Old wheel weights?

[brewer12345]

I made a score today, picking up 340 pounds of wheelweights that had been smelted into ingots for $70 and a pound of honey from my hives. I used to think the "golden amber fluid that makes friends and influences people" was whiskey, but now I know for sure it is honey. Anyway, this stuff is from the estate of a competitive target shooter. I found some reject cast boolits in one of the buckets of various shapes and sizes including a very large hollow based wadcutter that had to be at least .40 caliber. I know these things were not smelted yesterday judging by the accumulated dust and stuff in the buckets and by comparing the ingots from this lot with recently smelted stuff. How old they are is anybody's guess and of course the weights they were made from could have been older still.

Any idea when clip on wheel weights became common? I am guessing that these ingots probably have a fair bit more tin and antimony than more recent stuff, but who knows. Is there an easy way to get a sample ingot tested?

[Grmps]

Contact BNE on this forum, He will XRF (test the alloy) for the price of 1 # of pure lead.

I know there are others that do this and they may jump in and bargain/barter their services.

[MUSTANG]

Brewer12345:

Congratulations on your good luck in finding the wheel weights/ingots.

1. Can't tell you when they started using "Clip on Wheel Weights"; but I can assure you it was long before the late 1950's when my Dad owned one of these antiquated items "A Service Station".

2. You can determine the "Hardness" of the ingots by using a Brinnell Hardness Tester such as Lee and others make. You might ask some of the people you know who cast if they have one. You can buy the Lee Hardness Testers at a variety of locations; here is a Link to an Amazon listing for one.

https://www.amazon.com/Lee-Precision-Lead-Hardness-Test/dp/B004Y6YH3W/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1508274450&sr=8-1&keywords=lee+hardness+tester

or a Listing for same from Midway:

https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1010214285/lee-lead-hardness-testing-kit

3. You could always send myself or another member who has a tester a sample and we could test it for you.

[brewer12345]

Raspberries! What I really meant to ask is when stick-ons became common. As I understand it, they are a lot closer to pure lead/

[slapshot67]

Beware of zinc in later weights. Zinc will give you BIG problems.

[William Yanda]

I can't give a date, but stick on weights were used with alloy rims, because clips would mar the rim and the rim of alloy wheels was fatter as well.

[MaryB]

My 2001 f-150 has alloy wheels and stick ons... so at least 16 years...

[trails4u]

I worked in service stations in the late eighty's, early ninety's...and we were seeing some stick on weights then. Not many.....I'd say less than 10%, but they were around then...

[Greg G.]

Had a 71 charger with after market alloy rims and they where balanced with stick on WW in 1972.

[upnorthwis]

My 69 Roadrunner had alloy wheels that used stick on. Sold it for $600 when they were going to quit making premium gas. Should have put it up on blocks for 40 years, then sold it.

[robertbank]

Just one thing on stick on wheel weights. I have run into some that are alloyed just like the clip on ones. I wish I could describe the symbol on the WW but but it is the same as found on the clip on ones from the same manufacturer. It is kinda like a raised circle with a squiggly line on either side of the circle. Most are pure lead though. I mention this as good WW alloy is getting harder to find with the enviro push for Zinc WW.


Take Care

Bob

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Old wheel weights?

SNIP...

I am guessing that these ingots probably have a fair bit more tin and antimony than more recent stuff, but who knows. Is there an easy way to get a sample ingot tested?
Your Wheel weights would need to be older than from 1980 to have more tin and antimony than current production.

Here is a couple sources that may help you understand the timeline of COWW content.

BNE did some testing on current COWW for us in this "Stickied" thread.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?231905-Clip-On-Wheel-Weight-XrF-Data
The short answer to surmise from it, is the average Antimony (the main hardening ingredient) content of today's COWW is about 3%
...

Here is a Cut&Paste about old Wheel weights from LASC

Pre 1970’s wheel weights averaged 9% antimony and during the 70’s this average was reduced, since the early 1980’s there appears to be little fluctuation in the percentage of antimony in wheel weight alloy and currently seems to be about 3%, maybe, maybe ... 4%.
http://www.lasc.us/CastBulletAlloy.htm

[lightman]

I'm not sure when they became common but they have been around ever sense mag wheels have. I worked in a service station in the early 70's that sold used tires. We got used weights from the same stores that we bought used tires from and there would be a few stick on weights in some of the buckets. Not very many but a few.

I've used BNE for analyzing samples before and he is a good guy to deal with, and is pretty fast. He also did some testing on stick on weights that is a sticky.