Stickies?

[hawkeye1]

Through the last couple years I have accumulated a full five gallon bucket of stick on wheel weights. Does anyone melt these down? Seems like with all that glue or tape on each one it would be a terrible mess. Is it worth it? Are these stick ones pure lead? Just curious what I oughta do with them. Thoughts?

[GhostHawk]

Well while I have never smelted them myself, I have used them. Half COWW's, half soft lead be it stick ons, range scrap, lead pipe, etc, and 1% pewter or tin.

Makes a good mix that works for everything but high velocity Rifle. And with a little more pewter, Lino, or tin it does not do bad for that.

2% is about max for tin, if you need more use Antimony.

[Nobade]

Yes they make a nasty mess and yes I like using them because they are soft enough for most muzzleloading bullets. Not soft enough for minie type bullets though. I just melt them outside, stand upwind, and skim the crud off with a big spoon.

[Sasquatch-1]

Definitely a use in swaging and muzzleloading. Smelt outside. Well worth the smoke.

[MrWolf]

They are easy to clean before smelting. I take a bucket, put in any leftover mineral spirits, acetone, etc and just put a lid on and let them sit a few days. Adhesives and backing just fall off. That worked for me. Good luck.
Ron

[Winger Ed.]

I have melted them down in years past.
All the ones I had were more or less pure Lead.

Yeah.... The smoke is something to behold too.
After the first batch and the stink & smoke came up--- I started smelting them down fairly late at night,
and in the Winter when the neighbors didn't have their doors or window open.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

There are a couple tricks to deal with the sticky glue during schmelting.

[Rickf1985]

I have found them to be a mix of soft lead and the same as regular wheel weights. If I get long strips I run a wire wheel in a drill over the tape and it get most of it off. I don't spend a lot of time on it. Singles are too hard to hold with the wire wheel so they go in whole and stand upwind. But I like Wolfs idea of soaking the gunk off ahead of time. Since I melt at 650-700 to prevent any zinc contamination the less trash floating on top the easier it is to spot any zincs mixed in with the clips and stuff.

[gwpercle]

Great source of nearly pure , dead soft lead .
When the tape gets some age and dirt on it , you can pull / pry it off the back of the lead strip . If the tape is still new , I take my sharp knife and just slide it between lead and adhesive tape , cutting / slicing most of it off ... once you have most of the tape off then melting is no problem ... it doesn't need to be completely removed just the largest part will do ... the sharp knife slices it off like butter...
It is good clean lead ... I would rather have it than dirty dug up range scrap .
Gary

[lightman]

I've melted a lot of them. Either do it outside or in a well ventilated space. I light the smoke as soon as it starts and that helps. To me, its not worth the effort to remove the glue but to each their own!

There is one style thats alloy is similar to clip-on weights. Its painted and has raised letters and a raised border around it. There is a picture of it in the wheelweight stickies. The rest are 99% or more pure lead.

When I'm smelting my years accumulation of scrap I melt the stick-on weights together with any sheet or plumbing lead that I have. Test come back to show that its more than 99% pure lead.

[hawkeye1]

Thanks for the quick responses. I think I’ll just have to try melting them down. Might see if I can get some of the tape off first, will see. Thanks again guys!

[oley55]

I've melted a lot of them. Either do it outside or in a well ventilated space. I light the smoke as soon as it starts and that helps. To me, its not worth the effort to remove the glue but to each their own!

There is one style thats alloy is similar to clip-on weights. Its painted and has raised letters and a raised border around it. There is a picture of it in the wheelweight stickies. The rest are 99% or more pure lead.

When I'm smelting my years accumulation of scrap I melt the stick-on weights together with any sheet or plumbing lead that I have. Test come back to show that its more than 99% pure lead.

This^^^. The glue n goo can be nasty and stick to the edges of my smelting pot (NOT my casting pot). I will generally crank the heat up higher than needed to improve the glue burning process.

[rbuck351]

Soak them in gasoline for a couple of days and the crud will fall off.

[jsizemore]

We got together and pooled some SOWW's to be XRF'd. Our hero, BNE, ran and posted the tests. The painted ones are about like COWW's. The unpainted ones are lead. There's a sticky on the Lead and Lead Alloys page.

Soak them in some mineral spirits or gasoline. Most of the tape and glue falls off. The little that remains produces way less smoke.

[Land Owner]

I would in all likelihood melt them together, unwashed, outside and not do any more to them than I would for COWW's. Use copious amounts of flux. Cool in 2 to 3-pound ingots. Use the Pencil Test on a few ingots for verification of BHN at or near soft lead [5 to 6]. Mark as LEAD for use later in mixing alloys or straight - no chaser - in BP guns.

Most assume SOWW's to be soft lead, but as mentioned, test and verify. Some may well be disguised COWW's.