Small Weights

[SCUBA_Morg]

Hi I was reading over another thread about making your own weights and it got me thinking.

I have an idea that I think will work but there may be disadvantages that I am unaware of so here it is.

What about using a small ballon? Not filling it with air of course but like pouring a little bit of concert mix and then water. Mix it around but just pressing it and then seal it. The bags of concret are pretty dense. I wonder if the concret will actually eat away at the ballon siding thou?

I also would like to make my own straps and have other places to place wieghts besides my belt. I figure it would make a good workout if I had placed some small weights on my feet. That way when I kick I get a really good workout

Thanks

 

[Charlie99]

The specific gravity of lead is about 11. Concrete is only about 2.2-2.4.

So it takes 11 pounds of lead to get 10 pounds of negative bouyancy, while it will take almost 20 pounds of concrete to get that same 10 pounds of negative buoyancy.

Another disadvantage could be that concrete is rather abrasive. For very small weights, you could just use a pile of stainless steel hardware, boltsnaps, etc. Specific gravity of 440 stainless is 7.7.

 

[Damselfish]

Perhaps you're kidding, but you don't want to put weights on your feet unless you really need them for trim reasons, some people use ankle weights but it's not something to shoot for. There's lots of reasons to separate your workout from your diving. Like air consumption.

I wonder if making concrete with lead shot aggregate would work? (Might just fall apart?) Or shot in some other substrate. A way of doing something custom with shot and no melting required. Don't know how compatible the materials are.

 

[fmw625]

The easiest way to make small weights that I have found is to weigh out lead shot and put in an anchel stocking that my wife has discarded twist and bring back over tie a knot and cut off excess.

 

[SCUBA_Morg]

Ah thanks for the information..

About swimming with ankle weights I wouldn't dive down I would be swimming at the surface in about 5-6 feet of water. Just enough if I get too tired I can stop and stand up.

I didn't know that concert was that bad for weight. How hard is it to melt the lead down?

 

[loquat149]

Ah thanks for the information..

About swimming with ankle weights I wouldn't dive down I would be swimming at the surface in about 5-6 feet of water. Just enough if I get too tired I can stop and stand up.

I didn't know that concert was that bad for weight. How hard is it to melt the lead down?

It's pretty easy to melt lead, I just made six 1.5 lbs rectangular lead ingot trim weights to bolt on to my backplate. You can do a search in the DIY forum and find all you need to know. Melting is the easy part, getting all the equipment needed is not. I used a BBQ propane tank, a used cajun fryer, a $1.78 SS pan, a scrap piece of 4" x 2" AL channel as a mold, some silicone spray as a release agent, a bucket of water as a cooling agent, some pliers to hold the hot mold and wore protective clothing (long pants, sweatshirt, shoes, hat, safety glasses, gloves, and VERY IMPORTANT, a chemical mask I borrowed from work to avoid the toxic lead fumes). All I had to buy was the SS pan and fill my propane tank ($15.00, but it needed filling for this year's hurricane season anyway). I found the best source of lead was old solid diving weights or large lead fishing weights. I tried using some lead shot from one of my soft weights, but since these are not made from 100% lead a lot of impurities come out in the melting process and make for a poor mold. BTW, I did use some beeswax as a flux agent as recommended in one of the earlier DIY posts, but other than lots of smoke and flames, I wasn't sure if it helped or not.

Overall I was very pleased with the way the trim weights came out...these will be drilled and attached via sex-bolts (or tie wraps) to the holes along the edge of my backplate as well as inside the channel (p-weight style). Saved myself a bunch of $ as weighted STA's are $100-150 and lead shot trim weights are $20-25 for each 2-4 pounder.

Good luck, and be SURE to wear a chemical mask and DON'T get any water near the molten lead until after it has solidified and cooled down for several minutes!!!!!

Dave

 

[FatRob]

Ok well I used a stainless soap dish from targett 9.99 no need for a release agent as the lead will not solder itself to stainless steel, and will contract on cooling anyway..

I then melted the lead in a stainless pan, using an electric hob and a blowtorch.. do this outside and you can stand upwind of the (minimal) fumes.... abslolving the need for the chemical mask. I drilled and tapped the lead (about 3lbs for a full dish) and bolted them onto the edge of my plate... and I made some extras that I can slip in a pocket here and there for extra trim....

Some pointers...

allow the lead to cool in the mold naturally.... DO NOT POUR WATER ON IT... it can take up to a 1/2 hour for the lead to solidify inside the casting... until then you will cause a phreatic explosion of molten lead and steam if you pour on any water.
use the water to cool the ingot after it has released from the mold...

sod using flux... you don't need it for simple moulds.. and flames are a pain... use a steel scraper to skim off the slag on the surface of teh molten lead before you pour....

wear leather foundry style gloves or welding gloves, watch for splashes... molten lead is very hot! and will burn you nice and prettilly!

A good source of cheap (aka free) lead is wheel balancing shops... they can often be persuaded to yeild bucket loads of used ballance weights for very little effort. You will need to skim off the steel bits that float out of the melt! (Yes steel floats on lead... cool huh?)

If you only want small weights you could of course use a fishing weight mould.... or I think leisurepro sells a dive weight mould too! or you can cast into slightly damp sand, or wooden moulds too...

have fun... be careful! oh and do a small batch at a time! You don't want to discover that you can't lift the pan when it comes to pour time!

 

[loquat149]

I drilled and tapped the lead (about 3lbs for a full dish) and bolted them onto the edge of my plate...

Screw the sex-bolts, I'll try tapping mine as well.

Dave

 

[SCUBA_Morg]

Wow thanks for the pointers. I didn't know jack about making my own weights. Thank god you guys pointed out the mask part.

My friend makes his own bullets and I asked him if he could melt lead and he has all the tools required.

What did you all put around your lead weights to give it a softer feel to it? (Tape?)

Is it just bare lead that is bad for you to handle or basically all lead?

 

[FatRob]

Tapping lead:

1) use a lube (wd40)
2) 2 flutes better than 4
3) drill a thru hole or the chips get pinned up
4) a forming tap may work better than a cutting tap

if you mess it up, you can always drill a clearance and use a sex bolt instead!

lead is plain old bad... I sewed some bags out of nylon for some of mine, the others I just pop rivetted a piece of webbing to them so I could pull them out of their pockets to release them... I figure that I don't handle them that much...

plus most of the damage is already done upstairs!