OLD wheel weights composition ?

[yovinny]

I was recently gifted about 200lbs of lead weights that were said to be 'stock car' weights.and like from the 60's..
They look home cast in like a loaf cake pan with bolt holes drilled through them.
I brought a couple down to the recycle/scrap yard and had them tested with their gun and was kind of surprised...as I thought they would be made from wheel weights, but they seem too pure.. Results all averaged about the same at 97.6% Pb & 1.38% Sn
Were older wheel weights a different composition then newer ones,, or does anyone have any idea what this lead might have been salvaged from ?
Not that it really matters much,, I'm over joyed their so nice,, I'm just really curious...

[bangerjim]

Who Cares? You now know what is in them, so use them and be glad of the free alloy!

[Winger Ed.]

They probably scrounged it too, and it's just what they found and used.
I'd guess it's mostly Plumber's or roofer's Lead with some regular wheel weights thrown in.

[dondiego]

Scrap lead was made in to many useful things and whatever was available at the time was used.

[farmerjim]

Wheel weights that I bought for $0.05 per pound back in the 60's were 7% Sb and had a bit of arsenic in them.

[jsizemore]

Looks like you got water pipe or roof flashing boots with solder joints. My older WW's had higher Sb and Sn.

[gwpercle]

The makeup of clip on wheel weights varied a lot between maker and over the years .
Every chart I see shows a slightly different composition . the following is from a bhn chart and gives the COWW a bhn of 9

Clip On Wheel Weights - 95% Lead / 0.5 % Tin / 4% Antimony / 9 bhn

If the ingots were used in drag racing ... the composition probably includes scrap plumbers lead , lead shoer pans , lead roof sheathing , 50-50 bar solder , soldered plumbing joints , clip-on and stick-on wheel weights ... the only thing they were used for in racing was to add weight to various parts of the car.
In those days zinc wasn't in wheel weights or construction . In the car shop 50-50 bar solder was used in body work ... pre bondo . I used a lot of 50-50 for the tin content and it probably explains the 1.38% of tin in the mix ... these were car guys who probably spent a lot of time in a car shop and had access to 50-50 bar solder .
That's great that you had it analyzed ... you know what you have and can go from there !
Gary

[lightman]

Wheel weights that I bought for $0.05 per pound back in the 60's were 7% Sb and had a bit of arsenic in them.

This has been my experience with older weights too. My guess is jsizemore is about right with what you have.

Most of the dirt track car weights that I have had were mostly wheelweights, probably because of the close relationship between cars, garages, wheels, ect in the racing world. But there was no standard.

[yovinny]

Like I said,, I was just curious,, but I appreciate all the responses.
I was just pretty shocked these turned out to be such pure lead with tin,, I was really expecting them to not only have some antimony,, but most likely a bunch of other crap from salvaged battery cores. Guess I'll just count myself as lucking into a good score !!

[jsizemore]

I feel lucky to find a stray WW laying on the side of the road or parking lot.

[Rickf1985]

THIS is when you know you have hit the jackpot! This was a score that I found that came from the estate of an old reloader. The first pic is a thousand pounds and the second is 500 pounds. There is zero zinc of steel in any of that! it is all sorted lead!!!!! The second batch had been stored outside in an open drum so the clips had rusted and it was a bit messy for smelting out of the 1500lbs. of weights I got about 1370 lbs. of clean ingots and the rest was the clips. You are looking at the most unlucky guy in the world when it comes to finding anything like this but here you are. The stuff is out there. I paid $.50 lb. for the wheel weights since I bought over 500 lbs. The first trip was the thousand pounds and I did not get the rest of them because someone else had called and said they wanted 500 lbs. I told the guy I would wait a week since he had rescheduled that guy due to my long drive. Called back in a week and the 500lbs. were still there and I was back the next day for them.





And just to rub some salt in here is a bit of the other stuff I got along with the wheel weights. The shiny bars on the left are suspected tin, I need to get this all tested. Not shown are four full lino ingots.

[centershot]

Wheel weights you say?.......

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...eight-XrF-Data