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Posts: 476
Location: St. John, Indiana | Put sinkers in hole or melt lead? If your melting lead, what melting pot? |
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Posts: 110
| I've done it both ways but what I usually do is pour a bunch of different weight round head jigs without hooks. I do a bunch at a time that way I don't have to fire up the Lee Production pot every time I need to add weight. Plus, with the jigheads, I already know the approx. weight and they fit pretty tight in holes drilled with a forstner bit. |
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| I like using the pencil lead wire. |
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Posts: 4266
| Read my response to hole filling. If you are going to use lead, do use any of the new shiny lead that's out there now. I got some from a friend, and the sinkers that I poured weren't soft at all, and instead of squishing them down into the holes, they went right through the body or cracked it in many places. Good old soft lead is hard to find. Go ask the guys who work at the water utility where you live if you have one, or go ask people at the recycling center. They don't want lead to wind up in the landfill anyway. Some times you can ask guys doing any kind of sewer or water project because all of the water services put in before 1960 more or less were made out of soft, pure lead.
I decided to pound sinkers in after too many burns while pouring sinkers and jig heads. You can get a real good idea of where and how much lead you need in a lure body if you put screw eyes through a bunch of sinkers and use them to determine just how much you will need in different places to get a glider to sink slowly or to get a crankbaits or surface lure to sit just right on the surface of the water.
Beaver |
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Posts: 1529
| beaver,s correct. plumbers lead is soft,and hard to get. nowadays like many other things.. we pour still into a preset cavity.. also the higher the lead placement can change your bait action guys. |
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Posts: 1224
Location: Okoboji | i pour |
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Posts: 476
Location: St. John, Indiana | You guys that pour your weight, how exactly do you determine how much weight to pour into a glider? If you do your testing on a glider with weights attached to the outside of the glider, say you need 3/4 of an ouch of lead in a certain hole. How do you determine how wide and deep the hole is for the 3/4 of lead you need to pour? |
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Posts: 742
Location: Grand Rapids MN | Take the density of lead and then figure the volume of hole and multiply. To give a quick calculation for 1/2" hole take 1.285 and multiply by the length of the hole and you have how many ounces. So a 1" deep hole is 1.285 ounces or for your 3/4 ounce would be 0.75oz divided by 1.285 oz/in = 0.58" so a little over 1/2 inch deep.
You wont be exact when drilling and filling so don't get to hung up on precision but this will guide you to what will be required. Hope it helps. |
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Posts: 476
Location: St. John, Indiana | Ok, explain this to me like I'm a 6 year old. In your example of adding 3/4 ounces of lead to a bait, you said take .75 divided by
1.285= .58 deep..... What size diameter hole am I drilling?
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Posts: 742
Location: Grand Rapids MN | That whole multiplier was for a 1/2" diameter hole (fairly common); so yes a piece of lead 1/2" by 0.6" will be ~3/4 oz. Figured I would give you common drill size for lead weighting so you didn't have to figure out the volume each time.
Ounces = 1.285 (ounces/inches) x Length (inches)
So Length = Ounces / 1.285
Again hope it gives an idea of lead size. Remember sinkers are not cylinder shaped and have a hole so it takes a little more hole size for the same weight; if you were to just epoxy them in. |
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| I melt and pour my lead. Home Depot sells lead free solder wire. In the plumbing section, they sell copper cups/caps that I use to melt the lead. I bend/pound the rim to a teardrop shape to make a pouring spout. I use channel lock pliers to grab the hot cup for pouring.
I test my lures for buoyancy in a bucket of water and wrap the lead wire around the front and rear hooks to get the balance just right. The hard part is getting the lure to balance front-to-back by placing the lead. Then, I guess at the size and location of the holes and melt/pour the solder. It is a bit of a trial and error for me. I keep adding/removing solder and drilling/patching holes until I get it just right. I use two part epoxy to patch the holes, and so I am not afraid to drill/patch repeatedly.
I do not pour the lead flush with the surface of the lure. The lead tends to expand/contract with temperatures and it causes bumps in the finish. I top off my holes with epoxy which hides the hole better.
Brian
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| Take this divided by that??? Holy crap sometimes I wonder about some bait makers, this might be all fine and dandy but what's so hard about weighing the lead before you melt? Hers a really easy and I mean easy way to do this.
1- weigh your bait
2- determin how much you need to weigh you bait down(eg 2oz)
3- drill 4-1/2 x 3/4 to 1" deep it doesn't have to be perfect and why four holes?? Who cares spread the weight on the bottom two in front of hanger two behind
4- grab 1/2oz of weight and put it in an old spoon, yes this is hard and old spoon
5- hold it over a torch do this outside as your wife my kill you
6- once it melts witch should be under a min pour it in the hole
7- repeat 3 more times
8- once it's dry fill the holes with wood filler and sand and seal
There you have it rocket sience |
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Posts: 476
Location: St. John, Indiana | Like I stated a couple of posts ago, I attach egg sinkers to the outside of my bait and know exactly what weight I need to get the bait level, but I have 600 pounds of scrap lead that I melt in my lee hot pot, when I pull down the handle I have no way of knowing how much lead I'm actually pouring into the designated hole. If I was actually melting the egg sinkers that I use
To test weigh the bait, it would be a lot easier
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Posts: 742
Location: Grand Rapids MN | Nothing tough about it; broke it down to the point where you just insert the depth and multiply.
Jeff I got your PM and what I'll do is make a chart for common hole sizes and how deep it takes to get 1/4 ounce. Then you can use that to determine how deep. Would make a nice quick reference guide and virtually no math! |
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Posts: 742
Location: Grand Rapids MN | Ok here it is; various hole sizes and the depth to get 1/4 ounce weight. I rounded the depths to try and keep it simple for figuring larger weights when in the shop.
For example if you want 1/2oz weight just double the depth for that hole/drill size, or 3 times for 3/4oz, etc.
Hole/Dril Size - Hole Depth
1/8" - 3" deep
1/4" - 3/4" deep
3/8" - 3/8" deep
1/2" - 3/16" deep
5/8" - 1/8" deep |
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Posts: 4266
| Holy crap! For a minute I thought I wandered onto the stage of Big Bang Theory |
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