Coating soft weights

[Hatul]

For those concerned about lead leaching from soft lead weights into the water and onto their gear and hands I finally found a practical solution.

I bought a FoodSaver V2490 vacuum sealer and use the 8 inch wide plastic roll. I seal the soft weight like you would seal your food. The trick is not to use too much vacuum as that makes the weight hard. I use the manual mode to Pulse vacuum to remove just enough air to keep the weight soft.

Every several dives one of the bags may leak and the weight needs to dry out and be resealed. Nevertheless I highly recommend this method for those concerned about leaching lead.

Adam

 

[muddiver]

Why don't you just dip the mesh weight bag in urithane paint to coat the lead pellets and let it drip dry?

 

[Hatul]

It's an idea but it's more difficult than vacuum sealing and I'm skeptical how durable it would be. Let me know if you try it.

Adam

 

[101recon]

Just curious....I wonder how much "weight" is lost due to the air also trapped in the bag.Since the weight remains "soft" it is not in a full vacuum.There is also a fair amount of space between the individual shot.My first thought is that it would negligable but I'm not sure.

Good idea.I'm always glad to see others looking out for the environment we all share.

 

[Thalassamania]

I suspect that the loss of weight is more than you'd suffer if you went to steel shot in the bags.

 

[Captain12Pk]

If lead is your concern why not use stainless steel shot?

Guess I should have read all the way to Thal's post before answering.

 

[Belmont]

Would there be some other possibility. I would have to look at the table of elements, what about alloys of Bismuth?

I checked:

Iron has an atomic number of 26, Lead of 82 and Bismuth of 83, so it is even heavier than Lead and AFAIK, not toxic.

 

[fairybasslet]

Oy. Something else to feel guilty about.

 

[Dirty-Dog]

You can buy a urethane "dip" at tool/hardware shops. It's basically how manufacturers put those nice, sticky, brightly colored grips on your $2 wrench. You end up with a thick, durable coating. I've never done weights, but it seems a reasonable, quick and cheap way to "seal" lead.

 

[Hatul]

You can buy a urethane "dip" at tool/hardware shops. It's basically how manufacturers put those nice, sticky, brightly colored grips on your $2 wrench. You end up with a thick, durable coating. I've never done weights, but it seems a reasonable, quick and cheap way to "seal" lead.

That was also the suggestion of Muddiver. It's a coating for tools but I'm not sure how much strength is would have in this application. I've used it for coating the finger-tips of dive glove, but again the strength here was provided by the underlying glove.

I hope someone tries it and reports back.

Adam