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Mud Weight(s) wanted

Baitrunner

By Baitrunner
in Boats and accessories Wanted

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Baitrunner

Baitrunner

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Hi does anyone have any small mud weights? Ideally I want a pair to hold a small 12ft dinghy in place for fishing.

Not sure how heavy I need to go, but I am thinking the smallest they do  (seems to be 6Kg) might be big enough.

Anyone used one on a small dinghy?

Obviously I don't want to steal any items from Jon and his big auction this weekend, but I am unable to get there to see what's on offer.

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Baitrunner

Baitrunner

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I have a small anchor and unless you get a good flow it isn't any good.  Just waft around so thought I would get a proper mud weight. 

My home made one isn't any better either as it doesn't have a flat enough bottom. Might have to try a different design if I can't get a couple. 

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If you want a mud weight on an ultra low budget, your best bet is a lump of scrap iron.

Much better than concrete.

It's all a question of specific gravity. Concrete is only just over twice as heavy as the equivalent volume of water, whereas iron is seven times heavier and lead is eleven times heavier.

So a 6kg iron mudweight has 5kg of holding power whereas a concrete one would have to be nearly twice as heavy to have the same holding power.

That's why permanent swinging moorings in harbours and creeks favour old engine blocks rather than anything made out of concrete.

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JennyMorgan

JennyMorgan

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Strow, 'tis as much about suction as it is weight. Many years ago I worked at Chichester Harbour, Every winter we made up permanent mooring weights which were lorry tyres laid on the ground and filled with concrete. Bit big for a fishing dinghy but by heck they held well in a gale! However, like you, I prefer the reduced bulk of scrap iron, old sash weights are good, generally free from your local double glazing company's skip!

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JennyMorgan

JennyMorgan

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10 minutes ago, Samuel said:

Don't understand this - please show your workings for full marks!

Samuel, weight wise Strow is quite right but holding power is also relevant. For example, depending on holding ground, a 25kg Bruce anchor will hold better than a 25kg fisherman anchor. 

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Baitrunner

Baitrunner

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I actually want them permanently for the dinghy.  Thanks for the offer though  most kind  

I have an 18kg one but a bit heavy for the dinghy  have loads of lead but gonna be hard to melt it into a big lump  

Explains why my concrete one which seems heavy doesn't hold that well. 

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It may sound strange, but you could try looking out for secondhand barbell weights.

They go very cheaply from private sellers, and are usually plastic coated iron, so nice and heavy, yet clean to use on a boat, and with a nice hole through the middle to tie on to, or even stack several together.

They often appear on Gumtree or Ebay, but you need to only look locally though, as postage makes them far less cost effective ! :rolleyes:

Here's several on Ebay for around £1 per kilogram. Maybe if you searched locally, there might be some close to you.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_fslt=1&_saslt=1&_sop=15&_nkw=barbell+weights&rt=nc&LH_BIN=1

barbell weights.gif

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JennyMorgan

JennyMorgan

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58 minutes ago, Baitrunner said:

I actually want them permanently for the dinghy.  Thanks for the offer though  most kind  

I have an 18kg one but a bit heavy for the dinghy  have loads of lead but gonna be hard to melt it into a big lump  

Explains why my concrete one which seems heavy doesn't hold that well. 

Melting lead is not so hard. I have made several keels out of lead for pond yachts that I have restored. With tin snips cut your scrap lead into small bits. I have seen stainless steel mixing bowls in Coo-Dee/Lathams that would make good shapes for a mud weight. Put your scraps into the bowl and melt with a blow torch, adding more scraps until the bowl is full. A short length of chain set into the lead provides a becket. Make sure everything is dry, don't want lead spitting. Just use common sense & you'll have a pucker stainless steel mud weight.

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8 hours ago, JennyMorgan said:

Melting lead is not so hard..........

I'd say it is fairly difficult to melt lead in quantity though Peter. I'd guess that your pond yacht keels were much smaller than a mudweight.

I used to "lead plumb" joints back in my early GPO says, when we just used a big propane torch and a galvanised iron plumbers bowl. The lead came in sticks, like rhubarb, and it was fairly easy to melt it onto the joint and wipe it on around the sleeve with a moleskin wipe.

It needs a lot more heat to melt several kilos at once though, to neatly cast something big enough to be a mudweight. These days most DIYers would be unlikely to posses the right gear, like oxy-acetylene torches. They'd more likely have a gas cartridge type blowlamp that would not be powerful enough to keep 6kg or so molten long enough to flow into a mould.

When I experimented a few years ago with compact "movable" internal ballast weights I tried casting lead into ingots and failed, so I ended up tightly filling some strong one gallon polythene water carriers with old tyre lead balance weights. It was fairly successful, giving me an SG of 4, so each compact 1 gallon jerrican weighed 20 kg, four times as much as just filling them with water.

lead weights.jpg

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Baitrunner

Baitrunner

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Some good advice folks thanks.

I have made plenty of heavy (2lb+) lead fishing weights, but wasn't sure I could melt enough to make a decent mud weight - might give it a go though.

Strowy, I did look for some gym weights a while ago, but had forgotten about them so will have another look around. 

Jon, unfortunately I am not around the weekend or would be up at the auction to have a nose around.

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34 minutes ago, Polly said:

Lead? In the water? Or do you mean sealed in?

My comments about lead were where I'd drifted off into talking about internal ballast weights.

If you're thinking about any environmental impact by using one as a mudweight though, I doubt whether lead mudweights would be outlawed.

There are plenty of houses and buildings that still have lead water pipes, somewhere between the incoming main and the kitchen tap.

The main consideration would be the value of losing one. Clean lead scrap is quite valuable now, witness the increase in church roof and lead flashing thefts.

(lead shot below a certain size was outlawed many years ago, but only because of the danger of ingestion by water boards).

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