If you wash it to get rid of the grease, for god's sake (and yours) make
sure you get it absolutely dry before you put it into molten lead. You
DON'T want to be around when it starts spitting...

Pirate_Dave
--
In article , Brian Whatcott wrote:
On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 19:29:03 GMT, "Andrew Butchart"
wrote:

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

Lead melts around 328 degC
Paper and card char well below this.

Wood is in the same class, though the thicker, the more resistant.
I have used a brick form on concrete - the concrete tends to spall
explosive shards. Dry brick with fireclay seams could work for you.

Greasy lead will smoke badly, better wash it first? A soak in water
with Dawn detergent etc. Steel cans would hold up to casting temps.
They would probably be best?

Brian W

After quite a bit of thought, I ended up using a pretty low-tech
solution that worked well for me. YMMV

I picked up 4 small metal cake pans for 50 cents each - the ones with
the removable bottoms and dumped the wheel weights in there. With both
the front and back doors of the garage open to provide ventilation, I
used my soldering torch pointing into the pan to melt the weights and
picked out the clips with a pair of long pliers.

The advantages of this was that it wasn't complicated and did not
require handling molten lead. The amount of heat involved wasn't
difficult to come by as I was really only melting the top layer. I was
also able to tear off the pans fairly easily to end up with my finished
weights (the pans were cheap). I suspended an eyebolt in the pan at
the beginning with a nut and washer on it so I have a way to tie the
weights down and transport them. It only took moments for the
completed weights to solidify.

The disadvantages were that it did take a fair amount of time to do and
the resulting units still contain a fair number of clips and
half-melted weights so they're kinda ugly and dirty.

Each weight comes in at about 15lbs and I ended up with 4 which is
pretty much exactly the weight I wanted.

Why not use beer cans? Cut the top off, punch a hole in the bottom
through which you put your threaded bolt with a nut and washer (to
really hold it in the lead). Put the cans eye-bolt side down into a
pail of sand and pour. Later peel off the aluminum can and Voila.

My company used to be in a building with several other "shady" techie
entrepreneurs. One of them told me he was going to be working on a
"MRI" project so there would be delivery of a huge surplus MRI machine.
When it was delivered, the workers started bringing in large
(10"X10"X2"" very heavy pieces that were painted. Some had holes that
obviously aligned. I noticed the weight and asked what they were and a
worker told me they were "magnets for the MRI, thats why they are so
heavy". I walked over and scratched one with my key and said "magnets
hell, thats lead and thats a gamma ray machine you have there and
unless you have 10X that amount of lead you can stop delivery." The
other guy told me he thought I would be upset by an unlicensed gamma
ray source so he thought he would call it an MRI.
Later, he did obtain a LOT of lead bricks from some nuclear lab, it was
a couple tons and he had it loaded into the bed of his large truck
which he parked on a slight incline. Well, it was an old truck and he
had never bothered to see if its emergency brake would hold so the next
day the truck was found halfway through the wall of our building where
it had rolled. Even more impressive was the sight of so many lead
bricks that had spilled through the cab and collapsed the driver seat.