You don't say what the intended use is, but the eyebolt reminds me of
something I did years ago. I needed a counterweight for a trapdoor, and had
the lead - although it was not greasy it was roof flashings and probably
worse to melt than wheel weights.
I got some metal tins - "jam tins" about 700 grams capacity for jam, roughly
the size to give 10 lbs of lead.

Melted the lead in another pot - I fancy it was an old cast aluminium
saucepan. Ladled the lead it into the jam tin as it was melted. From memory
I drilled a hole in the bottom of the tin and put the eye bolt through it
with appropriate nuts and washers. In that application it did not matter if
the lead wasn't all liquid at once, and the tin remained as a permanent
container. End result ( after painting, the heat made the jam tin look
pretty sick ...) was a cylindrical weight with an eye bolt... permanently
encased in a jam tin. I had a gas ring large enough to melt about a pound
of lead, so my investment in the project was virtually nil.
I'll mention one safety issue - the biggest one as far as I'm concerned. If
there is ANY water in the lead or the form, you can splatter molten lead
everywhere. And you have to dispose of the dross.

Weights with eye-bolts don't sound very boat like, and if you can live with
the slightly larger size for the required weight, I'd consider selling the
lead as scrap and buying something else of an appropriate size.

The juice can looks another good option, wash the weights to remove most of
the oil, allow to dry, dip them in ( catalysed) resin, and drop them in the
cans. Don't bother to fill the voids, it adds little mass, adds costs, and
gets you into the heat generation issues of large volumes of resin. You
could use other stuff to lock the weights together ( old paint ? ) But if
you go down this path, don't ever think of using the weights for anything
else ...
David




"Andrew Butchart" wrote in message
...
I've come into possession of a quantity of lead wheel weights - about
70lbs
worth. I'd like to turn them into 10lb weights with an eyebolt on the
top.
One minor issue is that the weights were stored in an old grease pail and
so
are quite greasy.

As I see it I have three options:

- Melt it down and pour it into forms. The good thing with this, is that
the weights will be all lead. The bad thing is that I don't know how to
make forms - would wood be good enough, or old juice cans? Could I melt
the
lead on my BBQ - kitchen stove is out because of fumes of course. What
about the grease? Should I clean it off first? I'm not keen on this
method
because of all of the safety issues, but it give me the "best" and most
dense result.

- Use polyester resin and 1 litre cardboard milk cartons as a form to cast
a
weight. Would it hold together? Do I need to remove the grease from the
wheel weights?

- Put the weights into a large juice can and somehow seal up the top. I'd
worry about how solid this would be though.

Thanks

--
Andrew Butchart