Price of wheel weights

[typz2slo]

I think at this point you take what you can get within reason.

[Black Powder Bill]

I was taking the steel weights and selling them with my scrap steel @ .09c a pound at the time. Didn't think to take the zinc ones and sell as zinc with metal clips. Zinc brings as much as Alu. if the scrap yard doesn't try to screw ya.

[mold maker]

I still get them free from one shop and have 2 dentist that still haven't gone modern. Thank goodness I stocked up when nobody else worried and there were no zinc and Fe.
Oooooh for the days of a bucket a week for a box of Krispy Kremes ever so often, or a pizza.

[typz2slo]

double post

[Rottweiler]

Oooooh for the days of a bucket a week for a box of Krispy Kremes ever so often, or a pizza.

A cold 12 pack of Bud light on a Friday afternoon used to get me every used wheelweight in any tire shop around here, and a couple boxes of brand new ones if the boss wasn't looking

[typz2slo]

I was taking the steel weights and selling them with my scrap steel @ .09c a pound at the time. Didn't think to take the zinc ones and sell as zinc with metal clips. Zinc brings as much as Alu. if the scrap yard doesn't try to screw ya.

Scrap steel here is .03c a pound here as of yesterday. I sorted out all the zinc and got .30c lb for them. They didnt want my copper bullet jackets because they didnt think they were all copper. I will melt those in my kiln and stockpile them until the price goes up. I have about 30lbs in a bucket so far.

[fatelk]

They didnt want my copper bullet jackets because they didnt think they were all copper. I will melt those in my kiln and stockpile them until the price goes up.

I've wondered about that myself: melting copper jackets into ingots just to see if I could. The one thing that concerns me though is the possibility of what little lead residue is on the jackets vaporizing at the temperature necessary to melt the copper.

I have a relative who used to mess with scrap metal a lot and melted a fair amount of aluminum. He says his doctor told him he has "aluminum poisoning" because of it. I don't want to be paranoid, but I certainly don't want to take risks with my health out of curiosity or to save a few bucks. I wonder if there's a good way to make a small furnace/kiln to safely avoid toxic metal fumes?

[Black Powder Bill]

A hefty exhaust fan to move the fumes out would help. Like we said at work, "the solution to polution is dilution"!

[jrayborn]

I made an unfortunate mistake that has actually turned into a stroke of good fortune. About 5 years ago I posted a Craigs List ad looking to buy wheel weights for .30 a pound. Had a guy from Scarborough answer my ad and ask how much I wanted, so of course I said "all you have". Turns out he owns a Tire Warehouse and had been saving them for years. After 4 trips I ended up with just about 4000 pounds of ingots. At the time I wasn't sure it was a good idea to buy them but I can see it clearly was now.

I did the same thing with some Linotype the next year and have 1500 pounds of that now too.

I'm done now.

[jbltwin1]

GEEZ, that's a LOT of lead! You win! Mike.

[dragon813gt]

They didnt want my copper bullet jackets because they didnt think they were all copper.

That's because they never are. The jackets are a gilding metal. They would be foolish to pay you copper prices. They should give you red brass price for them. If they are concerned about steel a magnet quickly removes them. There a few by me that will take them. And I won't lie. I've been paid copper price for them when the yard owner wasn't around and one of the lackeys was allowed to divvy out the cash

[jason280]

I've been trying to stock up on lead myself, and sttrying arming what to buy, what to avoid, etc...Local scrap yard will sell me lead for $0.22/lb, but their selection is slim, and they rarely have much. I was able to get around 15lbs of fishing weights, and just snagged 60+ lbs of wheel weights, but I have to go through the WW and see how much is usable lead and how much is zinc. I know the local tire shops sell bulk wheel weights by the 5 gallon bucket for $35, but once again, it's hard to say how much is lead vs zinc. I do know a bucket has to weigh well over 100 lbs, if not 150, so it may be a decent deal.

[Quickdraw4u]

In North Georgia, I pay $30 for a full 5 gallon bucket of wheel weights from the tire store. Average breakout is 75% Lead COWW;15% Lead SOWW; 8% Steel; and 2% Zinc coww's and soww's. Also seeing more tungsten sand/rubber stick on's in the bucket (completely worthless). Not to mention dirt, snack bags, tobacco plugs and cigarette butts- yuck! My buckets average about 135 pounds apiece. Of course it takes me hours to sort them all out. I would not want to do this for a living! Getting ready to take the steel and the zinc to the metal recycler. Fortunately not much zinc here yet and Georgia is not likely to outlaw lead anytime soon.

[typz2slo]

I've wondered about that myself: melting copper jackets into ingots just to see if I could. The one thing that concerns me though is the possibility of what little lead residue is on the jackets vaporizing at the temperature necessary to melt the copper.

I have a relative who used to mess with scrap metal a lot and melted a fair amount of aluminum. He says his doctor told him he has "aluminum poisoning" because of it. I don't want to be paranoid, but I certainly don't want to take risks with my health out of curiosity or to save a few bucks. I wonder if there's a good way to make a small furnace/kiln to safely avoid toxic metal fumes?

l found out I could but it took over 2 hours with my electric kiln. Now that I know I can I dont need to do it again. I probably spent more in electricity than I can get for the copper.

[sandman228]

well I just finished smelting down the 2 buckets full I mentioned earlier in this tread plus a 3rd bucket same size from same seller for same price these look to be roughly 4 gal buckets that tire mounting lube/compound comes in . after sorting I ended up with a half of bucket of steel , zinc ,ect .after smelting I ended up with an almost full bucket of clips . now the good part , I ended up with 300+ lbs of clip on ww ingots ,308 to be exact but I'm allowing for my ingots to be a tad shy on weight and calling it 300 , plus I ended up with 4 lb of soft lead ingots from stick on ww's . I wasn't crazy about the price of 35$ per bucket when I 1st bought them because I didn't think there was as much in them as there really was . but all and all 105$ for 300+ lb put me in the ball park of .35 per lb I'm pretty happy with that considering the last I bought from a scrap yard I paid .90 per lb

[Chris24]

I finally have a steady source of WWs. Once or twice a month, I pay $25-30 per 5 gallon bucket. It's pretty clean; no blades or trash. It's only about 20-25% steel and zinc, usually. The shop does a lot of big diesel trucks, so I see a lot of 3,4,5, and even 6 ounce weights. The last bucket was about 150 pounds unsorted, and it made about 116 pounds of ingots.

[RogerDat]

The price of WW's at tire stores is someplace between what the scrap yards and dealers will pay the tire store and what those same scrap yards will sell them to you at. Assuming the scrap yards sell lead, not all do. Might have to look around. Call scrap yards and ask what they will pay per pound of WW's figure a little bit more than is what I offer the tire store.

Paying the tire store a bit more than the scrap yard will pay them just makes sense. Who are you going to sell to? The person that pays you better price. If you are buying lead WW's from scrap yards that source probably sets the high price point if you can buy plenty at that source and price.

However if you live in a market where the tire stores have found bullet casters willing to pay a high premium price right at the store your sort of hosed from that source and may find fewer flowing into scrap yards if many tire stores are selling directly to casters.

At some price point depending on percentage of lead WW's to scrap in the bucket it just starts to make sense to buy COWW ingots in Swapping and Selling here. No clips, scrap or need to smelt before use. I can't say exactly what that price or scrap ratio makes the S&S ingots a better deal but how much you paid per pound for the final weight of clean ingots from scrap tells you what you need to know about picking a better deal.

[Chris24]

You're exactly right. The scrap yards here pay about $.18-.20/lb. I pay $.20-.25 and the shop gladly gives me all they have. The scrapyards sell for $1/lb., so I'm getting a great deal.

[BigEyeBob]

Today, I thought I would hit a few tire shops to get a few wheel weights to add to my bucket. So as I have done in the past I called the scrap yard to see what they were paying. I figure I ought to pay at least scrap price so as to try and be fair about it and no one gets cheated. So I called the local scrapyard and to my surprise they are paying .40 a pound for wheel weights and .50 for soft lead I repeated that I wanted to know what they were paying and he repeated those prices.
At .50 a pound for lead reclaimed shot, will be well worth the effort and I might be building that bullet trap real soon there is no sense in wasting any more. It will be profitable very quick to build the trap.
In the end I did not get time to look any way but I am still surprised at the high price. How much are they in your area??
Thanks Nate

I pay 21cents a kilo (thats AUD cents ) ,my scrapyard has a pallet with probably 500, -600 kilos aboard . Too much for me to unload at home and they are a mixture of stickons , clipons zinc and steel .
When I asked he said I could sort out what I want and leave the rubbish behind , so I will take some 25 litre buckets and sort them out and pay for them when I fill the buckets. 25 liter bucket full is the maximum I can lift down out of my ute by myself.