Making your own homemade lead/steel ballast bags

[bluesman280 99]

Buying ready made ballast bags was definitely an option but the price of getting 400 lbs shipped to Canada plus the US $ exchange rate was causing grief.

I managed to round up a 4 pails of used tire weights (aprox 350 lbs) from a friendly tire shop

In my quest I stumbled across photography sand bags on Amazon.

Zip lock freezer bags, used tire weights, and some photography sand bags is all that was required to make some homemade lead ballast bags. The sand bags were rated for 20 lbs each, but easily handle all the tire weights I can stuff inside the doubled up freezer bag zipped up inside the sand bags.

Each canvas bag ended up at 31 lbs.

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[bluesman280 99]

The sand bags are dual sided with zippered pouches and a solid carrying handle to move them around the boat as required.

[Tommywalton1974 175]

I melted the wheel weights I got into ingots. It is 1/3 the size now

[bluesman280 99]

I melted the wheel weights I got into ingots. It is 1/3 the size now

That may be a winter project for me. Barely found time to stuff the weights into bags. Luckily I also found some 2' triangular lead bars weighing 20 lbs each to also use.

[Tommywalton1974 175]

That is an awesome score! I had to dig out maybe 20% of the wheel weights just wouldn't melt. Nor were they magnetic. Idk what they were I tossed them.

[bluesman280 99]

Ya, I have quite a few of those misc weights that are not lead to sort through as well. I sure would like to find a few more of those 2' lead bars though.

[WakeDoc 471]

Been thinking about doing this myself, have a link to the bags you used? Funny I was thinking about it after reading this, call a couple of load companies that sell lead and thing ohhh---duh! Son works for Firestone, called and he has a barrel full of tire weights. Looks like I am making some bags.

[bluesman280 99]

Been thinking about doing this myself, have a link to the bags you used? Funny I was thinking about it after reading this, call a couple of load companies that sell lead and thing ohhh---duh! Son works for Firestone, called and he has a barrel full of tire weights. Looks like I am making some bags.

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00LIRRLBU/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

Here is a link to the bags I used. I bought a total of 12 bags. I lined them with a set of doubled up freezer bags, then stuffed them full of tire weights. I managed to get around 15 lbs per side for a total of 30 lbs per bag.

I lucked out and had 4 x 3 gallon pails full of weights donated. Still haven't used up all of the weights. That will be a bit of a winter project to finish them all up but it managed to find time to stuff a few bags already and they seem to work just fine.

[Jake707 171]

Couldn't you just use sand in these bags? What is the benefit of melting down the lead for these? Seems like a lot more work than just filling up with sand and the lead only weights a little bit more per volume

[bluesman280 99]

Couldn't you just use sand in these bags? What is the benefit of melting down the lead for these? Seems like a lot more work than just filling up with sand and the lead only weights a little bit more per volume

Didn't bother melting my tire weights down. For now I just tossed them in some freezer bags and stuffed the canvas bags full. Not sure what the sand would weigh, but you could definitely use sand. Sand would be better than nothing.

[stoked 1,039]

Couldn't you just use sand in these bags? What is the benefit of melting down the lead for these? Seems like a lot more work than just filling up with sand and the lead only weights a little bit more per volume

 

Check out this link: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwjRot_bl6XPAhXK7YMKHXaXDCUQFggcMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.coyotesteel.com%2Fassets%2Fimg%2FPDFs%2Fweightspercubicfoot.pdf&usg=AFQjCNGeVehJhLoq2oKFRtYUBS30pVW3zQ&sig2=Z6j5Zkgh81H4JyUBw2hTnQ&bvm=bv.133700528,d.amc&cad=rja

 

A cubic foot of lead is about 700lbs, a cubic foot of sand is about 100lbs

 

Looks like we should be making bags out of osmium. A steal at only $925 an ounce!! https://www.rwmmint.com/products/osmium

[CO Surfer 289]

I remember checking the density of steel vs lead a little while back since some of the companies selling ballast weight bags use steel instead of lead. Much better off going with the lead bags.

[Jake707 171]

 

Check out this link: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwjRot_bl6XPAhXK7YMKHXaXDCUQFggcMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.coyotesteel.com%2Fassets%2Fimg%2FPDFs%2Fweightspercubicfoot.pdf&usg=AFQjCNGeVehJhLoq2oKFRtYUBS30pVW3zQ&sig2=Z6j5Zkgh81H4JyUBw2hTnQ&bvm=bv.133700528,d.amc&cad=rja

 

A cubic foot of lead is about 700lbs, a cubic foot of sand is about 100lbs

 

Looks like we should be making bags out of osmium. A steal at only $925 an ounce!! https://www.rwmmint.com/products/osmium

wow 7 times the weight......... I retract my statement haha. lets line the whole floor with lead

[bluesman280 99]

All I know is that I recently added 90 lbs of lead to the back corner along both sides of my Enzo 233 and that alone was more than enough weight to drastically improve my surf wave. We usually have a heavier buddy in the ballast buddy seat and actually had to move him to the observer seat just to get the bow down so we could get up to surf speed.

Amazing how much it affected the boat having just that little bit of lead that far back into the corners. Having it that far back seemed to work way better than having a 350lb dude in the ballast bucket.

We also noticed the wave was less susceptible to change with bodies sitting in various locations around the boat. Having someone sit on the starboard when surfing port usually caused grief with the wave, but with the 90 lbs in each corner, the negative effect was minimal.

 

I still have at least a couple hundred pounds of lead to play with, too bad our season is going to run out before I get a chance to truly play with all the extra lead.

[Jake707 171]

I wish someone smarter than me would calculate the weight vs distance forward exchange rate. Meaning for example 100#s at the very back of the boat is equivalent to 400# in the middle of the boat, or at this distance point in the boat weight starts to counter act rearward weight at this degree. I would be interested to know this however it just took all the potential fun out of boating just typing it so I would imagine worrying about this while out on the lake would be a huge buzz kill. haha

[bluesman280 99]

I wish someone smarter than me would calculate the weight vs distance forward exchange rate. Meaning for example 100#s at the very back of the boat is equivalent to 400# in the middle of the boat, or at this distance point in the boat weight starts to counter act rearward weight at this degree. I would be interested to know this however it just took all the potential fun out of boating just typing it so I would imagine worrying about this while out on the lake would be a huge buzz kill. haha

Don't know the calculation but those 90 lbs I stuck right along the side and at the very back on each side seemed to be even more effective than having a 180 lb kid sitting on the swim deck on the surf side or having a 350 lb guy in the ballast bucket. It surprised me when I had to start moving bodies forward to just get up to surf speed. We normally run both quick fills full, 750 in the port locker, and 600 lbs under port seat, all we added was 180 lbs of well placed lead.

[Jake707 171]

Ya it sounds like a good idea. Wish I had the ability to do this even just for a couple hundred pounds.

[stoked 1,039]

I don't know the calculation either, but I remember reading that a 150 fat brick on the swim platform was the equivalent of 400 on the rear seats

[Tommywalton1974 175]

Melting them down into ingots was great for me. I still have to mould I made. Every so often when I score enough I make another brick. Why buy bags or use them when they can be in heavy compact bricks. I sprayed the fist ones with plastidip. The lay under my ballast bag. I forget I even have them.

[bluesman280 99]

I agree with the melting them down. I have 6 bars triangular bars about 2 feet long that are nice and compact for laying underneath my ballast bags.

The bags make a quick solution until I get around to melting them down.

 

What did you use for a mold?