Worth the effort to melt down zinc?

[L1A1Rocker]

I've got three of four coffee cans of zinc WWs now and I'm wondering what to do with it. Should I take it into the recycler as is, or should I melt them down into ingots?

That do you folks do?

[Thor's Daddy]

If you're simply going to take them to the scrap yard, there's no sense in spending time, energy and gas melting them into ingots.

[leadbutt]

I just throw mine away. I havent got the chance yet to deal with a scrap yard nor do I even know where one is in the area. Guess i should be saving them but the question is where do i put them till i get enough to make it worth my while to find a scrap yard?

[bumpo628]

I've got a couple of coffee cans full too. I have heard people say that some people use them for cannonballs. You may be able to sell or trade them here in the S&S forum if they were ingotized. I can't remember if the listings I saw before sold or not.

[odinohi]

Wait until you have enough to fill a large flatrate box then send me a PM. Maybe we can work something out.
Tom

[azrednek]

Pardon my ignorance. Sorry I don't have anything to add but I want to follow this thread and I couldn't figure out a way to get the instant email notifications without posting something.

[Defcon-One]

Pardon my ignorance. Sorry I don't have anything to add but I want to follow this thread and I couldn't figure out a way to get the instant email notifications without posting something.

Sounds smart to me!

**********

I melted about eight pounds in my old 10 lb. Lee pot that I don't use any more for lead. I used that so I didn't contaminate any good lead. It was pretty stuff but the clips sank to the bottom and were really a pain to get out of the melted Zinc.

It did pour really nice ingots that weighed about 0.7 lbs from a 1 lb. lead ingot mold. They were very hard as expected, but I'm not sure what to do with them now.

I'd agree with this:


If you're simply going to take them to the scrap yard, there's no sense in spending time, energy and gas melting them into ingots.

[Stick_man]

some tire shops reuse what they can. You might take them in to a local shop and see if they would trade them for some deformed, mutilated, cut, bent, or otherwise unusable lead ones.

It is evidently supposed to be illegal to reuse wheelweights, but in today's economy many shops are trying to save a little money any way they can.

[Bob Krack]

Any shop I ever asked did NOT try to reuse the "stick on" weights.

Most said they were saving them for someone else or wanted to sell them for around $ .30- .40 per pound.

Bob

[Ugluk]

It takes a lot of energy to clean up zink into ingots,and it would seem a complete waste unless you're going to use them for something other than scrap.

I use my zink as a substitute for cast iron or aluminium when I sand cast.
I'm thinking of trying to make my own single stage press.
The zamak in wheelweights machines well and have good surface finish for bearing surfaces.

I read somewhere that some zamak alloys copare well to cast iron for strength with less brittleness. Still has some weight to it though.

I've made toolholders for my lathe qctp, and they seem to work well.