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Old July 4, 2007, 11:56 AM   #1
Namerifrats
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Wheel weight sorting

I've searched and read alot of other post similar to this subject. My concern is the sorting process. What's good and whats trash. I don't want any Zinc messing up my alloy. From what I've gathered, the "regular" wheel weights are lead alloy that contain some Antimony, correct? The flat stick on weights are pure lead. Single flat weights with a Z stamp are Zinc and are garbage. Some of the steel clips are Zinc coated. So thats what I know so far, correct me on anything if I was wrong. I'm planning to go through and sort the pure lead from the alloy, toss the garbage, and wash the dirt and dust off of the good lead (of course letting it dry because I don't plan to smelt until maybe next week at the earliest).
So what I'm after, is whats good, whats trash, what to lookout for. And when I go to smelt, what can I do about any possible Zinc or Zinc coating? I don't have a thermometer yet, but when I get one what is a good temp to melt at to separate the trash and zinc with out causing any zinc to melt before turning it up to a bit higher temp. I plan to smelt in lots of 10-15 lbs at a time incase I lose a batch to contamination. Is this good pratice?
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Old July 4, 2007, 12:29 PM   #2
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If you leave your pot to sit for an hour or so all the unwanted dross will float to the top where you can skim it off. Zinc is lighter than lead so it SHOULD float to the top also. Culling your WWs is a good idea to minimize the amount of non lead contaminants. The only problem is that any tin in the mixture will also float and be lost. Fluxing will alloy the tin back in but may put the zinc back in as well. Avoid babbitt metal like the plague, as there there are different types of babbitt, and most will contain some zinc. Hope this helps. CB
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Old July 4, 2007, 02:02 PM   #3
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Oh man I'm glad you told me that. My dad is a Supervisor for a lumber sawmill and said he could get me alot of Babbit that they use on some of the blades. I'll tell him not to bother.
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Old July 4, 2007, 05:01 PM   #4
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Wheel weights are destined to become a poor source of "shootin' lead" as the manufacturers are going to "Lead Free" weights.

Got to "Think Green" you know.

First plumbers lead and now weights. Pretty soon the only source of cheap lead will be from the bullet traps at indoor ranges and some of that probably used to be your lead
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Old July 4, 2007, 07:27 PM   #5
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Zinc melts at 787 degrees. So without a thermometer you won't know when that point is reached. Since you didn't mention what your heat source is, you might get that high without knowing it. You might better wait until you have a thermometer.

Quote:
Zinc is lighter than lead so it SHOULD float to the top also.
Nope! The zinc WILL instantly alloy with the lead, then it's just about impossible to get it out. It causes the lead to act "gummy" it won't fill out a mold.
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Old July 4, 2007, 09:25 PM   #6
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Good info, where could I get a good thermometer. I'd like to fid one local if I could. I have a Harbor Freight and similar stores around.
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Old July 5, 2007, 09:16 AM   #7
macmuffy
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Smelting Wheel Weights

Forget Harbor freight. Only get ut to abour 450 F.
try Northern Tool. http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/w...6949_200316949
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Old July 5, 2007, 10:26 AM   #8
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During the time I was in my mid-twenties until the time I was in my late-thirties, every cartridge I fired was a handload. In my pistols and revolvers, every bullet was cast.

I had +1000 pounds that I had hauled away from gas stations and businesses that changed tires. Who knows what alloy they were, and there was too many of them to test or sort.

A friend of mine suggested a large device called a "plumbers pot." It's a large vat for melting metal back in the day when joints were built from scratch and body guys "mudded" defects in fenders.

It took us a couple of week ends, but we melted the wheel weights and poured them into Lyman ingots. (The little Lyman ingot trays got so hot we had to dunk them in a bucket of water.)

The upside to this procedure was that the process got the metal so hot that virtually all of the impurities of the slag and dross burnt off.

When I would cast my bullets, the pot stayed very clean, and it was only at the end of the day when the surface had any kind of a yellow tinge. As a side benefit, it seemed like the alloy needed less solder and almost no tin to make good bullets.

In conjunction which this, I always use a bit of Nevr-Dull on a jag when I clean my gun barrels. Over time, the barrels get very shiny.

I still have some coffee cans of these old bullets. They are still silvery in color, and with the shiny rifling, they don't seem to lead.

I gave my Lewis Lead Remover away to a friend.
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Old July 5, 2007, 11:29 AM   #9
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I have a Northern Tool 10 minutes from my house but thats a bit more than I had planned to pay for a thermometer. I'm hoping to find one between $30-50. Anybody have one of those from Bill Ferguson, it's $41?
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Old July 5, 2007, 07:28 PM   #10
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http://www.midwayusa.com/eproductpag...204&t=11082005

This is the one I just bought. Before that I guessed! It works quite well, just how accurate it is,,, I have no clue. Without a lab thermometer to check it with, who knows? BUT it registers what the temp of the lead is. Dropping cold lead in a hot pot makes it instantly register the drop in temp, then starts back up as the thermostat kicks it on.

I dunno if I'd park it on the edge of a smelter pot with a gas fire under it. The hot gases going up the side might cook the dial! It reads quick enough to just test the melted lead, then remove it.
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