Got a few WW's today

[GARCIA]

Long story short. 2 five gallon buckets for $30.
Longer story not as short. Stopped by a tire shop that I had never been to. Independently ran. Asked about WW's. Owner wanted to know if I was making fishing weights, told him no, I was making boolits. What size, so I tell him. We have now got a trade worked out.

Did get three 5 gallon buckets for 500 commercial cast 45ACP's.

Here is todays haul!!!

Tom

[Stick_man]

Nice haul! Those small independents seem to be the way to go. They are my "bread and butter" when it comes to picking up WWs.

I went into a Big-O in our area and the guy offered me a nearly full 5-gal bucket for $100. I told him that was about 5 times as much as I normally pay for a bucket (with all the garbage removed). I'll check back in a couple weeks to see if he has reconsidered. ;)

The swaps are also nice if you have moulds for what they want.

Keep up the good work. We need to become more of a force when it comes to recycling all those nasty, toxic, condor-killing wheelweights. The commercial recyclers just aren't doing a very good job of keeping them off the sides of the road.:smile:

[Trapaddict]

Nice score!

Jeff

[Doby45]

That is AWESOME Tom. Very good exchange rate. I take it you lube them for him as well?

[roverboy]

I'm trying to get geared up to do my first casting. I'm having a little trouble finding WW in quantities. One tire store owner said he would save them for me. He's been trashing them. I called two scrap metal companies and one wanted $.60 a pound and the other sounded like I had asked to buy crystal meth. The lady I talked to said "we buy wheel weights we don't sell them". I said thanks and bye.

[GARCIA]

I am going to become a good friend to that tire shop owner is all I can say.

Going to bring him a couple of hundred 429421 all sized and lubed. He still has a small barrel of them to trade out. Guess the barrel would easily hold three 5 gallon buckets.

Showed him some 320gr LBT style LFNGC's that I am casting up in 44. Said he just wanted to target shoot and the other ones would be fine.

Tom

[4719dave]

NICE SCORE !! donuts and pizza a plus for futher ww

[mtgrs737]

I was getting tired of looking for a source of WW's in my area as I had struck out time after time for one reason or the other. I was sure that my casting hobby was going to be very limited as to how much lead I would like to have when by chance I stopped by a tire shop in a small town that I hadn't even known was there. I was filling my gas tank and a tire service truck pulled up to the other pump to fuel up, so I asked him what they did with there used WW's. He said they had just sold a 50 gallon drum of them about two weeks ago! I felt like melting right there and then! After I got over the shock, I said where is your store and he just turned around and pointed at it, it was about a block away and I didn't even know it was there! For the last three years I am their exclusive WW guy, I have collected about two tons after smelting of WW's from them. I also buy my tires there! We have an arrangement, they save the ww's and I get my tires and flats fixed.

[roverboy]

I've got some other places that I'm gonna check out. Maybe I'll hit the Mother Lode someday. I just wanna get a bunch and cast some bullets and ingots before the stuff just basicly dries up.

[MikeS]

I bought a 5 gallon pail of WW from a tire store turned general automotive repair shop for $40.00 and after sorting out the pail, I got 65# of clip ons, and 55# of stick ons and about the same volume of crud (valve stems cigarette butts, screws, zinc & steel WW, etc.) so it was basically 1/3 stick ons, 1/3 clip on, and 1/3 crud. Sorting them out has got to be one of the nastiest jobs I've done in quite a while!

I've seen where other folks here get a much higher number of clip ons to stick ons than I got, I wonder if it's because this shop is in a higher class neighborhood, and tends to service more cars with fancy cast wheels? I guess I can't complain too much.

[GARCIA]

MikeS, think you hit the nail on the head with what you stated about the economic makeup of where you got your WW's.

The one I went to was just a bunch of good ole boys. Mostly pickups and American made vehicles from what was observed in the parking lot.

Did some sorting yesterday and the WW content is really high with very little stick on's. Not much for trash but them guys sure do like snuff!. Got tobacco spit on a lot of the weight's. Heck, I am not complaining, just put my gloves on and wash up good when I am done!!

Tom

[skytex]

I don't think a place exists that isn't contracted on their ww around here.

[GARCIA]

Smelted a bunch yesterday and am down to two 5 gallon pails. Going to finish that up today and check a couple of other places close to home.

Seperated everything and did come up with a 5 gallon pail of stickons. That got smelted yesterday. Man but that stuff stinks!!!!!


Tom

[*Paladin*]

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of smelting stick-ons, but they sure make pretty pure ingots!

[Duckiller]

Spent the afternoon reading wheel weights. Sorting through weights that I have collected over the last few months. Stick -on weights at my source have gone to mostly steel with a few zinc. What surprised me was the amount of clip-on zinc and steel weights. I hand sort all my weights, paying particular attention to stick-ons. After today I am going to have to go slower and read carefully. Way too many zinc weights. I don't want to heat steel weights and I am sure my neighbors would just as soon I didn't mix sulfur into my melt to get rid of zinc. As a practical matter lead wheel weights are on their way out. Once the more populated states outlaw lead they will no longer be made. As a backup I would suggest that casters find a source or two that sells an alloy you want.

[*Paladin*]

Yeah, I am anal-retentive about hand-sorting my WW's and I still came up with a few zinc floaters in my smelt tonight. They are out there, and the scary thing is I came across several MC-Zn clip-on's that looked identical to lead clip-on's. I almost threw them in the "lead" bucket. Most of the Zn I've come across is more rounded in appearance than lead. These looked darn near identical to regular lead MC marked WW's. I've been lucky so far, as tedious as it is hand sorting and standing over the pot watching for floaters when it goes molten, it's worth it because my stockpile of lead is zinc-free so far! *knocking on wood*

[a.squibload]

I hand sort too, smelted some stickons tonight, a few steel ones slipped by me.
They do stink, I have a headache coming up. Not enough airflow in the garage I guess.
Hate to waste the heat on steel ones, and sure don't want any zinkers in the melt.

Got free WWs today, a whole handful, at a gas station turned auto shop.
Guess it never hurts to ask.


Tonight's adventures with pics:
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?p=1208635#post1208635
Finally got it together!