What Do I Need To Know About Using Wheel Weights?

I had a chunk about 20 lbs one time. Tried hack saw no go. Fine tooth blades the lead clogs them up. Ended up borrowing a Sawsall with rough cut blade. More work than I want to take on again. I would say about 3 inches and about 6 inches long would be the biggest I would want to fool with. If you had a outside heat source like a fish fryer you could use and old pot and make something to pour it into to make ingots. Don't get mad at me but this fooling with hot lead is very dangerous and you need to take precautions when fooling with it.

Yes, Cray. Melted lead is a dangerous thing to mess with. You sure don't want to get any water in it. And you don't want to spill it on yourself. I watched my buddy trying to melt down about a 5 or 10 pound "hockey puck" of lead some years ago. He melted some off with a blow torch which I don't have & I was just wondering how I would go about melting down a big piece. That's why I thought the wheel weights would work. Because they are small.

GF

Be real careful melting down the big weights that come from overseas as they been known to add fillers to the molds before pouring the lead in. Be sure all your used lead is very dry before adding it to melted lead, any moister will make the lead pop and or explode.

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Originally Posted by Gill Fisher

Yes, Cray. Melted lead is a dangerous thing to mess with. You sure don't want to get any water in it. And you don't want to spill it on yourself. I watched my buddy trying to melt down about a 5 or 10 pound "hockey puck" of lead some years ago. He melted some off with a blow torch which I don't have & I was just wondering how I would go about melting down a big piece. That's why I thought the wheel weights would work. Because they are small.

GF

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You can use a base from a turkey cooker and an old cooking pot to melt down big pieces of lead and for cleaning it.

On the wheel weights caheck and make sure they don't have a Z, ZA, ZF, ZN or P-Zn they're Zinc and it can screw up your lead and you'll have to toss it - plus fumes from Zinc aren't good!!!

Fatman, I just looked at all the weights and none of them have a Z of any kind on them. My wife got them from a friend who said he was saving them to melt down to make jig heads but he was willing to share some of his stash with me. All the weights are of 2 or 3 specific shapes and types with the only difference being the amount of weight of each one. I don't know if he was saving out the ones that were the purist lead or not, but they are all very much alike. I can scratch almost all of them with my thumb nail and they look shiny where I scratched them. The ones that I can't scratch appear to be painted.

GF

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Originally Posted by Fatman

On the wheel weights caheck and make sure they don't have a Z, ZA, ZF, ZN or P-Zn they're Zinc and it can screw up your lead and you'll have to toss it - plus fumes from Zinc aren't good!!!

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weights with P, AW, AL stamped on them are usually good. Getting to be fewer and fewer of them. If You get zinc in them, it makes an alloy that is sludgy and does not pour worth a darn. You can thin the alloy down with good lead however. Then turn the heat all the way up on the pot and they will pour. Pain in the butt and I try hard to avoid. Any weights stamped Fe are steel weights and will not melt. That is what the wheel weights are going to.CF

I have 9 with "AL" 5 with "AW" 1 with "MC" but some of the "AL" ones also said MC. 2 or 3 that have "T3W" and 1 FN. And that's all of them. I think if I try to work with these, I'll melt down the "AL" ones first. They are the largest ones anyway.

I tried using unclean lead and man what a pain in the rump. Found out it wasn't worth the hassle for how little I pour. IMO better off buying some clean lead unless you are into mass production of large sinkers and have a lot of time to clean the lead.

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Originally Posted by arkansasbowhunter

I tried using unclean lead and man what a pain in the rump. Found out it wasn't worth the hassle for how little I pour. IMO better off buying some clean lead unless you are into mass production of large sinkers and have a lot of time to clean the lead.

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What did you have to do to clean it? How do you go about cleaning all the grime off the wheel weights?

Thanks