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Lead pieces, needs a name (Read 5161 times)

Camo-sling

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Lead pieces, needs a name
Feb 4^th, 2009 at 4:57am

Ive been finding and collecting these little lead pieces on the side of the road which i have reason to believe fall out of some older cars. Has anyone seen one or know what they are called?
They can be described as small lead pieces which are around 3cm long, oval shaped and include a small silver piece of metal which is embedded in the lead and sticks out of the shaped lead.

Anyhow, Ive been wondering if anyone could try to make lead glandes out of the pieces? that's if you find any?
At the moment i don't have any pieces that i can send out to people because i stopped collecting them and eventually threw them out or became lost in the garage?

See the picture below for reference. (birds eye view)

crap.bmp (223 KB | )

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Aussie Past Moderator Offline Joined Nov. 1, 2006 Luke 14:14 Posts: 3265 Melbourne, Australia Gender:	Re: Lead pieces, needs a name Reply #1 - Feb 4^th, 2009 at 5:05am They're wheel balancing weights. When you fit tyres to a car the wheel has to be balanced otherwise there's an almighty thumping at speed due to the centrifugal force if the tyre is out of balance. The little steel tongue is hammered in between the tyre and the rim.
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Camo-sling Interfector Viris Spurii Offline Forge your own path. Posts: 1419 Australia Gender:	Re: Lead pieces, needs a name Reply #2 - Feb 4^th, 2009 at 5:09am i see, is this in all cars? how often can these balancers pop out?
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Lycurgus Senior Member Offline [ch924][ch927][ch923 ][ch937][ch925] [ch923][ch913][ch914 ][ch917] Posts: 445 Coventry, England Gender:	Re: Lead pieces, needs a name Reply #3 - Feb 4^th, 2009 at 5:18am Aussie wrote on Feb 4^th, 2009 at 5:05am: They're wheel balancing weights. Of course they are, I was trying to wrack my brains but you have saved my little grey cells from exploding with the effort.
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Camo-sling Interfector Viris Spurii Offline Forge your own path. Posts: 1419 Australia Gender:	Re: Lead pieces, needs a name Reply #4 - Feb 4^th, 2009 at 5:19am Lycurgus wrote on Feb 4^th, 2009 at 5:18am: Aussie wrote on Feb 4^th, 2009 at 5:05am: They're wheel balancing weights. Of course they are, I was trying to wrack my brains but you have saved my little grey cells from exploding with the effort. lol
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Aussie

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Re: Lead pieces, needs a name
Reply #5 - Feb 4^th, 2009 at 5:28am

Camo-sling wrote on Feb 4^th, 2009 at 5:09am:

i see, is this in all cars? how often can these balancers pop out?

All cars need to have their wheels balanced, but not all wheels are the same. If you have machined alloy rims then a different type of weight tends to be used which doesn't have that little steel tongue. As far as how often they come out, it should be never or at least until the tyre is changed and the wheel re-balanced but of course they can work loose at times especially if you scrape against the gutter parking or they were poorly fitted initially.

PS Re your original question. They are just ordinary lead and as such could be used to cast lead glands but take care. Not only is the casting process potentially dangerous, the glands themselves are also more dangerous because they go further and hit harder. So unless you have a safe place to use them better stick with safer ammo.

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slingbadger Interfector Viris Spurii Offline Don't Badger a Badger Posts: 3245 Akron NY Gender:	Re: Lead pieces, needs a name Reply #6 - Feb 4^th, 2009 at 5:34am They are used to balance the wheels for proper alignment. The problem is that a good jolt can knock them off the tires. A mechanic or tire store probably has tons of them if you want more.
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Xenon Tiro Offline Slinging Rocks! Posts: 25	Re: Lead pieces, needs a name Reply #7 - Feb 4^th, 2009 at 12:24pm I always got so angry when I find an all-steel one...
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pedro

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Re: Lead pieces, needs a name
Reply #8 - Feb 4^th, 2009 at 2:57pm

Wheel weights can be dangerous to melt. Air pockets in them can make the pot of molten lead belch. If you know what you are doing with melting lead, go to a shooting range, and chances are you can get all you want for free, if you ask. If you don't know what you're doing with melting lead, there are target shooters who cast their own bullet heads; if you ask, someone can show you how to do this without getting hurt.

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Bikewer

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Re: Lead pieces, needs a name
Reply #9 - Feb 5^th, 2009 at 11:29am

Used to be the case that service stations would give away old wheel-weights for free; they are not re-used and it costs money to haul them off.

Likely with the increased price of metals today that's not the case...

Anyway, I used wheel-weights for bullet casting for years. They are made up of a good, hard alloy (tin and antimony) already, and you can actually add about 1/2 "pure" lead to 1/2 wheel-weights to get good bullet lead for knock-around shooting.

You do have to be careful when melting them; they tend to be dirty and all the accumulated road scum and such will vaporize. Also, the little steel clips will float to the surface like corks and must be skimmed off. Clean them up a bit before melting and only add a few at a time. I never had any problems.

I had three service stations that would give me a big can of weights for free every month or so.

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Curious Aardvark Forum Moderation Offline Taller than the average Dwarf Posts: 13965 Midlands England Gender:	Re: Lead pieces, needs a name Reply #10 - Feb 8^th, 2009 at 12:27pm Quote: Likely with the increased price of metals today that's not the case... lol - nope we're back to scrap being worth bugger all. Amazing how much difference a few months can make :-0)
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p8ntballa100 Novicius Offline Slinging Rocks! Posts: 8	Re: Lead pieces, needs a name Reply #11 - Feb 12^th, 2009 at 10:16pm isn't it tire not tyre?
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Aussie Past Moderator Offline Joined Nov. 1, 2006 Luke 14:14 Posts: 3265 Melbourne, Australia Gender:	Re: Lead pieces, needs a name Reply #12 - Feb 13^th, 2009 at 5:59am p8ntballa100 wrote on Feb 12^th, 2009 at 10:16pm: isn't it tire not tyre? In British and Australian usage it's tyre. (Tire is what happens to you when you have to lift too many tyres.)
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