and they floated to the surface after all the lead ones melted but before the pot got too hot. They were easy to pick out with the steel clips and throw away.

One way to tell without melting is to try to cut a sliver off of them with a knife. Zinc cuts a lot harder than lead.

[brad925]

Thanks for the ideas. I will try them.

[fredj338]

Painted ww are for alloy wheels. Try mashing w/ a hammer or denting w/ wire cutter. Zinc wont cut at all.

[azrednek]

Some tire shops that re-use wheel weights will spray them with aluminum paint. Spray painted weights are the norm in Mexico and I've noticed it being done here in Phoenix in shops that cater to Hispanics. The last time I bought tires in Mexico most the weights were spray painted.

[chris in va]

Yup, test them with pliers or something that can easily make a mark. It'll be obvious.

The painted ones are fairly interesting. When the lead melts, it leaves the paint shell floating on top like a ghost image.

[doghawg]

Steel in the first pic...then zinc including a couple I fished out in time....and more zinc with a steel fe on the bottom. A lot of the zinc I'm finding lately are not marked at all. Hand sorting will still leave a few that slip by...gotta keep the temp low.

[shooterg]

All of the painted ones in my last 2 buckets were lead - I've given up on all the time-consuming side cutting/shaving in favor of monitoring the melt temperature - since I broke down and bought a good thermometer from one of our vendors !

[mtgrs737]

They paint them so they don't react to the aluminum/magnesium rims that they are attached to. The melt just fine otherwise.

[David2011]

Brad, you'll find many perfectly good wheelweights that are painted or coated in thin plastic. It goes away just fine at 650 degrees. A thermometer is your best friend when smelting. Don't overheat the melt. Zinc just floats back to the top at 650 degrees without damaging the alloy. The one thing I seem to notice to confirm that they're lead instead of zinc or steel is that the steel clip is always cast into the lead ww. The other metals seem to always have the clip riveted onto the ww. Several in Doghawg's photos clearly show the rivet holes.

Good casting!
David

[Netherwolf]

...The one thing I seem to notice to confirm that they're lead instead of zinc or steel is that the steel clip is always cast into the lead ww. The other metals seem to always have the clip riveted onto the ww. Several in Doghawg's photos clearly show the rivet holes.

Good casting!
David

Not to be arguementitive but some Zn weight clips are molded rather than riveted (see Doghawg's center photo) Three of the weights in that photo are flat, stick-on, clearly marked Zn weights with no clips. The one with holes in it may or may not be Zn, as determined by the "side-cutter" method (I've run across both Pb & Zn that look like that one but have never seen one with a clip attached). The other three weights are unmarked Zn with molded clips i.e., the clips are molded into the weight the same as a Pb weight (those are the sneaky ones ya gotta watch out for). Although I hand sort 'em before smelting, I keep the temp low as a backup. As said before, low temps yields any undesireable "floaters" that may have slipped past the visual inspection. Just my .02,
Netherwolf

[jlchucker]

squeeze them with a pair of pliers and see if the plier marks show. The softer ones should be regular wheelweights. Zinc is harder than lead and would therefore be harder to mark with your pliers.

[smokemjoe]

I took 10 lbs. of the silver WWs and did a test on them and checked the alloy for 30 days with BN tester, water dropped them also. and they aged just like the none painted ones, shot the same, alloyed up with tin, no leading, Ill take all I can get, But made a sicking smell when melting outside. Hope this helps, Joe

[leadman]

Some of the weights with the grey "paint" is actually an epoxy coating. One needs to be really careful to stay out of the smoke when melting weights or other lead.