Here's what we did.
We initially took small plastic bags (sandwich bags etc), poured the measured out lead shot into these then sealed them making sure there was a little air trapped inside as possible.
Next we made some lightweight nylon inner pouches in the dimensions that we wanted and placed the bagged lead shot into those and stitched them closed.
Once the inner bags were sealed properly, we took a small needle and punched a few small holes through the nylon and into the plastic bags to make sure they were NOT air tight.
Our pouch outer bags were made from 1000 denier Cordura we picked up at a local fabric shop.
To make identification easier, we color coded our weights; Silver = 1 lbs Yellow = 2 lbs, Blue = 3 lbs, Red = 4 lbs and Black = 5 lbs.
One of the lessons learned was to make the pouches in bulk as it made for easier sewing.
For example, if we mere making 2 lb weights that day, we would make a three foot "tube" of yellow cordura by simply measuring out the width and length we have in our pattern, folding it over, and then sew a seam down the entire length of the "tube"; twice.
Once finished the double stitching, cut the pouch sections to length, (allowing ½ inch per end for bottom seam and top seam stitching), and stick the bottom seam to make your three sided pouch
All you have to do is turn the pouch "inside out" and drop the nylon pouch of lead into the cordura pouch and double stitch the top closed. We added a small length of 1/2inch wide cordura as a top seam cap and there youve got a a pretty well made, and decent looking soft weight pouch. I've got some pictures of them I'll post later tonight.
The quality of these were so good we actually started selling them to our local dive shops as getting soft weights up in Canada can get expensive; epsecially if you're looking for larger weights.
