Zinc Wheelweights

[PatMarlin]

Yeah and Rosie O. just became the next Miss America ..

[M4Sherman]

Good to know! I will be picking up mine from a local tire shop and will have to sort them so this give me a decent way to ID all of those pesky buggers.

[hiram1]

hi to you bro hope your doing well london ar 339

[danyboy]

Casted some bullets yesterday and last batch gave me a hell of a hard time. Probably got some zinc into it cause after reading this topic, I found the alloy quite sticky and I just couldn't pour it into the mold (Lyman 150gr., .266 double mold for sweedish 6.5 x 55). I don't have a thermometer but I tried everything to make it work. I will get rid of what I left in the pot yesterday and make sure I ain't got any Zinc wheel wheight in the pot from now on.

[BOOM BOOM]

HI,
OK- just a thought ,cast Zn bullets- SEE MOLD MAINTENANCE & DESINE - TREAD ON MAKING A MOLD.
Also my research thread on casting Zn.

[lenco12]

I've yet to run into a certified zinc wheelweight, but I have found quite a few steel ones. They are marked "Fe", and are easily verified with a magnet. Place the magnet on the end of the weight, because the clips are all steel.

I run into quite a few zinc, steel and plastic in the WWs I get from the GM dealership, but rare in the buckets I get from the independent tire stores.

[luvtn]

Hi,
For those of us who pick up the ww from the road look in the outside lane where vehicles stop fairly rapidly at a stop light. Every few days you will find several. In less than a week I've found a couple of pounds as I walk the 1.3 miles to work and back. Good exercise and made sweeter by finding lead.
luvtn

[2wheelDuke]

I've got some stick-on ww's from my last batch that were definitely zinc. I had some suspicions about some of the clip on's I've picked up from the roads while out running.

They have a different, glittery grey look to them, like a metallic paint coat on them. I can still cut them with a sidecutters easily.

I found one clip on ww that's actually marked zn. My hand is strong enough that I can clip 1/4-20 allthread with my lineman pliers, but I can't do much to that zn marked ww with a sidecutters.

I'm waiting until I have enough to try smelting still. Lead isn't easy to come by here. I'm in a densely packed suburban sprawl that spans 3 counties. There's tons of tire shops, but every one I've gone to says they already have a deal with somebody that gets their ww's.

[SciFiJim]

They have a different, glittery grey look to them, like a metallic paint coat on them. I can still cut them with a sidecutters easily.

Those are lead. They have been painted to make them look pretty on the fancy car tires.

I found one clip on ww that's actually marked zn. My hand is strong enough that I can clip 1/4-20 allthread with my lineman pliers, but I can't do much to that zn marked ww with a sidecutters.

Use this as your guide. All zinc WWs are that hard.

[old turtle]

38 SuperAuto,
I used pliers just as you show and it worked very well. The 80pounds of ww's had a few Fe and quite a few of the Zn. When I had a weight which was not marked and I could not dent it or it was questionable I put it with the zinc. Results were good.

[2wheelDuke]

Those are lead. They have been painted to make them look pretty on the fancy car tires.



Use this as your guide. All zinc WWs are that hard.

That's basically what I did. I also had lots of little "tips" of those kind of WW that came from the tire shop. They clip the WW with a dikes if they need less weight I guess when they're balancing sometimes.

I smelted my puny collection of WW's down last night and wound up with about 30 pounds.

I thought I'd sorted the stickons well, but a few zinc still sneaked in. I skimmed them off with the burning, sticky dross from the glue.

Somebody already posted a pic of them, they're rectangular with beveled sides and an "S" cast into them.

[badbob454]

an 's' cast into them where ? i dont remember seeing those

[mattbowen]

38 Super Auto;

Thanks for the warning, I am very new to casting and didn't know anything about the Zink, or steel ww. I just picked up about 70 lbs. of ww and would have just started melting them down to make some more ingets.

Thanks again.

Matt

[arjacobson]

These:



I am thinking are aluminum.

I have also tried to cut wheelweights with a razor bladed utility knife. If the razor drops into the metal and can peel off a shaving, its lead.

If it takes a lot of effort to cut into, it's NOT lead, but some other metal, steel, aluminum or maybe zinc??

I had some just like it (the ones marked 25 and 35) They were zinc!!! The bottom weight in the picture looks like lead and the other one I have no idea. I have noticed that most of the zinc weights I get that are NOT marked zn have only one number and no other markings-hope this helps a bit

[hgiigh33]

i have a quick question. On the strips of lead with the sticky foam on the back, how do you remove this foam stuff efficiently. it takes me like 5 minutes to get all that junk off of one strip of abut 10 with my hands. any better ways?

[stainless1911]

I prep my lead in a cast iron skillet, then pour it into ingots for my bullet making pot. Just throw them in, and let it burn off.

[hgiigh33]

what do you use to heat the skillet?
and would it be bad to throw it into my lee production pot IV without prepping it first? i had actually planned to just dump it into the lee pot, scoop out all the trash that floated to the top with a spoon with bottom holes, and then pour that into a mini muffin pan to make small mini muffin ingots that i would then use for good melting.

[hgiigh33]

oh and also, im really new to melting and i have a question. If you put in a one pound lead bar, but you only use say 2 ounces, what do you do with the rest of the lead that is left in the bottom of the pot? will it harden there and never be able to get out? can you just leave it and when your ready to melt again its just there, ready to be melted?

[zxcvbob]

i have a quick question. On the strips of lead with the sticky foam on the back, how do you remove this foam stuff efficiently. it takes me like 5 minutes to get all that junk off of one strip of abut 10 with my hands. any better ways?

You leave it and let it burn off. (they are not dirty, they are just prefluxed)

[SciFiJim]

what do you use to heat the skillet?
and would it be bad to throw it into my lee production pot IV without prepping it first? i had actually planned to just dump it into the lee pot, scoop out all the trash that floated to the top with a spoon with bottom holes, and then pour that into a mini muffin pan to make small mini muffin ingots that i would then use for good melting.

Don't use your bottom pour pot to render WWs. That introduces crud to the pour spout and causes drips.
This is what I use. I got the pot at the Goodwill store for a buck. It's 3 quarts and made out of stainless steel. A full pot of WWs will melt down to a third of a pot of lead. I wouldn't fill it any more than that because of the weight on the BBQ (its braced but still...)


I don't use the BBQ to cook with. The burners finally burned out and my kids bought me a really nice replacement.