jimbo2006
Registered
I made my own soft weights using a food saver vacuum sealer (just the heat, not the vacuum) adapting the basic ideas from Scubaboards DIY area. My refinement was adding warm corn syrup to fill the voids otherwise occupied by air trapped in the sealed bag. Looking at options for liquids to fill the air voids I chose the corn syrup which should last quite a while and has a much higher specific gravity than water. I've used my weights for over a year (although only about 15 dives) and they are holding up great.
I didn't use the vacuum based on advise from other DIYers having heard that this compresses the pellets so tight that they don't move (which defeats the purpose of the 'soft' weight). The idea of the corn syrup came to me to seal the pellets without leaving the resulting space filled with air (which would offset the purpose of the weight and require more pellets). I learned to warm the corn syrup up in a pan on the stove a bit to make it easier to pour (I recall something like 110 degrees made the syrup much more 'runny').
Eliminating as much air as possible before sealing each pouch was a bit tricky (on my unit the vacuum is an all or nothing process so it wasn't possible to suck a little air out). I put the sealer up on a phone book so I could elevate the lip of the bag to let the air out the top then fold the edges over to seal it with the heat. Someone I know also suggested immersing the bag in water to exert pressure and squeeze the air out a bit more (haven't tried this but it seems logical).
I opted for cheap BB's from Walmart after pricing the lead shot and realizing it would also take weeks to order from closest gun shop.
I covered the vaccum bag pouches with duct tape to make them more sturdy (also from scubaboard suggestion). I certainly didn't want beach sand rubbing a hole in the pouches. I do rinse the pouches after each beach dive and haven't had any problems and they've held up well.
I'm hoping the corn syrup should have a long 'shelf' (pouch) life. Although I don't intend to eat it, I did joke with my wife that if I got 'lost at sea' I could chew open the pouches and suck out the corn syrup for energy and the zinc from the zinc coated BBs might even ward off colds.
Since the research for this was over a year ago I can't credit the relevant DIYers. I wanted to wait before sharing this approach to confirm that these would hold up and I've been very happy with the result.
I may eventually replace the BBs with lead since the resulting pouches should be more compact (though I dont know by how much). When I'd considered lead shot I'd looked at having multiple (2-3) sizes of lead shot to try and fill the voids between the larger shot. I think postings from others in the DIY area did give pellet mixes that aimed to address this concern but I couldnt convince myself what was optimal using available sizes (online I found a table with diameters of the different shot sizes). I diagrammed some options but had trouble estimating this in 3D and tried to model proportions (large to small) using modeling clay. This was a winter project so there wasn't any rush. I think the possible problem was that the void in an 'optimally packed' array of large pellets seemed quite small when choosing from stock size pellets (large and small) - so I thought I'd have to get very large buckshot type pellets and (many fewer) very small pellets. Pellets seem to be sold primarily in 25 lb bags - so I seemed bound to not get proportions correct and buy more small ones than needed. Figuring this out may represent a future refinement when I convert from BBs to lead.
I didn't use the vacuum based on advise from other DIYers having heard that this compresses the pellets so tight that they don't move (which defeats the purpose of the 'soft' weight). The idea of the corn syrup came to me to seal the pellets without leaving the resulting space filled with air (which would offset the purpose of the weight and require more pellets). I learned to warm the corn syrup up in a pan on the stove a bit to make it easier to pour (I recall something like 110 degrees made the syrup much more 'runny').
Eliminating as much air as possible before sealing each pouch was a bit tricky (on my unit the vacuum is an all or nothing process so it wasn't possible to suck a little air out). I put the sealer up on a phone book so I could elevate the lip of the bag to let the air out the top then fold the edges over to seal it with the heat. Someone I know also suggested immersing the bag in water to exert pressure and squeeze the air out a bit more (haven't tried this but it seems logical).
I opted for cheap BB's from Walmart after pricing the lead shot and realizing it would also take weeks to order from closest gun shop.
I covered the vaccum bag pouches with duct tape to make them more sturdy (also from scubaboard suggestion). I certainly didn't want beach sand rubbing a hole in the pouches. I do rinse the pouches after each beach dive and haven't had any problems and they've held up well.
I'm hoping the corn syrup should have a long 'shelf' (pouch) life. Although I don't intend to eat it, I did joke with my wife that if I got 'lost at sea' I could chew open the pouches and suck out the corn syrup for energy and the zinc from the zinc coated BBs might even ward off colds.
Since the research for this was over a year ago I can't credit the relevant DIYers. I wanted to wait before sharing this approach to confirm that these would hold up and I've been very happy with the result.
I may eventually replace the BBs with lead since the resulting pouches should be more compact (though I dont know by how much). When I'd considered lead shot I'd looked at having multiple (2-3) sizes of lead shot to try and fill the voids between the larger shot. I think postings from others in the DIY area did give pellet mixes that aimed to address this concern but I couldnt convince myself what was optimal using available sizes (online I found a table with diameters of the different shot sizes). I diagrammed some options but had trouble estimating this in 3D and tried to model proportions (large to small) using modeling clay. This was a winter project so there wasn't any rush. I think the possible problem was that the void in an 'optimally packed' array of large pellets seemed quite small when choosing from stock size pellets (large and small) - so I thought I'd have to get very large buckshot type pellets and (many fewer) very small pellets. Pellets seem to be sold primarily in 25 lb bags - so I seemed bound to not get proportions correct and buy more small ones than needed. Figuring this out may represent a future refinement when I convert from BBs to lead.
