That's the thing about it. Whatever works for you, keep at it. I do stuff that friends are always asking "Why you doing that?" "This works better." I stick with what works for me, unless it is, indeed, a better mousetrap.
That's the thing about it. Whatever works for you, keep at it. I do stuff that friends are always asking "Why you doing that?" "This works better." I stick with what works for me, unless it is, indeed, a better mousetrap.
I worked the "Lab" type of weapon shop and my rule of thumb ain't far from their $100,000.000 theory.
Well, I went and beat on a boolit and flattened it out quite thin with no cracking around the edges. Funny how it hardens with beating. I drilled the hammer but haven't done the mounting yet.
Grumpy's energy test looks interesting. It'll be impossible for me to do the energy math with the swinging hammer but a dropped weight would be quite do-able. Not sure there's any need though but it might be more compact with a dropped weight. My alloys don't get hard enough to fracture.
Thats because your alloys are 2% paper!:kidding:Quote:
My alloys don't get hard enough to fracture.
:2_high5:
I think a malleable alloy is "tough"
OK not exactly. But it is a constant that can be factored out.
Well, since goodsteel was careless and has nothing to show us ... here's some percentages to ponder on ...Quote:
I averaged them out and saved that information, but I threw away all the original figures.
The garden variety wheel weights that are on probably 99% of all vehicles in the US.
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...Weights/13.jpg
Composition: 2.96% Sb, 0.41% Sn, 0.174% As, balance lead
The next most common is the adhesive weight.
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...0Weights/3.jpg
Composition: 0.377% Sb, 1.45% Sn, 0.029% As, balance lead
An adhesive type, but in a shape unlike the "Tape-A-Weight" style.
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...Weights/11.jpg
Composition: 4.94% Sb, 0.017% Sn, 0.107% As, balance lead.
Not sure how it is affixed to the wheel but here it is
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...Weights/12.jpg
Composition: 3.10% Sb, 0.053% Sn, 0.039% As, balance lead
Compliments from dwebb210 back in 2004. All weights tested in accordance with National Institute of Standards and Technology reference standards as well as other NIST traceable standards were used to analyze these samples.
I was really waiting for some percentages from goodsteel to compare against these percentages by WW type ... Oh Well
The whole thing depends on the smelt.
WW's are dirty. When you melt them all that **** goes in the pot. Some of the **** is alloyed into your melt, you flux and reduce the "****" but some remains.
The differences are background noise that has some regional ancestory but those "Whatever" state WW have a chaotic mix of WW from all of North America and beyond.
I can't believe poop spelled c r a p is censored
Sorry, I found all the tests that were done after the WW's as I was dialing in my rifle alloy, but none of the WW tests. I didn't think it was important at the time and to tell you the truth, after some of the abrasive challenges that have come out of this, I can honestly say that I couldn't care-less.
I invited and encouraged anybody with differing information to speak up and give perspective as I admitted that I had only tested five samples of different batches that I had received and I averaged the results. I meant no one any harm by what I posted and I only brought it up in an effort to help. I am simply saying that there are no hard and fast rules about what is in WW alloy. I believe that they are skimping like crazy as of late, but thats my theory based on the few samples I ran. I still think that if you have WW lead that has over 2% antimony you are blessed, and if you have any tin in there, you are lucky. Either that, or I had the bad luck to only pick the crappy ones. I set on this for a while, but I thought it was worth mentioning. If you think that all WW lead has 96.5/3/.5 then good luck to you 'cause you're going to need it!
All that being said, I do appreciate the additions to this thread in that I have renewed hope that one of the batches I received might actually be "as advertised" WW lead, but I'm not going to pester the fella at work to do any more tests unless I have a darn good reason. (Tell you the truth I think he figures we're even by now.) He tested over ten alloys for me multiple times, and I learned a lot about alloys and I found out that you can predict the alloy in your pot pretty closely if you are anal about your mix weights, and thats all I wanted to find out in the first place.
For me, I figure I can depend on everything except the WW alloy. Every other thing I tested was very close to what it should have been except the WW's. John Boy and Dutch 4122 have only further proved this point by kindly posting their results which differed so greatly from my own.
The whole point is that when you are smelting WW alloy, you cannot depend on the content therein, it is a shady and unstable reference that claims that they are always such and such alloy. I think that we are the only folks in the world who give a hoot in heck about what exactly is in a wheel weight and the rest of the folks just want them to stay on a tire. If I wanted to go all "wild eye, conspiracy theorist" on you, I would say that it was in certain peoples interest that the WW's be made week so that they would fall off, and make the steel ones look more Eco-friendly, while making lead WW's look like a good way to seed lead among the masses and poison everybody.:lol:
If you have a 50 year old business in this time of lead persecution, that makes WW's you would have to find ways to make them cheaper to offset the cost of all the regulations (a lot has changed since 2004 in case you hadn't noticed). How, prey-tell is the easiest way to cut cost in that business? Lead is still cheaper material than everything but Styrofoam and plastic....Tin and antimony are a different matter all together.
In a few more years all this will all be a mute point, and we can argue till the cows come home about what WW's used to have in them whilst buying our lead for $3 a pound from rotometals.
OK, I'm done with the soap box and theorizing and ranting. Thanks for all the contributing information. I do apologize for not posting this back when the information was fresh. I foolishly thought that if I mentioned that some WW's had less than 3% antimony and no tin, then some folks would get mad at me. :mrgreen:
You've done us all a good turn Goodsteel.
I was reading something not long ago from the 1960s or earlier. It was either a very old Handloader or an old American Rifleman someone put on the internet and they had analyzed wheel weights from whatever era that was at 6% Antimony. How would you like some of that!
Just remember Tim, "most" of us are here to have fun.
Some take things a little serious.
In another couple years we will be using synthetic lead, or a "lead substitute",[smilie=w: that will give everyone in california cancer.[smilie=s:
Relax Tim, there are always a few trolls that peruse threads and cast their lures. Let not your heart be troubled, as you (and others) have provided me with information I could probably not obtain elsewhere. Keep on posting, my man. Thank you.
OB
Kind of like the "crusher" method used to measure chamber pressure.
Could be pretty useful for comparison purposes, use pure at low end and maybe lino at the high end.
Actually, if enough known hardness samples were tested and recorded, it could be "calibrated" and "fracture" characteristics could also be observed and recorded,,not a bad idea in my opinion.
oh the old grey ww she aint what she used to be
I think that might be a german invention. The only ones I've seen were branded mercedes, VW and some other unknown european trademark. They attach with a regular steel clip, it is just not fused to the alloy. Got a pile of the clips out behind my lead shed.
I recently melted down a 15-20 yo bucket of european wheel weights. Lots of zinc in the bucket for even 20 years ago. Some of the clipons were good and hard. Some were nearly butter soft. Same with the stickons, some hard some soft.
I melted them in 2 batches hoping to get one hard and one soft batch.