Zinc Sinkers?

[2wheelDuke]

I'm not sure what section of the site is best for this question. I figured I'd put it here since people are always asking about zinc in this section.

I have some zinc WW that I've culled out from WW I've scrounged. I don't think I really have enough to make it worthwhile to sell to a cannon enthusiast or even bother with a trip to a scrapyard that may not even trade me for them.

I hear about people pouring sinkers from zinc, and I'd like to give it a shot. I'm guessing I'd want to smelt the zinc the way I would with WW as a first step. Then what? Would my Lee 4-20 get hot enough to work with the zinc? I'm pretty sure it'll get hot enough to melt it, but I'm not sure if the spout would keep freezing because of the higher melting point or what.

I'm pretty new to the bottom pour, but I did just test it with the sinker mold and some range scrap, and so far I'm loving the bottom pour for the sinker mold. We'll see how it does for boolits eventually.

[Gswain]

From what i understand, you do not want to use equipment for zinc that you use for lead, it will contaminate your lead in future uses. Probably better off getting a smaller smelting pot and just ladle pouring your ZN out of that.

[Defcon-One]

I melted some Zinc wheel weights that I had as an experiment.

I used my old Lee pot and they melted fine set to 8.5 on the dial. The part that drove me mad was the steel clips sink in the Zinc, so you have to fish them out. They do not float to the top like they do in Lead. I got a good dose of smoke from all the time leaning over the pot chasing the clips.

The smoke (possibly from the paint) seemed worse to me, even though I checked and there are no real risks other than burning from melting Zinc at low temps. About the same as lead, maybe less. I coughed for half the day after finishing, but I am fine now. I'd avoid the smoke or wear some protection to be sure.

I poured about 10 - 1 lb. Lyman sized ingots which turned out to weigh 12 ounces each. So you will have weights made of Zinc that weigh 25% less than they would with Lead.

The stuff is really hard and shiny. Very pretty ingots. I'm gonna keep saving it and cast something later, not sure what, but I'll figure out something by the time I have enough.

Good Luck with yours!

Edited to add: The equipment cleaned out easily while still hot!

[Jim]

.....I got a good dose of smoke from all the time leaning over the pot chasing the clips.

The smoke (possibly from the paint) seemed worse to me, even though I checked and there are no real risks other than burning from melting Zinc at low temps. About the same as lead, maybe less. I coughed for half the day after finishing, but I am fine now. I'd avoid the smoke or wear some protection to be sure.....

From time to time, I had to cut galvanized steel with a cutting torch. When I was first starting out, the smoke from the burned zinc coating would make me sick to my stomach and produce a kind of sweet, nauseating taste in my mouth, if that makes any sense.

I mentioned it to my journeyman one day and he told me about zinc smoke being noxious. He told me to drink milk if I inhaled too much of it as something about the milk would take that taste out of my mouth and help to settle my stomach.

Zinc smoke is nasty stuff.

Here is the MSD (http://www.espi-metals.com/msds%27s/zinc.htm) for zinc. Particularly, read SECTION V, HEALTH HAZARDS.

[deltaenterprizes]

Welding causes the zinc to burn, you are not heating the zinc hot enough to cause zinc fumes when you melt it!

[m1g]

Zinc would probably make pretty good ammo for a sling shot. Never tried it myself.

[bowfin]

I have always thought zinc would be superior for casting jigheads, spinnerbaits, and buzzbaits because they would be harder, and because they would weigh less than if lead were used, one might be able to keep both the spinnerbaits and buzzbaits on the top of the water at slower speeds. Zinc might also be better at holding the paint, since paint tends to chip off when the metal below it is "bruised"

I did see a comment that zinc reacts with any aluminum mold. Can anyone confirm or deny that?

[2wheelDuke]

I did some searching, and I really haven't come up with much. Do-it's website said to avoid alloys with zinc, but didn't say anything about pure zinc. They were saying that zinc would impede fillout and make the lead harder. They didn't mention anything about it reacting with the mold.

The mold looks to be cast aluminum, and the hole for the fishing line is made by a stainless rod. I'd hate to find out the zinc tried to adhere like it was galvanizing the metals, but I think they have some electrical charges applied to parts that are zinc dipped.

Another concern I have is the sprues. I know that zinc is much harder. Right now, the lead sprues are easy to break off. I put an allen wrench in the hole thru the middle and twist the sprue with a pliers. I'm not sure if that can happen with the zinc.

[brad925]

Just wondering if you could cast them into round balls for a muzzle loader. Not a good hunting ammo but maybe for plinking. Your patch holds your ball tight in the bore so no worries about it being too hard to engrave like a Maxi ball. Any thoughts here?

[bumpo628]

Another concern I have is the sprues. I know that zinc is much harder. Right now, the lead sprues are easy to break off. I put an allen wrench in the hole thru the middle and twist the sprue with a pliers. I'm not sure if that can happen with the zinc.

Aren't most Do-It fishing weight molds that sort of "clam shell" style? They are hinged on one side and held together by the handles. Seems to me that you would be able to cut the sprue with wire cutters or fatigue them with pliers after the metal cools down.

I just had another thought about using zinc for shotshell loads. If zinc is about 25% lighter than lead, then a load that normally weighed 1.125 oz would weigh .84 oz. That is pretty close to 7/8 oz and there is plenty of published data for that weight. As long as you shot it out of a bore with no choke, I would think that it wouldn't be a problem. Any thoughts?

[2wheelDuke]

Aren't most Do-It fishing weight molds that sort of "clam shell" style? They are hinged on one side and held together by the handles. Seems to me that you would be able to cut the sprue with wire cutters or fatigue them with pliers after the metal cools down.

I just had another thought about using zinc for shotshell loads. If zinc is about 25% lighter than lead, then a load that normally weighed 1.125 oz would weigh .84 oz. That is pretty close to 7/8 oz and there is plenty of published data for that weight. As long as you shot it out of a bore with no choke, I would think that it wouldn't be a problem. Any thoughts?

My mold is the clam shell style. The "sprue" is a cone shaped piece of metal from where you fill it. A wire cutters easily cuts lead. It's no problem to clip a lead wheel weight with a sidecutters, but you can barely dent a zinc ww with those same sidecutters. I probably did a few hundred sinkers today. If I had to dremel the sprues off zinc sinkers, they may not be worth making.

Zinc buckshot may be a possibility. I wonder if it'd "dribble" similar to lead where somebody could make a shotmaker for it. Those would be questions for somebody that knows more about metallurgy and shotguns than I do.

[Defcon-One]

I never thought about it, but based on my experience, you would have to use a Dremel tool on the sprue. The stuff is really hard, as I said above. It amazed me how hard it is. I dropped a small ingot on a concrete floor and it chipped the floor, no dent in the ingot.

I would not use Zinc for shot. Too hard and no data to use. Steel or Lead data will only get you into trouble in my opinion.

[Jaybird62]

I keep a seperate small pot available to melt my zinc. it's not much bigger than a 5-pound ladle, and it has a pour slot. It will contaminate your other equipment. I've been trading zinc sinkers to one of my WW sources for quite a while.

[bowfin]

If I had to dremel the sprues off zinc sinkers, they may not be worth making.

A very small pair of bolt cutters (8 inches) should zip right through a zinc sprue, given what it does to steel of the same diameter.

[2wheelDuke]

I smelted some WW today, and while I had everything out, I put the zinc I had into a small cast iron frying pan and cranked up the turkey fryer.

It took more than I expected to melt the zinc down but I did get it melted and fluxed. Instead of just pouring ingots, I couldn't resist trying a few pours on my egg sinker mold.

I gave the pull pin a shot of graphite mold release and pre-heated it on the hotplate.

I took a dip with my cheap Lee ladle, and poured in the 1 1/2oz cavity. The pin pulled right out, and it was a perfect sinker right off the bat. I poured some more 1 1/2's and some 1's to test it. With that ladle, it didn't hold enough to pour anything bigger than the 1 1/2oz cavity.

After they cooled enough to touch, I tried the same sprue removal technique I use on lead egg sinkers. I slide an allen wrench thru the hole for the line, and twist the sprue off with a channel lock pliers. It takes more effort to snap the sprue off than lead does, but it's not as hard as I thought it might be.

A couple of them had a tiny bit of flashing around the line hole. I easily chamfered that out by hand with a drill bit.

A mix of stickon WW and range scrap comes to .99oz from the 1oz cavity on my cheap pocket scale. Zinc in the 1oz cavity reads .61oz on the same scale.

I was using 1/2oz sinkers on the reef with my 17# plug rod last week. Next time out I'll see how the zinc sinkers get down.

If I can get zinc to run in a bottom pour, I'd really be getting somewhere for sinkers. Even still, I'll be seriously considering making as many sinkers as I can from zinc from now on.

[docone31]

Duke,
If you crank up the bottom pour pot, you can use it for zinc.
You definately need heat to get it to flow. I find, the lower the level of zinc in the pot, the better it flows.