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For the movable ballast placed in the bilges, I plan melt some of the large ingots that I have and cast the lead into convenient sized ingots using an old cast iron mold for cornbread sticks. Each stick is a half-round about 4 inches long and 1 inch wide. Question: Does anyone know if the molten lead will stick to the cast iron? And if so, is there some kind of coating that can be applied to the cast iron before each pouring of lead to make the "cornbread sticks" easily fall out of the mold?

I've melted and cast lead from cast iron pots and no problem with it sticking. See the simple lead kiln in my gallery at http://gallery.me.com/jermcmanus - PocketShip Project. That is an iron pot and a steel laddle. Good luck. Jer

I should add that I lined "Management's" good pound cake pan with aluminum foil before making ballast ingots. The foil sticks to the lead but causes no problem. Jer mtsailor See http://gallery.me.com/jermcmanus

Here is what i've been doing today.
I had an idea for the ballast lead.Rather than making big "heavy" ingots I went out to my Smithy and forged the end of a piece of black iron pipe closed.
Split the pipe in two on the bandsaw, clamped it together, filled it with lead. result a nice round lead rod that can be wraped with cloth tape or maybe coated with "tool grip" plastic.
If you want to try this DO NOT use galvanized pipe the fumes will KILL YOU.