Wheel weights not as much lead.

[VintageRifle]

Bought approximately 214lbs of wheel weights from a tire shop.

Just got back from the recycled. 74lbs of clips and steel/zinc weights. Got about 140lbs of good leaf out of the lot. Paid $25 for the weights, got $2.96 for the clips and steel weights.

The recycler has soft lead, but doesn't sell it. Bummer, looked to have 100lbs or so.

Last bucket of WW I had only had 3lbs of steel and zinc weights. Not counting the clips, things have changed here.

[DR Owl Creek]

Same around here.

Dave

[bangerjim]

That is why I got totally out of the WW scrounging thong 2 years ago. To me.....NOT worth buying OR hauling them home OR sorting OR cost of fuel to re-melt into ingots. Now I buy my CLEAN alloys from scrap yards and mix anything I want.

Getting to be a real waste of time with Zn & Fe weight becoming more popular due to owl kissers and tree huggers.

You guys that live in lefty areas where the yards will not sell to the public are in a pinch. I feel for 'ya!

banger-j

[scottfire1957]

Yep. My latest scrounge was two full buckets. After sorting, a bucket and a half.

That did, however, take me over my 1000# goal.

[Mitch]

about the same hear with ww.but I still get the few I do get for free if you don't countn buying a new truck from the local GM dealer lol.I oly get mabe 20 lbs average per trip if I don't beat the other guy there there is not much there.
I just got done adding up my stash and I am doing better than I thought a little over 1300 lbs.
we have the same problem her with scrap yards very few will sell to the public.most say they don't have a license to resell to the public.Most of what I get from the scrap yard is pure are close to it.the last score was 400lbs of 2 inch thick wall pipe that is pure as can be checks less then 5 on my LBT tetser.good luck to all searching.

[lightman]

That was a pretty good yield. My last haul was really good so they seem to be holding up ok around here. I would continue to buy them at that price until the yield gets really bad. The yards around here will not sell to the public.

[konsole]

Thats 65% of the total weight being lead. The worst I have seen is somewhere around 50% and the best was around 80%. Your number of 65% is average for what I see.

[BenW]

My haul got less than 50%. 26 pounds from about 70 pounds of wheel weights.

[leebuilder]

I feel for the situation, but at the end of the day it is still good alloy, for casting or smelting more better alloy. Things are changing and they will continue to change for the worst I fear. I still scrounge WW when and where i can, it is a social thing too, like to talk to the mechanics and answer questions. One shop owner charges me 15$ no matter what he has another likes a case of beer. The free days are pretty much over. Sorting has to one of the dirtest jobs there is, but when that silver stream fills my ingot mould, it all goes away.
Be well, eyes to the ground.

[Dan Cash]

I buy from a salvage yard, taking all they have. The metal is mixed with wheel weights. I cull the wheel weights and dump them all in the pot. Clips, iron and zink come to the top and get skimmed. Nuts to sorting wheel weights.

[runfiverun]

see what scrap zinc goes for.
you might not complain too much about having to melt some down and make ingots out it..

[huntinlever]

I buy from a salvage yard, taking all they have. The metal is mixed with wheel weights. I cull the wheel weights and dump them all in the pot. Clips, iron and zink come to the top and get skimmed. Nuts to sorting wheel weights.

New to casting, and new to scrounging. I don't know I'd have the patience to sort. So, my mind goes to this - so long as you know you're in lead melting range and not zinc, and continually stir the pot (so you don't get local hot spots near the bottom, which may end up melting zinc locally), why wouldn't just dumping unsorted w/w's work?

[DaveyDug]

New to casting, and new to scrounging. I don't know I'd have the patience to sort. So, my mind goes to this - so long as you know you're in lead melting range and not zinc, and continually stir the pot (so you don't get local hot spots near the bottom, which may end up melting zinc locally), why wouldn't just dumping unsorted w/w's work?

It does work, but some of us are very anal retentive about sorting our wheel weights. I personally sort all wheel weights for multiple reasons:

1. I like to know around how much steel and zinc I'm getting with each batch.
2. I try to control my melt temp, but I want to get as much zinc out as possible in case my temp gets too high in localized areas of my melting pot.
3. Getting the steel and zinc stuff out of the blend means more good lead per batch and less I have to try and fish through/skim off. I hypothesize that this reduces the amount of time and fuel it takes to get through a batch.
4. It satisfies my OCD tendencies.

[bangerjim]

New to casting, and new to scrounging. I don't know I'd have the patience to sort. So, my mind goes to this - so long as you know you're in lead melting range and not zinc, and continually stir the pot (so you don't get local hot spots near the bottom, which may end up melting zinc locally), why wouldn't just dumping unsorted w/w's work?

Back when I WAS re-melting COWW's, I never relied on melt temp to do my sorting! Temp is rather difficult to control in a big open propane "thing" and can easily get too hot.

You may not like the time used for sorting, but you always have that warm fuzzy feeling that at least your ingots are not causing your poor boolit results and it is some other reason.

Sorting by hand is part of the the intrinsic cost of messing with dirty old weights. Don't like it? Move on like I did 2 years ago and forget COWW's. Buy your alloys & pure and mix what you want. I have never looked back.

banger-j

[RogerDat]

Hmmm can I sit in a chair and sort WW's without getting "overworked"? Oh heck yes! I have done hard work and that ain't it.

I find that as WW's on the bottom melt I can add more WW's to the un-melted top which allows me to do bigger batches. I'm not going to add WW's from a bucket into a molten pot but adding on top of the un-melted as the bottom compacts seems tinsel fairy safe since the new WW's can't get below the surface. If I did not sort there would be a good chance I would trap zinc WW's. If I was using a much larger pot it would be less important but with a Dutch oven I end up with between 1/3 and 1/2 of an additional bucket per melt.

Who wants to waste fuel and time heating steel and zinc up to 750 degrees? With low percentage of garbage weights this might make more sense but if 30% of what is getting heated up is not lead that seems inefficient in terms of fuel used and time spent. Sorted I'm storing good stuff not trash, and have a pretty good idea of how much final product those buckets of sorted weights will yield.

I find them I'm buying them as long as the final lead yield is worth the cost. If WW's cost 1/2 as much as other scrap and yield 65% lead that is a good deal. Pay less & get more. If WW's cost only a fraction of what Rotometals would charge then call my work "sweat equity". I don't mind as 2/3 or so of my lead stash is from WW's and if I was buying that lead retail in ready to go ingots there would be a lot less of it.

For the OP when the lead to garbage ratio starts getting bad (approx. less than 50/50) then you really have to figure out what you pay for the amount of lead you actually get. $25 for a bucket that yields 100# of lead is great deal. 50# for $25 is still not too bad (for around here) but it is getting toward the point where you have to have solid numbers to make sure you aren't working too hard and spending too much money for the yield.

[Deadpool]

Best bucket I've ever had were from truck wheel weights. 97% of it all was lead alloy. Big bars, awesome find.
Worst bucket was about 50% lead alloy. Hopefully this year I find some good buckets.
Thank europe for their irrational war on lead.

[fredj338]

Just gonna get worse, depending on local. I don't even bother w/ ww anymore unless I can get them for free. Berm mining yields more useable alloy per #.

[huntinlever]

I don't want to hijack the OP's thread any more, but thanks guys. A decision to make - my local scrapyard will allow me to buy sorted w/w for $0.70/lb., which would be substantially off Roto's price. However, presuming an average bucket yields 135 lbs. of sorted lead, that would cost me $95. Obviously that's a lousy price. Additionally, he he won't want to do this more than once or twice, so I don't know I want to start down this road. And he's the only one I've found so far who will deal with an individual - the rest sell wholesale, some have told me, on contract. The COWW game in this hippy commune of a city looks pretty dismal, it seems.

I've the pure lead and now, some 95/5 solder and wondering if it's just better to plan for 20:1 alloy. This first spool of 95/5 is obviously way too costly, but I can start today and end up with close to 400 boolits, when finished.

[fredj338]

Best bucket I've ever had were from truck wheel weights. 97% of it all was lead alloy. Big bars, awesome find.
Worst bucket was about 50% lead alloy. Hopefully this year I find some good buckets.
Thank europe for their irrational war on lead.
Well it started there then when Kalifukistan went all green, pretty much put the spike in it. It's the largest tire market in the US, so the rest of the states will eventually fall to the zinc.:sad:

[RogerDat]

I don't want to hijack the OP's thread any more, but thanks guys. A decision to make - my local scrapyard will allow me to buy sorted w/w for $0.70/lb., which would be substantially off Roto's price. However, presuming an average bucket yields 135 lbs. of sorted lead, that would cost me $95. Obviously that's a lousy price. Additionally, he he won't want to do this more than once or twice, so I don't know I want to start down this road. And he's the only one I've found so far who will deal with an individual - the rest sell wholesale, some have told me, on contract. The COWW game in this hippy commune of a city looks pretty dismal, it seems.

I've the pure lead and now, some 95/5 solder and wondering if it's just better to plan for 20:1 alloy. This first spool of 95/5 is obviously way too costly, but I can start today and end up with close to 400 boolits, when finished.

I would snag at least some of those WW's. While not a fantastic "score" price it does bring another alloy that is harder to your pantry. You may find you need that alloy to harden you first batch if your 20:1 does not work out.

I would also consider that it sounds like the yard is doing you a "favor" so to speak by selling to you. Taking advantage of the offer is a way to open the door. Might be a very useful contact and relationship to have in the future.

The other thing is a bag of donuts some morning or a pizza at lunch time to say thanks goes a long way toward making friends with the scrap yard or tire stores that provide you with materials. Since the folks at the yard both decide what and when you get to buy and see all the good stuff first being a customer that values the relationship with them is a good thing.

[Retumbo]

Yesterdays bucket was 74% lead after sorting. Paid $0.35/lb

[huntinlever]

Thank you Roger. I actually bit the bullet and bought some off a well-regarded seller on ebay. Some trepidation as I can't know what's in it, but a guy I really respect and who has helped me quite a bit from MO.com does this all the time, so went with it.

[RogerDat]

Lots of folks use eBay and the couple of times I purchased casting or reloading items (not lead) from there it went fine. I would avoid buying expensive "printers lead" made into ingots from eBay. That lead is more expensive and once it is melted down and no longer in the form of lines of type strips or individual letters it could be anything. I'm sure there are plenty of reputable folks on eBay so having someone to guide you to them is a great benefit.

Even here I would still rather buy printers lead in its original form rather than ingots, but most folks here know that and don't melt it down. Pewter items are too bulky so you have to go with the reputation of the seller for being honest and buy ingots. Too many people here have access to get what they buy xray gunned to find out the exact alloy composition to make selling low quality alloys as good stuff work for long. If you sell it as pewter or solder or WW's it better gun as what you claimed or someone will call you on it before too long.

Folks here have a reputation to protect and ending up listed as a dead beat in the Straight Shooters & Deadbeats list of the forum will make it hard (if not impossible) for you to do business here in the Swapping and Selling forum. Bunch of folks here are red necks (honorary or actual) , they consider honest dealing and personal integrity to be real important. They might forgive you, that being the Christian thing to do but not until they said their piece and maybe dealt you a whipping (at least virtual if not actual). Come to think of it given a chance I think many might prefer the chance to deal out that whipping to learn you right from wrong in the real world.

Glad you got what you needed, but don't neglect the forum as a source. Don't think there is a better market out there for casting stuff.

[huntinlever]

Thank you for the perspective, Roger, and you're absolutely right - I should be dealing with the good folks here, if I can. I have combed through a couple pages each time, and not getting alloy, but I might either be looking in the wrong place - i.e., is there a person or persons who typically deal in alloys? - or not deep enough in the S & S section. Either way, I've been here only a short time but I like folks here quite a bit, and as in all things, like to keep it local if I can.

Thank you for that.

[RogerDat]

Paul Try posting in wanted to buy part of the Swapping and Selling forum. There are some people that move large amounts of lead. Wish I could tell you best way to find them directly but I'm pretty sure you post a thread in WTB with a title of "WTB - WW lead" or "WTB - Range lead" or Pewter etc. Some folks will either answer that thread with their offer or put you in touch with the person they last bought from or post a link they saw.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/forumdisplay.php?47-Want-To-Buy-!

I saw range lead for sale today but I don't recall where in swapping and selling. Range lead is nice for handguns as it is usually pretty close to usable as is according to the folks that have used it.

Nice thought about keeping it local. But where do you think I learned how to bid on that eBay for stuff if not from the members here? ;-)

[bangerjim]

Thank you Roger. I actually bit the bullet and bought some off a well-regarded seller on ebay. Some trepidation as I can't know what's in it, but a guy I really respect and who has helped me quite a bit from MO.com does this all the time, so went with it.

I would stick to this site for all your mail-order lead. You cannot trust Ebay. If it melts and casts..........they sell it! You never know what you are going to get. Only way is REAL linotype in full WORD strips or factory cast/marked ingots. Otherwise, it s a carp-shoot.

On here you can trust the folks to be honest. A bunch of really fine people. If they are not............they are G_O_N_E!

banger-j

[Handloader109]

I tried to buy lead once on eBay. Seller didn't deliver, kept promising to ship, but after about 2 weeks, I gave up and went thru complaint. Got my money back and have never looked at the site for metals again. BTW, the sellers there are usually way over what you can get the lead for on this site. I've bought from 5 different sellers and all the transactions have gone well

[huntinlever]

I hear you guys, and thank you for the guidance. While I don't - yet - regret the recent purchases, you voice some of the concerns I have as well. However, we'll see. The guy shipped immediately, he has a 100% rep, and my friend from MO does this routinely, all without incident. So I have about 100# of w/w coming. Let's hope it is compositionally accurate.

That said, yes I do hear you and from now on, will look here. Might be sooner than I had hoped....:shock:

[woodmann]

DD's #4 answers for me...

[huntinlever]

Just scored about 70# for $25.00, sorted. Friends turned me on, truck tire place, and it seems it will be a dependable source on an ongoing basis. Really happy.

[VintageRifle]

Good score. The place I get mine is about 2 miles from one of shops I work at. Not a big deal to pick them up. Just disappointed in the amount of non lead weights. May see if I can get them to sort them.

[huntinlever]

Vintage, more like 100# as it turns out, but in going through it, I'm not as sure what I have. A guy at the tire truck place does smelt, for pure enjoyment (literally - makes lead paperweights with w/w!!!) and is the "sorter", and in doing a pretty rigorous random sampling of the bucket, each ww snipped easily with cutters; but there's a lot in there that I would have discarded as not lead, earlier, because obviously I don't yet know enough about sorting these out.

Many had a coating on them, almost like a paint of some sort, that chipped. Many felt hard, and are not pliant; yet those, too, snipped easily with cutters. None are marked Zn, though many have markings that don't tell me anything. I do think these are all lead-based, just a bit uncertain.

Paint - odd question, I know - but I planned to just use sawdust, only, as flux. Again, please be patient, learning - but my plan was to just heat up and melt, stir in the sawdust and remove this first dross with a slotted spoon. Will this "paint," if it is indeed that, bind up and be removed?

Plan was to do this until all the obvious dirt was away, then be careful to avoid removing tin, believing it is throw-away dross. Is there an obvious method to sort out the true dross, from oxidized tin, which you don't want to remove?

[borg]

I hear you guys, and thank you for the guidance. While I don't - yet - regret the recent purchases, you voice some of the concerns I have as well. However, we'll see. The guy shipped immediately, he has a 100% rep, and my friend from MO does this routinely, all without incident. So I have about 100# of w/w coming. Let's hope it is compositionally accurate.

That said, yes I do hear you and from now on, will look here. Might be sooner than I had hoped....:shock:

Gotta ask, I've seen MO.com referenced several times, is that a forum?

[huntinlever]

OK - An assortment of nomenclature. There are just a couple obvious ones - Zn or some combination of Zn-Fe, etc. One or two Fe. Tons of MC, and Al - Mc. Some Aw-Mc (forgotten - back in from the garage and I've piles sorted out). Lots of Pb, P, lots of T.

The zincs definitely "clink." I will do it again, but outside of just a couple outside the zinc (the others marked either Fe or unmarked, and seem like steel?), they all snip easily with a pair of cutters. Is it safe to assume that at least these aren't zinc? We should only cull Zn, and Fe, the hard-painted ones, when it comes up?

[huntinlever]

Gotta ask, I've seen MO.com referenced several times, is that a forum?

Borg, I'm sorry, I didn't know that was unfamiliar to people. It's Marlinowners.com. I was actually referred to this site by members there. Good bunch of people.

[RogerDat]

If a pair of dikes can nip them then they are definitely not steel, and pretty unlikely to be zinc. Unless you can crush golf balls in your hand. Zinc is pretty hard stuff.

All that paint and plastic will burn off or end up as dross. One huge reason to smelt WW's outside or with lots of ventilation if your in a garage or shed is that paint and plastic does not have a delightful aroma when burning off. Probably not something you would want to breath much of either.

I use one of these mesh deep fryer spoons scoop up the crud that is on top, tap it a few times to let the debris or dross fall through then dump the clips into a metal container. Once I have the bigger stuff like clips out I come back through and use a slotted spoon to scoop the dirt and garbage off.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31J6NSC49QL.jpg I bought mine at wal-mart for a few bucks this is just an image I snagged with a google search.

I throw some sawdust in with the WW's as they melt which I'm sure adds to the debris. However while I'm using the mesh fryer spoon the debris I'm tapping through is covering the molten lead and keeping air out, no air means no oxidation. I find I can get 97% of that debris skimmed off without getting anything that feels like the weight of metal.

Then I'm doing sawdust and stirring then skimming that off and during this step I do tend to get some metal with the debris so I throw this skimming into a separate metal container (bread loaf pan) and add it back into my next batch. I figure since I'm always getting about the same amount of metal, and at the same stage anything I pull out of the first batch goes into the second, from the second into the third... I'm not losing anything.

If I have a lot of metal in the skimming of the sawdust I'm doing something wrong, melt is too cold so the metal sticks to the sawdust, or too hot and I'm cooking alloys to the top and skimming them off. I try to keep the amount of metal laced sawdust down to a couple or three slotted spoons full from a full 6 Qt. Dutch oven.

There is also some wax thrown in before the skimming to help drive the tin back into the melt. Beware the "whoosh" both sawdust and wax smoke and the smoke can suddenly catch on fire. Whoosh! Dies down rapidly like in one second but it can be startling. Keep dear wife, pets, or kids away. First two might freak, last one may want you to do it again.

Now this is by no means the "right" way, or the only way but the ingots from WW's seem to be the right hardness and it does avoid throwing metal skimming out. I am one cheap Swell Old Boy.

[Budzilla 19]

I guess I was blessed that my dad hoarded all those wonderful wheel weights some 35+ years ago! (We had a Littleton Shot Maker and ,boy, did it eat up wheel weight ingots) But, now, Dad, (RIP Baldy) you certainly fixed me and my sons and grandsons up for life as I still have over a ton of ww and pure lead left. Thanks to this site I now have a better understanding of all things cast boolits! Keep scrounging, you will come up with enough lead and alloying materials to do you for ever. If you are lucky enough to mine range lead, you'll get tired of doing it before it runs out for sure! Literally tons of it out there.good luck to you.

[huntinlever]

Wow, wish I knew a way to "like" a post as there are so many on this site I'd like to do - and among them, thanks, Roger, for such extraordinary help. My friend is a luthier and has boatloads of sawdust every day so...at least in terms of hoarding, I'm all set for flux, lol.

And Budzilla, thanks, too. Sounds like your pop was quite a dad, peace to his memory. I was thinking just yesterday of this - as it turns out, this bucket was really good, probably 9-10 pieces of zinc, a couple steel, and all the rest lead (amazing how fast you learn to sort it out by a combination of looking at markings and backing up with snips, dropping and listening for that zinc "ping," etc.), so I've got a good start and with that regular source, hopeful for the future.

Thanks again, guys. OP, thanks for the thread and sorry if I've hijacked it away from your needs.

[lightman]

Huntinglever, You probably know that the letters Z or Zn mean zinc and Fe means iron. The other letters are either the manufacturer and/or the type of wheel that they were intended to fit. I have had a few weights that were noticeably harder than others, but Roger is correct, that if you can cut it, its probably lead. Just to get the feel, make a test cut on a few marked with a Z. There is a really good sticky at the top of this thread about hand sorting wheel weights. Its well worth the time to read. Roger is also correct about the painted weights, they melt just fine, just stink and smoke some.

[huntinlever]

Hey thanks, lightman. Yep, I actually did come across that thread after posting and it was a tremendous help. And if I'm hearing you correctly, that some weights were harder than others but still cut like lead, yep, right, this is what was throwing me, too, so appreciate the help, you and all. Were it not for reading more, I'd have probably culled a ton more as unusable, when it is perfectly fine. As it is, I feel I really scored with this ongoing source, very pleased.

Thanks again, everyone.

[huntinlever]

Oh, sorry, one more - the question was raised over on marlinowners of using sawdust with ladle, top-draw smelting. The basic gist is that this doesn't work for this, but is for bottom-spout smelting pots. I'd thought it could work - couldn't you just sort of disturb the layer, get a ladle, and go that way? The layer would close back over?

[Retumbo]

Depends on the ladle.

My latest haul

80% lead
17.4% steel
1.8% garbage
0.8% zinc

[WRideout]

I smelt small batches of sorted WW in a cast iron pot. At first I was having a lot of trouble with lead sticking to the steel clips. When I started using a tablespoon of vegetable oil for the flux, it seemed to coat the steel, and keep all the lead in the pot; FWIW.

Wayne

[Retumbo]

It does not "coat".

I flux with wood shavings and obtain the same result.

[huntinlever]

Depends on the ladle.

My latest haul

80% lead
17.4% steel
1.8% garbage
0.8% zinc

Used the Rowell today, and everything went really well. 130+ ingots of ww. Accurate mold arrives in a couple days, and really happy to be in business.