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For my boat's ballast, I got all the scrap lead I could find, but it wasn't quite enough. So I broke down
and bought four 25 lb. bags of #4 lead shot. I got it at an outdoor store, and since no shipping was involved,
it was cheaper than mail-order recycled shot. It comes in plastic-lined cotton sacks, and I wasn't
comfortable leaving those in the potentially damp bilge. I bought a yard of Phifertex mesh fabric to
make replacement sacks. This material is fairly cheap, strong, extremely easy to sew, and has lot of marine uses.

I made the new sacks a bit bigger than the sacks the lead came in. Each one was made from a 16x16" piece of material
with a 1/2" seam allowance. The thread is nothing special: nylon upholstery thread we had lying around. If i
were doing it again, I might make the sacks a little bit smaller, maybe 15x15".

Something else I stumbled upon. I found some scuba diving belts they obviously use for diving as ballast. They are solid lead in chunks and already wrapped in a strong cloth meant to get wet. I was able to secure about 80lbs of lead from former diving enthusiasts who were wondering how to get rid of the lead. I gladly took them off their hands.

On a side note, I was looking for some sort of covering for the work bench for fiber glassing. I found the local party supply and rental yards usually have rolls of remnant plastic table coverings that are either out of style or a bit damaged to use in a formal setting. This stuff works great and the epoxy doesn't stick to it. I was able to secure many rolls of different colors...

Hey Doug

Nice idea. How many total pounds of ballast do you plan to use?
Where will you place it??

Jimmy V
Victory II

jwv630 wrote:Nice idea. How many total pounds of ballast do you plan to use?
Where will you place it??

I have about 100 lbs of scrap lead (in addition to what was poured into the keel) that I bought from a local scrap metal dealer.
It was a mix of pretty clean blocks and ingots, and dirty scrap like roof flashing and pipes.

My brother gave me 50 pounds that he had lying around for years.

Finally I bought 100 pounds of shot. So I have a total of 250 pounds of moveable ballast.

I'm still keeping my eyes open for any opportunity to acquire more cheap or free lead...

Hi Doug,

as lead is poisonous, I am bit worried about lead dust emerging from such bags. Does Phifertex provide a sufficient seal?

What about using steel as an alternative to lead? It is also much cheaper than lead (at least over here). Of course, steel does not provide the same density as lead ...

Cheers,

Dietrich

The shot was quite clean, and I didn't see any trace of dust while filling the sacks I made.

I think steel can be effectively almost as dense as lead shot if it is in chunks that fill most of the available space.
A bag of spherical shot is probably about 30% air.

To me the downside of steel was the difficulty if getting it in properly shaped pieces, and the risk of getting the bilges full of rust.

Doug

Dietrich,

Rather than lead or steel, see if you can't find some tungsten. It is more dense than led (or steel) so it will take up less room than led.

I do know it is much more expensive (here in the States) than lead but I don't know how it reacts to salt water.

Good luck!

BillR wrote:Dietrich,
Rather than led or steel, see if you can't find some tungsten. It is more dense than led (or steel) so it will take up less room than led.
I do know it is much more expensive (here in the States) than led but I don't know how it reacts to salt water.
Good luck!

Depleted uranium is the same density as tungsten, and has actually been used in sailboats. So I suspect that
tungsten is even more expensive than uranium!

BTW, the density of steel is 7.8, and lead is 11.3: not such a huge difference.
I had been hoping to find some of those rectangular cast iron plates that are used in stacks in gym weight machines,
but no luck. They would have fitted nicely in the bilges.

I picked up 300 pounds (136Kg) of lead ballast from the local scrapyard today. It was $1.33 a pound, $400 total. While not free, I feel this was a good deal.

The nice thing was that it came in flat rectangular plates, approximately 1" x 4" x 12" (2.5cm x 10cm x 30cm), which will make storing them in the hull fairly easy and I won't have to melt those plates I don't need to melt.

I have seen it posted, "107.6 (pounds) for keel and a minimum of 160 in the hull".

My question is, how much is needed for the centerboard? Or is that included in the weight of the keel?

Thanks!

HI Bill!
The drawings say that about 9 kg of lead is needed in the centerboard, but the dimensions of the hole allow it to hold about 5 kg.
There is information about this error on the forum.
Also, the weight of the centerboard is not included in the weight of the keel.
I made a larger hole in the centerboard to fit about 8-9 kg of lead. I think this will help prevent jamming.

Also, when I poured lead into the keel, for some reason I got in there about 5-6 kg less than indicated on the drawing. I don't know why it happened. It's good that I provided a heavier centerboard.