Wheel Weights covered in oil

rdl212

rdl212

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Recently sorted through a number of buckets of wheel weights to end up with 500lbs to melt down. To be expected there was lots of paper, rubber, dirt, old pizza crusts, and even a few razors - they were fun. One of the workers at the tire store must have been in a hurry to dump some oil one day as well - one of the buckets had about 1/2 litre of oil in the bottom - which obviously soaked the wheel weights in the bottom of the bucket. I still kept them, but now am wondering if they are still safe to melt down - thinking of the whole water and steam issue - initially I thought no problem but am now looking for some input prior to proceeding. Any thoughts?
 
They are safe to melt. They will smoke as the oil boils or burns off.
Wet wheel weights are fine when they are put in a cold pot and then heated. The water will boil off long before the lead melts.

The "steam" problem is this. If you already have molten lead and you allow water to get UNDER the surface of the lead it will turn to steam rapidly in an explosive manner, and can throw lead all over. Water on the surface will just turn to steam and boil off.
 
Put them in the cold pot. As the lead melts the oil will burn off. You only have to worry about lead explosions if you drop wet wheel weights, or liquid into an already molten pot of lead.
 
Just make sure you have great ventilation, but it will burn off. You should have great ventilation when smelting down wheel weights anyway, so you can probably operate as normal.
 
the oil will smoke, allot, make sure you do it in front of yo least fav' neighbors window.
start the melting session with the oily WW first.
so the oil warms up and burns off Vs putting cold oil in a molten pot.
 
Thanks for the comments guys. CGN'rs are a great resource.

Good point about the neighbors Phishroy - I have a couple that have one of those "wood doctor" units that I'm sure they burn garbage in, but only when the wind is in my direction. Maybe it is time for some pay back(ha ha).
 
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