Noobie Question Regarding Smelting & Zinc

[ZakAttackMan]

I have 5 (5) Gallon buckets full of rim weights from all over the place, as well as 600 lbs of lead sheets that came from a hospital X-Ray room.

I'm going to attempt my first smelting and was wondering if separating all of the wheel weights is necessary? I will separate the two types of lead obviously.

Can I use a thermometer and set the casting at or below 700 degrees skim everything off?

I'm located in Sacramento CA so I know there is going to be allot of steel, zinc and sticky wheel weights in my buckets. (Wheel Weight Lead Ban)

First Post Love this Site Thanks

[454PB]

Welcome to the forum!

Yes. Actually, for melting the wheelweights, you won't need more than 600 to 650 degrees. Skim off anything that floats at that temperature for further investigation.

[docone31]

Melt the X-ray room lead seperately.
Seperate the stick on wheel weights. Some will be Fe, some will be Zn. Most will be real nice pure lead.
The clip on wheel weights, a lot will be Fe, some will be riveted to the clips, some will be Zn clip on.
The easiest to seperate, toss them in a seperate bucket. The rest, melt at the lowest heat you can. I use needle nose pliers to pull the clips when melting. The zinc wheel weights will float. At low temps, you will have to push them under with effort to get them to melt.
Keep the zinc seperately. I do use zinc in casting for my paper patching. You will find an use for it also, as lead gets harder and harder to get. There is a paper on casting zinc boolitts out there.
I have cast all zinc boolitts for my pistols, and they work! Keep the zinc seperate though.
Ingot the X-ray room lead seperate from the stick ons. Ingot the stick ons seperate from the wheel weight. Ingot the wheel weight seperate from the rest. Don't bother to ingot the zinc unless you can keep it seperate from the rest.
1/3 wheel weight to 1/2 wheel weight to alloy for pistol, the ratio depending on how much alloy you have for each. I water drop. Your choice there.
So far, so good for me.

[12glocks]

I was very new to this until recently as well. The threads (I think they are in Classics and Stickies) on wheel weights helped me a lot.

Specifically when I went through my first bucket of WW I squeezed every WW with a pair of pliers to see if it was malleable. I soon learned what to look for like riveted WW, WW marked Fe, Zinc or Zn. Any questions and I squeeze it with the pliers. Not all sticky weights are lead either.

My first bucket took me 4 hours to separate. My second, third and forth took me ~ 1.5 hours. I did miss a couple of zinc wheel weights but was smelting at lo temp and they floated like the previous posters mentioned.

I use a 30,000 BTU burner on medium with the scrap lead in a 6 quart dutch over (saw that one here too), nothing intense like a turkey fryer on high. I am still wishing for a second ingot mold.

[lwknight]

I use a 30,000 BTU burner on medium with the scrap lead in a 6 quart dutch over (saw that one here too), nothing intense like a turkey fryer on high. I am still wishing for a second ingot mold.

Those cheap little bread pans work great to fill about 1/2 way and make 5 or 6 pound ingots that will fit into a 20# lee pot. The round stainless pet bowls make great ingot molds for big jobs. If they wont go into the casting pot, you can remold them later.
I learned that for storage of a large amount of ingots, the bigger they are, the easier to deal with. Within reason of course.