How Much Does a Five gallon Bucket of Wheel Weights Weigh?

[LUBEDUDE]

I realize the weight can vary on how close to the top of the bucket is filled as well as how much trash is mixed in. I just need a ballpark estimate so I can determine if the seller’s price is right for me. Thanks

[nagantguy]

Five pound bucket or five gallon bucket? Not being a Nancy I've just never heard of a five pound bucket

[Bohica793]

A five pound bucket? Five pounds. A five gallon bucket? Well........

[LUBEDUDE]

Five gallon bucket

Wow, mega blonde Senior moment here, haha ��.

Sorry, I reckon I shouldn’t be starting threads upon waking.

[Guesser]

I don't remember what it weighed, what I do remember was that there are 6200+/- 38 Special cases in a 5 "gallon" plastic bucket. This from over 20 years ago. I paid the guy $15.00 for it and we were both satisfied.

[Bohica793]

I have two 50lb isotope lead bars from a WWII submarine sitting in my garage. Just as a rough estimation, I think a five gallon bucket would hold at least six of these, making 300lbs.

[wyofool]

Go over to the Lead and Lead Alloys and there is a sticky on this very question.

[Beagle333]

I'm going with 135# per 5-gallon bucket. On average.

[bbogue1]

Picked up a 5 gallon bucket at a car dealer yesterday. It was 3/4 full and weighed 81 pounds. After separating the junk I ended up with 24 pounds of COWW, 24 pounds of SOWW and 33 pounds of unusable zinc, steel, nails and screws. I still need to pay the manager for the 81 pounds. No price has been negotiated since the give away was approved last week and this week the manager is out sick. I know they get 5 cents per pound for clean wheel weights and so does he. I am thinking of offering him 15 cents a pound ($12.15) to get the negotiations going without insulting him, or should I just offer a flat $15 cash? what do you think?

[RogerDat]

I would say Beagle333 is correct if full pretty close to the top. Is sort of an average. Large weights leave more air space between them than small weights so they can weigh less, but larger weights mean fewer steel clips.

When I saw the heading I thought it was going to be a thread along the lines of which weighs more a pound of gold or a pound of feathers?

[RogerDat]

Picked up a 5 gallon bucket at a car dealer yesterday. It was 3/4 full and weighed 81 pounds. After separating the junk I ended up with 24 pounds of COWW, 24 pounds of SOWW and 33 pounds of unusable zinc, steel, nails and screws. I still need to pay the manager for the 81 pounds. No price has been negotiated since the give away was approved last week and this week the manager is out sick. I know they get 5 cents per pound for clean wheel weights and so does he. I am thinking of offering him 15 cents a pound ($12.15) to get the negotiations going without insulting him, or should I just offer a flat $15 cash? what do you think?

Price per pound, a little higher than going rate would get things started. He gets 5 cents, offer 10 cents. Maybe point out that is double the going rate. If he doesn't take it you offer $12 and point out that is almost 15 cents a pound. By setting a per pound price you establish a rate going forward. I find that our scrap yard rate is around 35 cents, I offer 40 cents and that silly little bit more is just that "more" so the deal gets done.

Oh and stop back by with bag of donuts some morning or a pizza at lunch time to say thanks. Money matters but in the end it can be about relationship between you and the shop. Makes a difference, lots of folks got money. You should be the guy that shows your appreciation AND pays better.

[LUBEDUDE]

Thanks for the info, y’all gave me what I needed. And sorry about the goofy title.

[nagantguy]

I just went through a foot of new snow to get into the barn because I didn't like my flippant answer above, from my dwindling stock of wheel weights one at random weights 145 pounds filled almost to the top, a similar empty bucket weights 2.4.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

I've found the same, FULL is 145lbs

BUT, I've never seen a FULL bucket...every time I've been told about full buckets of COWW that I could buy, they are never full. They usually have 100 lbs or less, because the average guy can't move a full bucket of COWW.


I have moved this thread and corrected the title

[bbogue1]

Price per pound, a little higher than going rate would get things started. He gets 5 cents, offer 10 cents. Maybe point out that is double the going rate. If he doesn't take it you offer $12 and point out that is almost 15 cents a pound. By setting a per pound price you establish a rate going forward. I find that our scrap yard rate is around 35 cents, I offer 40 cents and that silly little bit more is just that "more" so the deal gets done.

Oh and stop back by with bag of donuts some morning or a pizza at lunch time to say thanks. Money matters but in the end it can be about relationship between you and the shop. Makes a difference, lots of folks got money. You should be the guy that shows your appreciation AND pays better.

Great answer. I'll have that bag o donuts on Monday morning when I go see him and we'll start with my offer of doubling the money to 10 cents.

[LUBEDUDE]

Thanks nagantguy for your trouble!

Thank you JonB for fixing and moving the thread. :)

[merlin101]

I recently purchased a 5 gal bucket full to the top of sorted lead wheel weights, the seller and I slide it on to the fork of a fork lift and then onto a scale IIRC it was 165 or so. No I didn't pick it and toss it into my truck:bigsmyl2: We broke it down into 2 buckets and I still had a hard time unloading them(used the forklift to load)

[lightman]

Me and another member recently purchased 30 something buckets of weights. The clip on's weighed from 130# to 160#. The stick ons weighed between 110# and 120#. These were slightly below level full allowing room for a snap on lid. The weight depends at least a little on the size of the weights and how well they settle in the bucket. A bucket of ingots will weigh more, often up to 260#. A bucket of range scrap will also weigh more. I've seen them from 180# to 240#.

[bumpo628]

A full bucket of mostly lead weights will be close to 150 lbs, in my experience.
If there is a lot of steel, zinc, and trash then it will be closer to 100 lbs.

[RogerDat]

If you sort weights and store the sorted weights you might find that a 3/4 full bucket weighs around 78# and they will stack 3 high fairly easily or 4 high if you want to lift that far. I suppose the same would be true of unsorted weights but those are sometimes more or less full and I find if the bucket is too full they get sort of tippy when stacked, where at 3/4 full they don't fit snug and get stuck but are down far enough to not be as tippy. Using 5 gallon Home Depot orange buckets.

I also find a 3/4 full bucket is about the right size to fill my Harbor Freight Dutch Oven that I melt in. Have to fill then add as the bottom melts and the pile settles, and importantly also before the top melts so I'm not dumping WW's into molten lead but onto a pile that is melted underneath. 3/4 bucket once melted still has room for stirring and straining out clips without being at the point of overflowing. Can fit 100# in but 75 - 80 is generally enough for one batch.

[mpkunz]

I have never actually ~filled~ a 5 gallon bucket with lead wheel weights - it always splits first.

[jsizemore]

Back in the day a full to the top paint or oil 5 gallon bucket would weigh 200lbs. As time has gone on the introduction of zinc and steel WW has brought that down. I had one that was about 50% by volume lead that weighed 155lbs.

[Hardcast416taylor]

I just went through a foot of new snow to get into the barn because I didn't like my flippant answer above, from my dwindling stock of wheel weights one at random weights 145 pounds filled almost to the top, a similar empty bucket weights 2.4.


Haven`t been out to my barn since Fall. Last Fall I had 5 full and rounded up on top of sorted lead coww. Still got almost another 2 to sort out. I quit taking weights for free from a friend that had a car dealership as they were going more on the non lead side in a pail. It`s about all I can do to pick up one of these pails more than 6 +/-" off the floor so I would say near 175 lbs. +/-.Robert

[Dave C.]

How much it weighs depends on how old you are.

[Bohica793]

So this question has bugged me since this thread was first posted and not being one to let something go, I decided to approach this mathematically.

The volume of a Home Depot 5 gallon bucket is 452.38 cubic inches (12" diameter/12"inch fill height). I have two (2) bars of isotope lead from a WWII submarine which measure 12"x3"x4" (144 cubic inches) and weigh an average of 57.4 lbs each (57.3 and 57.5). This give a lead weight of .3986 lbs / cubic inch. This calculates to just over 180 lbs for the bucket. Considering that wheel weights do not occupy 100% of the space and contain amounts of lighter metals, the actual weight of the bucket would be less.

My curiosity has been sated. Thanks.