How do the battery makers do it ?

[edler7]

With the yield of zinc and steel wheel weights in a bucket becoming larger, and the battery companies buying them like there is no tomorrow... anyone know how they separate the zinc and steel out prior to melting them down ?

You suppose they have some poor schmoe that sits there and checks each one ? Do they even care about zinc ? I suppose the steel ones would float like they do when boolit casters remelt, but the zinc has me stumped.

[bumpo628]

They probably do it by melting point. I'm sure they can control the temperature of their melting pot pretty well and zinc melts about 200 degrees higher than lead. The zinc would float on top with the steel and get skimmed off with the dross.

[btroj]

Google lead smelting. They use a combination of heat, atmosphere control, and additives to causes specific other metals to precipitate out. They have the advantage of doing things we really can't do at our level.

[shotman]

I would bet the wheel weights are not used by battery companies. Because of haz mat they can pick them up. Most likely sold to a company that makes wheel weights

[cbrick]

I would bet the wheel weights are not used by battery companies. Because of haz mat they can pick them up. Most likely sold to a company that makes wheel weights

Would probably loose that bet.

Interstate contracts for the WW with the tire stores that sell their batteries. The last Interstate Battery you bought was full of wheel weights.

Professional foundries have equipment, fluxes, metallurgists and techniques far above what a home caster could envision.

There are hundreds, possibly thousands of various fluxes and the pros use a specific flux for a specific application. Specific temperatures and techniques are also used depending on the alloy, the flux and what it is they want removed. The same when they are adding new metal to an alloy, specific flux, techniques, temps and timing depending on the metal already in the alloy and the metal being added.

The cost of these fluxes and equipment is far beyond the scope of home bullet casting set ups. Worthwhile for the foundries but they aren't doing a 20 pound 110 volt pot at a time.

Rick

[runfiverun]

they use zinc to remove tin from alloys they are reclaiming anyways.
why do you think they call some of them refineries and some of them foundries...

[edler7]

I don't know why I didn't apply melt temp. control to the zinc weights- I sure did for steel. It just completely slipped my mind that it could be used for both.

I guess that's what I get for starting a thread after a looooooooong day. Glad I wasn't at the bench making ammo if the brain wasn't working any better than that. :veryconfu

[bumpo628]

I don't know why I didn't apply melt temp. control to the zinc weights- I sure did for steel. It just completely slipped my mind that it could be used for both.

I guess that's what I get for starting a thread after a looooooooong day. Glad I wasn't at the bench making ammo if the brain wasn't working any better than that. :veryconfu

It is still dangerous for boolit casters to use the temperature method for zinc separation. The temp at the bottom of the pot can get hot enough to melt zinc. The best way to do it is manual separation, then start the pot with known lead, add weights and skim off any zinc that you missed.

[beagle]

I'll bet the battery companies pick up WWs as well as old batteries and recycle them through a foundry and get more or less pure ingots in return./beagle


I would bet the wheel weights are not used by battery companies. Because of haz mat they can pick them up. Most likely sold to a company that makes wheel weights

[edler7]

It is still dangerous for boolit casters to use the temperature method for zinc separation.

I agree on that one. I test every weight with a pair of side cutters before it goes into the pile or dutch oven.

[wildphilhickup]

I toured the Delco Remy Battery Factory in Anaheim California many years ago. It was amazing to see the process. It is in fact very simple what they do to make a battery, but very ingenious still as how they do it.

For the lead parts, they had a huge horizontal steel wheel. The surface of which has all of the "mold shapes". As the wheel rotated, it would at one point pour the molten lead. A very large "butcher knife" was the sprue cutter. It was at a 45 degree angle to the wheel, so it just "scraped" everything off. There were pins beneath those molds that would pop up at the right time to extract the lead formed pieces. Very simple but cool!

[mdi]

Don't know about newer auto batteries (that have calcium and other chemicals alloyed with the lead for plates), but industrial batteries such as electric forklift battterys, are using alloy purchased for it's purity. The manufacturer wants as "clean" an alloy as possible so they normally purchase certified alloys. When I worked for a major city Power Dept. the batteries they made themselves for relay stations and repeater (communications) stations used only certified pure lead and molded the plates and posts themselves.