Best way to quickly sort wheel weights? Sorry - I’m sure this has been posted somewh

[8mmFan]

Hey Guys,

I have a chance to go sort through a giant mess of wheel weights for the next two hours. Any ideas on the best way to sort the lead from zinc, steel, etc.? Sorry to ask but am on my way there in a few minutes and in a hurry...

8mmFan

[frkelly74]

In front of a "favorite" movie with some beer close by. Use nippers to check the zinc weights that are questionable.

[8mmFan]

Perfect, FR. I’ll take along a diagonal pliers since I don’t have any hoof nippers.

[8mmFan]

Thank you, BTW.

8mmFan

[nicovanj]

I use side cutters. The lead cuts immediately being more softer. Also the sound of lead is different against the side cutters.

[nhyrum]

The sound is pretty easy to distinguish after a bit of practice. The zinc ones are also usually marked zn and have a bit of a different shape to them. The laziest way is to keep the pot temperature between 650 and 725, but no hotter than 750. Only the lead will melt, everything else will float. Then scoop em off

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[Budzilla 19]

Once you sort a few, you will immediately be able to tell the difference, I feel sure. First off, all zinc weights are marked, somewhere on them, with “Zn”. You might get fooled a couple times , but like I stated earlier, after a few, you be able to tell. Good luck to You! I assume you are sorting to purchase?

[8mmFan]

Well...thanks for the heads up, guys. From what I could tell, the recycler had a bin full of zinc wheel weights that have been picked through by someone, because it seemed to me that everything in it was zinc.

[Winger Ed.]

Sort as mentioned above, then heat up the good stuff rather slowly in your pot.

If there is some stowaways--- they'll float up since they melt at a noticeably higher temp.

[wmitty]

I was doing this last week; if the wheel weights are large enough just try bending them with your hands. Lead/tin/antimony can be bent fairly easily, but zinc is beyond my ability. Incidentally, I asked for the selling price on the wheel weights and was quoted $ .08 / lb before I started sorting thru the bin of lead weights and thought to myself "that's too good to be true..." . Well, it was: when I weighed up my 41 lbs of lead wh. wts. a guy broke the news to me that I'd been told wrong. "Price on the lead weights is $.35 / lb " and the lady who had quoted me the 8 cent per pound price mumbled something about looking at the wrong piece of paper. I just laughed and told 'em I knew it was too good to be true.

[Backburner007]

I always do a quick sort into labeled buckets but then check every damn one again before I pot them coz they’re sneaky buggers. The zinc ones always have a distinct ring to them when they’re dropped.

[lightman]

Everyone has pretty much covered it. When I sort weights, I pick through the bucket and start removing the visible junk first. Thats the tire studs, valve stems, tire stickers, ect. Then I pick each weight up and look at it. The steel are easy to spot and the Zinc are pretty obvious. I only cut the questionable ones. As the others have said, it gets easier after you do a few hundred pounds. I look at each weight because my hearing isn't good enough to sound test them. But the dykes don't lie.

When I'm at home, I'll sit in a folding chair and put the bucket of weights between my knees with a block of wood under it to make it a comfortable working height. I'll set 5 buckets up in a half circle around in front of me and go to picking weights out of the bucket. I'll have one for trash, lead clip-on weights, lead stick-on weights, Steel weights and Zinc weights. I'll cut any questionable weight.

Many casters try to control the melt temperature and catch any floaters but I smelt in batches of 400# or so and my burner will easily melt any Zinc weight that managed to ge trapped on bottom.

[oley55]

I find using the anvil type hand pruners ideal. comfortable, spring loaded return, good leverage and sharp. They are far better than side cutters and what not. But the cheapest set Home Depot or Lowes has. Something like this a quick search found:

https://www.amazon.com/TABOR-TOOLS-Compound-Professional-Secateurs/dp/B08JX7XP7C/ref=sr_1_29?dchild=1&keywords=pruning+tools&qid=1635551766&sr=8-29

[Hanzy4200]

I do the snip test. I always try to watch my smelt pot closely, in case I miss a couple. Zinc needs to get pretty hot to melt. You can catch them early on to avoid a mess.

[8mmFan]

Thanks, guys. All good info, and hopefully I’ll need it again sometime. This was too much of a pain to be bothered with. It looked to me like it was ALL zinc/steel, LOL.

8mmFan