lead bricks?

justincat · Criminal Joined: 13 Jan 2003 Posts: 97 City: arkansas

where is everybody getting lead bricks. Is it alot heavier than sand per/volume?

wake2wake · Soul Rider Joined: 13 Jan 2003 Posts: 311 City: Lexington

lead is about as heavy as your going to get , 2-4 times heavier then sand!!!

justincat · Criminal Joined: 13 Jan 2003 Posts: 97 City: arkansas

cool who do you get lead bricks without paying a million dollars for shipping?

Ryan_m · Addict Joined: 12 Jan 2003 Posts: 653 City: glen ellyn

justin, alot of people go to tire shops and ask them for tire wieghts. Most places will give them to you for free, it is just a way of getting rid of them. Then you can melt them yourself and make the bar, or you can take and just put them in gallon containers or so, and use them that way.

Bluesman · Posted: Feb 08, 2003 5:21 pm Post subject:

Lead is poison to humans. Don't touch it with your bare hands. Glove up!!

If you melt lead, some lead vapor will escape. That vapor is poison. Be sure to melt the lead in a well ventilated place (outdoors). Lead melts somewhere in the 700 degree range, depending upon its purity. Don't melt lead on your kitchen stove. You will contaminate your cooking area.

Beware of moisture. One drop of water in a vat of molten lead will dispurse the lead in all directions, causing severe burns to anybody in its path.

Finally, if your boat starts to sink, lead will take it straight to the bottom. Water balast has neutral bouyancy and won'd drive down your boat. I recommend against using lead in a boat.

skobi1 · Addict Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 639 City: eugene, or

I found my lead at a local boat mfg. They use it to form drift boat anchors. I'm with bluesman about the boat sinking though, dont use lead for the majority of your weight. I supplemented 1500 lbs of water with 400 lbs of lead in the bow to keep the bow down. I like to use the bow for seating as well and didnt want to clutter it up with sacks.

justincat · Criminal Joined: 13 Jan 2003 Posts: 97 City: arkansas

thanks for the advice. I have lots of water ballast but i was going to put lead in places i couldnt fit sacks, for some extra weight. Ill probly just stuff sand in those places, and use water for the majority of the weight.

skobi1 · Addict Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 639 City: eugene, or

If you do get sand make sure you put it in something water tight. We used sand in my buddys boat. It worked great but eventually it got wet and was very hard to move and it seemed to work its way everywhere.

bmartin · Addict Joined: 05 Feb 2003 Posts: 794

I haven't done this, but has anybody used dumb-bells or weights from a weight set? Iron is not quite as heavy as lead, but a whole lot heavier/volume than sand. Seems like you can easily store those under seats and a 50lb weight is less than $20 and is pretty easy to handle. As others have mentioned, it would not be wise to put more than a couple hundred pounds of sand, iron, lead or some other non water / non-human ballast in your boat unless you want to build a man made reef on the bottom of your lake some day.

BigTimer · Posted: Feb 10, 2003 9:10 am Post subject:

Do you sink your boat often? I've never seen anyone sink there boat. If your boat sinks, yeah lead might sink a little faster, but either way you are screwed. Go for the lead.

Breezer · Outlaw Joined: 17 Jan 2003 Posts: 246 City: Austin

Lead is dangerous if you take on a lot of water. Look at it this way. Imagine that your boat took on enough water to be ankle deep standing in the boat. Fat sacs will not push your boat down after the water gets up to it's level, but lead will keep pushing the boat down untill it reaches the bottom of the lake. Of course if you take on enough water to get to the level of your fat sacs, you will be a bit screwed anyways.

bmartin · Addict Joined: 05 Feb 2003 Posts: 794

If you have a boat made after 1976(?) it will float if it fills with water, even if it completely fills with water.....unless of course you have 1500 lbs of lead in it, then it's heading for the bottom of the lake and then you are completely screwed. The lead will make a bad situation worse and nope never been on a sinking boat...unless you count a canoe/kayak filled with water as a "sunk" boat.