Lead ID

Rally

NC Minnesota
Anyone have any ideas what this could be? It weighs 53 lbs. , and real soft. I'm thinking it is part of a keel kit for a sail boat. Just got it from a friend in Canada this last weekend.
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Also got some WW's and pewter from him. While sorting the WW today I came across a new zinc weight of a type I've not seen before. It's real smooth on the outside and painted a rather odd color. I'm thinking it could have come off an ATV tire rather than a car tire. New to any I've seen before anyway. First two letters on the top line of print are ZN.
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Pretty nice bunch of pewter also. Mostly beer mugs with the glass already knocked out. Little over 22 lbs total.
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fiver

Well-Known Member
the big one looks like a truck or tractor weight.
you would put a number of them on the front to keep the front end down when dragging a plow or pulling something with a smaller tractor.

good score on the pewter.
 

Rally

NC Minnesota
I thought about that also, but it has arrows pointing up and marked LH, with a cutout to resemble a keel shape. If the bolts were tightened evenly they could be used to form the shape to fit. It came from the south shore of Lake Winnipeg, where there is a lot of commercial fishing and boating/ sailing. Doesn't appear to have ever been used for much more than an anvil. Couple of hammer Smilies on the surface. It was part of 272 lbs of lead. Have you ever seen a WW like that one? Odd color (kind of a green hue to it)real smooth surface,and fast curvature to it. I'm guessing an ATV weight of some kind.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
I guess it could be for a 4 wheeler or a small trailer tire, but I have never seen a small tire like them get balanced before.

they paint the zn ww's to keep the zinc from oxidizing and pitting steel/aluminum rims.
high end stuff is usually plastic coated, I got a bunch of ww's from a BMW/Porsche dealership once and they were all coated to keep the clip from marring the rim, and the stick on ones were coated and painted.
the clip on type had a weird angle on them and were bent back around to mimic that shape so they fit the rim real close, they were also slimmer than normal and kind of a square shaped profile.
real good consistent alloy between the two types, but god what a pain to clean up.

I have heard of radiation shielding that was made to interlock in notches like that too.
it was generally used to shield instruments so they could be calibrated out in the field.
I have never seen it in person just heard it was notched to lock together.
 

Rally

NC Minnesota
The shield makes sense also. Would explain the holes and countersunk holes.
They are getting real creative with the new zinc weights of late. Real smooth transition from the clip to the weight. Tough to tell now without doing a pinch test. I'm getting a lot of coated weights now, and for sure they do some smoking in the plumbers pot. There were 27 lbs of steel, 14 lbs of zinc, and 7.5 pounds of junk in this batch. Five razor blades in the junk and a set of lower ball joints for good measure. Getting a lot more soww's now too. Never know what your going to get when the bucket is close to the tire machine.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
it used to be cigarette butts, valve stems, and razor blades, with the occasional tool tossed in for good measure.
now it's vape containers, and hair scrunches.
 

Rick

Moderator
Staff member
Ya forgot to mention the chewin tobacco, gotta love that all over everything. :)
 
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Ian

Notorious member
Dip spit, razor blades, valve stems and caps, the plastic labels off of new tires, screws, nails, failed patches, and 2" of random crap swept up off the floor, all fun stuff. constitutes about 1/4 of the stuff I usually get in the buckets.
 

Rally

NC Minnesota
The spit must be a southern thing, haven't had that delight yet! Gotta love it though when you find a whole strip of SOWW that's new and just stuck to each other. I've found a lot of razor blades, but five in one bucket was a first, but so was the pair of lower ball joints. Must be a Canadian thing, eh!
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
I was gonna mention chew earlier but I figured that was universal since most shops don't let their guy's smoke anymore.
 

Rally

NC Minnesota
I'll pass Rick.
I was set up at a Ks convention several years ago. My tables were at the end of a long island in the center of a building. The association had a benefit auction, on a raised stage adjacent to my tables. When it was done, and the people dispersed throughout the building, I noticed a Styrofoam coffee cup full to the rim with spit. Some wizard had set it in a stack of coiled rolls of cable, I had displayed for sale! Some folks just shouldn't be out in public.
My wife just retired from Wal Mart Thursday before last. She has some pretty good stories from working there for 28 years. It has become apparent, that some parents, believe the shelved merchandise is a good place to leave soiled diapers!!
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
meh..!
I got so I could change a diaper with one hand and eat with the other.
it teaches you focus.
 

Rick

Moderator
Staff member
meh..!
I got so I could change a diaper with one hand and eat with the other.
it teaches you focus.

Changing your own kids diaper (at home, not in the meat section of Walmart) and in a store reaching to pick up something and sticking your fingers into someone else's diaper are two completely different things me thinks. o_O
 

Rally

NC Minnesota
I cut that big piece up today and got it in ingots. Plumbers pot full it looked like gold! Something other than lead in it for sure.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
gold would be tin.
most shielding bricks and such will have 1 to 1-1/2 % tin or antimony in them.
I got some shielding flat pieces that I knew was 1% antimony for my bullet swaging cores, should have grabbed more, nobody else really wanted the stuff.
 

Rally

NC Minnesota
That's a good thing. Sounds dead soft when I drop an ingot though. I've got plenty of mono left still.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
tin alloys that low will have a slightly raised BHN number but will act dang near like pure lead.
if it were mine I'd go with it having 1% tin, and mix accordingly.
once you start getting up to 2.5-3% tin it starts showing up on the BHN scale well enough to be sure something is there.