Lucky Lead Find...

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TexasDon

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Piney Woods of Texas
I'm soooo happy. Today I had a tire fixed at a small town tire shop that I use.
The guy there said he had something for me. It was a 5 gallon bucket almost 3/4 ways full of good old wheel weights.
It took 3 men to put it in the truck bed, and all were grunting..!!

When I got home I fired up the old propane plumbers pot and ended up with 94 pretty little ingots. :)

Boy am I happy tonight.

Last time I got WW's from him, he wanted to know if I made fishing sinkers.
I gave him a BUNCH of them last time and he remembered. So being nice to them helps a whole lot....;)

TxDon
 
Sweet.
I get them from a few shops around here. I pay anywhere from $35 to $45 for a full bucket and consider that cheap, as I get 100+ pounds of clean ingots from each bucket.

When I get them, I back up to the lift and have them raise it up to bed level. Then you're only moving it a couple of feet. ;)
 
A lift would have been great, but it's a little shop without one.
But there are 2 young guys there just wanting to show off how strong they are...:D

Other places I visit ask for $30 for a 5 gallon bucket not quite full.
And thats heavy enough.

Back when...They were happy for me to TAKE them off their hands. But those days are over.

TxD
 
I love working deals on lead. a couple weeks back I traded a pound of powder(cost me $22) and 300 38 bullets(half hour of my time) for a bucket of wheel weights. I ended up with about 80lbs of clean lead. not the best, but I might be able to melt down the 50lbs of zinc and make a trade at the scrap yard.

This week I traded someone 1000 cast 45 bullets(about 2 hours of my time) for 130 pounds of clean ready to cast ingots. A few bucks in electric and ~12 hours behind the lead pot, I will have ~5,500 bullets.
 
You done good for sure.

The oldest grandson and I dropped into one of the scrap places up around the Palestine area one Saturday to swap off some copper he had been breaking down. They had a pile of WW's that was about 10' across at the bottom and about 4' tall. I asked about buying a bucket of them or swapping the copper for some and they just laughed and said nope, we don't do that here.

Needless to say they won't get anymore business from us.
 
Sweet.

Years ago, when we removed a section of lead sheath cable we had a deal with a guy that had the pot and torch. He made us 4oz sinkers and we split 50/50.

That cable weighed 7 pounds a foot. Sure wish we had gotten the contract for removing the 15 or so miles of it.......
 
Good deal there, Don. I'm getting rather desperate out here in Colorado. Cant find any deals like that!
 
Wheel weights are getting hard to find around here, unless you already have a source. None of the chain shops will let you have it, they all sell to a recycler, "to save the environment". The small local guys all seem to have 'a guy' they give/sell their WW to.

I lucked into about 250 lb of lead telephone cable sheath a couple years ago, but that source has dried up for me. It will last for awhile, but when it's gone, I will likely have to buy lead, if it's still legal.

Meanwhile, one of my dog walk routes passes a tire shop. I usually find a few WWs along the gutter. It's not much, but better than nothing. What's sad is, nearly half of the weights I find on the ground are steel or zinc. :mad: A growing trend, I'm afraid.
 
41 Mag
You done good for sure.

The oldest grandson and I dropped into one of the scrap places up around the Palestine area one Saturday to swap off some copper he had been breaking down. They had a pile of WW's that was about 10' across at the bottom and about 4' tall. I asked about buying a bucket of them or swapping the copper for some and they just laughed and said nope, we don't do that here.

Needless to say they won't get anymore business from us.
__________________
Click to expand...

I have not hit any of the scrap yards in Palestine yet. I do most of my "scrounging" for lead around Crockett and a little more south.
Some of the scrap yards won't deal any longer, and some will not let you look around because they say it's policy????

A couple of years ago I had several cars and trucks I brought to a scrap yard, since I was bringing in so much, we made several deals on lead. It was a good year for lead hunting for me....
I found the smaller the tire shop, the more friendly they are.
Discount tire told me to take a hike..!!!!:eek:

TxD
 
The last time I made a deal on wheel weights was when I got 4 lead wheel weights for $350. They did come with a free set of tires, but I had to remove the wheel weights myself before taking the car into the tire shop. :). Holding those wheel weights, I felt like that little critter on "Lord of the Rings" with his precious..
 
Strange enough I was at a small neighborhood automotive garage waiting outside to talk to the owner.
As I was standing at the door opening I looked at the ground and found a handful of lead wheel weights.
I snatched them up...Now I had heavy pockets.
I started looking around in other places and found a lot more just on the ground.
Went to my truck and got a small cardboard box and almost filled it up just while waiting to talk to a friend.
Hmmmm...I'm always looking on the ground when at those type places. Every little bit helps....:D

My next hunting trip will be at a small town plumbing business.
I stopped by there a few years ago and got a bunch of used pure lead roof vent caps.
I have several large 5 lb. ingots of #4 Hardware Babbitt that I mix with pure lead to get something close to Lyman #2.
I don't have a lead hardness tester, but with my scratch & dent redneck hardness test it's pretty close.:rolleyes:

It's almost imposable to find good lead WW's now, even harder to find them for sale locally...Shipping is very high for being so heavy. But I may have to go that route one day.
So far, I keep getting a few here and there which add up fast.
I must keep my hungry bottom pour furnace fed...!!

Thanks for all the replies.
It's been fun.


TxDon
 
...thus is the miracle of powdercoating. Once my WW source dries up I'll switch to pure lead that's abundant and start coating the suckers.
 
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