5 gal pail of ww

[foxtrapper]

Local fishermen was moving out of town and posted that he had a 5 gal bucket of ww up for grabs….which I did! lol .Thing is this was 10 years or so ago and I totally forgot that I had stashed it behind my shed. There looks like there’s thousands of them in a watery soup. Pail lid failed. I’m gonna dump them on a tarp to dry them, question. Can I melt them down keeping the temp lower then when zinc would melt so I can fish them out? Turkey fryer ,cast iron pot and a noe thermometer is my setup. I can’t imagine touching everyone of them to hopefully be right by nip checking them. Good idea or can u suggest a better solution. Thanks

[Gtrubicon]

I’d check them, maybe 20 minutes of time would save lots of frustration down the road.

[Bazoo]

It's possible to melt them by excluding zinc, but because zinc melts at 787.2º which means you'd have to keep a very close eye on it, and that is hard to do without a PID.

I nip each weight whenever I sort a bucket. It does take some time, more like an hour and a half.

[Delkal]

I don't have a PID unit for my turkey frier so when melting wheel weights I start out with some of the longer ones I know are lead then heat them till they just start to melt. Then keep adding more wheel weights in portions so you always have a small amount of liquid and slush on the bottom and stir a lot. As long as there is always some slush remaining you are not close to melting the zinc. If you have a weight that doesn't want to melt and break up take it out.

Don't skim the slush off and only remove the whole weights that don't melt. They will be obvious.

[Dusty Bannister]

Delkal, the COWW are wet or have been wet. Why invite the tinsel fairy? Not a good idea to add cold metal to molten metal. Please be safe.

[gunther]

As they dry, look at them. If a ww looks like it just came out of the factory, chances are, it's zinc. Those don't mar or acquire a "road rash". Then look harder; if you see zn, its zinc. P, or Pb is lead, and steel ones are magnetic, on the ends; don't check the clips. Plastic ones will have a steel clip. There won't be many zinc ones. Zinc is as expensive as lead. Mostly the rejects will be steel or plastic.

[lightman]

I sort all of mine. After you do some it gets faster and easier. My burner will easily melt a Zinc weight that gets trapped on the bottom.
I've melted wet lead before but I filled the pot and then lit the burner. The water has always evaporated before the lead melted. I never add anything to the pot once the lead is melted.

[WRideout]

I have hand sorted many five gallon buckets just like what you describe. At first I used the dykes to nip them, but after a while I could pretty much tell by the brand name markings, and appearance. Steel weights are easy. I recently melted down a coffee can of miscellaneous wheel weights, and even though I pulled out some zinc floaters, I think some zinc still got into the alloy. Any more, the Zn ones are marked as such.

Wayne

[MrWolf]

I sort all of mine. After you do some it gets faster and easier. My burner will easily melt a Zinc weight that gets trapped on the bottom.
I've melted wet lead before but I filled the pot and then lit the burner. The water has always evaporated before the lead melted. I never add anything to the pot once the lead is melted.

Agreed. Take a few minutes to check them. It does go quick after a bit.

[ebb]

Side cutters on everyone or you will regret it. Ask me how I know.

[Rickf1985]

I have melted down 8 FULL bucket loads of weights and I was not about to check every one of the thousands of weights. I use a converted propane tank for my pot and a turkey fryer burner for the heat. I do not crank the head up on high blast, I leave it low so the lead melts slowly and I start stirring as soon as I can move it. I keep an eye on the thermometer also. As long as you are stirring then no weights will get trapped on the bottom. As soon as the temp reaches 700 I turn the burner down to low and I scoop all the clips, dross and any floaters out. Several of my buckets were full of rusty water from the clips and I dumped them out on my garage floor and ran a fan over them for a day to dry them. I was loading my pot with a square face shovel. Some were still wet but as long as you know this and position the shovel over the pot and down on the sides the tinsel fairy is pretty well contained under the shovel. I do not just dump the entire load all at once, a little at a time until the pot freezes from all the cold weights and then I pile more on top. They will dry as things heat up. I did 2500 lbs. this way and I got a half dozen floaters and no zinc in the mix. If you have not checked every weight then NEVER turn the burner up to high and you will find any zincs before they melt. Patience is key here. It will take my pot roughly 30 minutes to melt each 2-3 shovels of weights but I just sit around enjoying the quiet time while I wait.

P.S. My pot is capable of melting that amount of weights in 5 minutes if I crank it up.

[6.5X284ever]

I was just gifted my first bucket of wheel weights from a friend of a friend who has a tire shop. I started sorting them with cutters, and now I have a big blister on the palm of my hand LOL. Gloves from now on. So far I'm at about 60% lead, 40% "other".

[Rickf1985]

That is a pretty good average nowadays. Must have been an older bucket full. I got 8 full buckets a couple years ago from the estate of an old reloader. They were ALL lead with the exception of two zincs that I floated out. And these were the tall buckets! They were close to 200 lbs. each.

[lightman]

An estimated 60% is pretty good for todays weight scores. I still get a partial bucket every 6 weeks or so and mine are falling someplace between 50 and 60%. My % of Lead weights are gradually falling. I'm seeing more Steel weights and less Zinc than I used to so thats a good thing.

[Winger Ed.]

Bring the heat up slowly.

The water will boil off, then as the pot starts to melt, stir like it owes you money.
The clips and Zinc will float up as will the Zinc before they melt into the Lead.

[fredj338]

You get pretty good at ID the zinc. YOu don't need to test the entire bucket, just the ones you aren't sure of. Keep the melt at 700deg & everything not lead floats out.

[imashooter2]

I often see it suggested that melting WW at temperatures lower than the zinc melting point would avoid the risk of contamination. Just as often I wonder how one controls the temperature on the bottom of a big pot with 50-100 pounds of WW piled up in it.

I suppose that you could melt a very shallow pile such that you could see the WW on the bottom melting, but it seems like that would be a very long and expensive day heating, cooling, adding, repeat…

What am I missing?

[Winger Ed.]

If the depth of the weights is only 2-3 inches, stirring them is no big deal.
Reach into the bottom of the pot, and bring them up. That keeps the heat semi-even as they heat up.

[imashooter2]

Pretty much like I thought. Melting a Dutch oven of WW a couple inches at a time would take much longer than putting a pair of diagonal cutters on every suspect weight.

[CastingFool]

I was just gifted my first bucket of wheel weights from a friend of a friend who has a tire shop. I started sorting them with cutters, and now I have a big blister on the palm of my hand LOL. Gloves from now on. So far I'm at about 60% lead, 40% "other".
You don't have to cut them, just squeeze the nippers slightly. Lead is relatively soft and will indent easily, zinc won't. As others have mentioned, afte4 a bit, you can identify them by sight, but not so easily done if the weights are coated with rust.

[Rickf1985]

I often see it suggested that melting WW at temperatures lower than the zinc melting point would avoid the risk of contamination. Just as often I wonder how one controls the temperature on the bottom of a big pot with 50-100 pounds of WW piled up in it.

I suppose that you could melt a very shallow pile such that you could see the WW on the bottom melting, but it seems like that would be a very long and expensive day heating, cooling, adding, repeat…

What am I missing?
I simply keep the heat turned down so it is not overheating the bottom, Plus I start stirring as soon as I get enough liquid to do so. I have never melted a zinc yet, they all float to the top with the clips. That is not to say I do not check them, I do. But we all are going to miss one or two. And I do not put the whole load in at once. I will add 20 lbs. or so each time after I scoop out the trash and flux. I will end up with a hundred lbs. in the pot eventually but not all at once.

[lsippell]

Just the other day I niped a 5 gal bucket of ww. I also stuck a thermister connected to a PID so I could watch the temperature which I kept at 650 to 700 on a gas burner. Even after nipping what I thought was every one, I still had 1 zinc float up!
I think next time, since I was able to keep the temperature under 700 I'll just go for floaters. My hand is still sore from those side cutters!

[Rickf1985]

You still need to check them, too many and they will keep you from circulating the lead and they will melt on the bottom. It is a balancing act.

[Jellyroll]

Yup, I just finished up smelting about 3000 pounds of ww and just keep the heat low. Skim off the Zink!