Thread: HELP! Where's the Wheel Weight lead gone?

So I went and got a bucket of wheel weights from the local tire guy and what would you know 2/3 steel, 2/6 stick-on made of something different (lead/zinc?) and 1/6 max what i was after :-(

Any suggestion on where to get the real deal or maybe someone has a hording of weights they may want to part with (I will even pay with Waikato if required).

As Bob Dylan said "Time's are a changing". Lead is now considered to be a Hazardous product so there is movement over to Zinc weights ,I did not know of steel ?. So to counter this toxic material ,it's out . The flat square ones should be of pure lead .
Your only hope is to secure it while you can from where you can get it or to get a local foundry to make up whatever recipe you want ?.

hmmm yes some of the square ones were quite hard and some obviously soft lead. But yes steel seems to predominate.

I saw a lead keel from a yacht being cut up with a chainsaw once... go ask a scrap metal dealer for some.

Thought of making a driving band out of something else that's cheap and swaging it onto the cast bullets?

Wheel weights have gone the way of Linotype, unobtainium.
Straangely I tried to give away about 20 kg of lead on here a few years back and it was hard work! nobody wanted it, a lot was already into ingots and #2 lyman mix.
I gave a lot to a guy at work to make sinkers.

If you ever see anyone recovering large older telecom cables from ducting or inground......many were lead wrapped, You could have a shot (pun intended)

Or just cast the zinc weights?

Originally Posted by Cordite

Or just cast the zinc weights?

Nah they don't cast well and make terrible slag.

Originally Posted by johnd

Wheel weights have gone the way of Linotype, unobtainium.
Straangely I tried to give away about 20 kg of lead on here a few years back and it was hard work! nobody wanted it, a lot was already into ingots and #2 lyman mix.
I gave a lot to a guy at work to make sinkers.

If you ever see anyone recovering large older telecom cables from ducting or inground......many were lead wrapped, You could have a shot (pun intended)

Originally Posted by 40mm

I saw a lead keel from a yacht being cut up with a chainsaw once... go ask a scrap metal dealer for some.

I tried, he was out of it all together. I will try and visit again at some stage.

Originally Posted by 300CALMAN

I tried, he was out of it all together. I will try and visit again at some stage.

Pull the lead head nails off your neighbours roof.....

Originally Posted by 257weatherby

Pull the lead head nails off your neighbours roof.....

I would love to try explaining that to Mr Plod...

Yeah all the new ones are zink

You are better to use pure lead and add tin to suit anyway I use 20-1 in my black powder rifles
Some use 16-1 that’s why it’s good you add enough tin to get the hardness you want

Wheel waights are not adjustable unless you want to go harder
I have a really reliable Source of both pure lead and tin which most won’t have available to them though
Definitely getting harder to find good Sources

Originally Posted by berg243

have heaps of old lead sleeves from when i was a cable jointer .

That would indeed be useful

Or any other lead scrap