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LSV04
01-30-2006, 07:25 PM
Are tire weights the little weights they use to balance your tires.? I have these containers that hold 5 lbs of powder that I could fill with the weights-what do you think one 5lb container filled tire weights would weigh? I dont want to go through the trouble of melting lead.or should I fill them with cement? I only need about another 500-700 lbs of weight.

Do you guys use a GPS to set your speedo. It never seems like my boat is accurate-


Thanks

JoeTechie
01-31-2006, 03:32 AM
Do you just happen to have a bunch of tire weights ? I'm confused as to why you chose that item to use as a standard measure.

I'm also confused at the containers - if they only hold 5 pounds of "powder", they must be pretty tiny. If you were talking about 5 GALLON buckets - then we have some weight to contend with. Lead is 10 times the weight of water, 7 times that of sand, 4.5 times that of concrete. - so a cubit foot of sand is about 100 lbs, concrete is ~150 lbs and lead is ~700lbs.

I do not think the bucket's handle would be enough to lift that though, and the small footprint that is has would probably be too much for the boat desk as well. This is assuming a poured cast of lead vs the lead tire weights which are mostly air when placed in a bucket and would probably only be ~100lbs as well.

I'd say if you do not want to use water bags for ballast - go find cheap workout plates at a used sporting goods store, or go buy 25lb lead shot bags from a gun store for ~$10/ea or mix up some bags of ready mix concrete and pour into the buckets and place them evenly.


Hope this helps,

-Joe

zabooda
01-31-2006, 10:22 AM
Ed is right. Also, weights and concrete and boating don't mix. See what happened to Scott Peterson in Modesto.

JoeTechie
01-31-2006, 07:52 PM
it's a good thing we have this site to take care of each other

Ed's way of telling me I'm a complete lunatic. ;) I was so wrapped up in the physics of densities and the bizzarre request, that I forgot the most obvious danger:

Lead = bad, water = good. :)

-Joe

LSV04
01-31-2006, 09:40 PM
Great posts guys-Ill stick to the ballasts bags-thanks for the all the data on weight techie.

JoeTechie
02-01-2006, 12:23 PM
Don't bother - the Zebras always get pissed cause they never get a pull before the sun goes down, and moses can't drive for crap! The elephants are excellent ballast though.

While you are doing that conversion... how many cubits in a rod ? hands in a chain ?

-Joe

Wolf-
02-27-2006, 02:34 PM
Originally posted by JoeTechie

Ed's way of telling me I'm a complete lunatic. ;) I was so wrapped up in the physics of densities and the bizzarre request, that I forgot the most obvious danger:

Lead = bad, water = good. :)

-Joe

And wet lead = worse than bad.
When lead gets wet, it breaks down considerably faster, leaving lead residue on anything that comes in contact with it. Depending on the contact, this can lead to severe cases of lead poisoning in children and small pets.

There have been some rather long discussions on this in the atlantawakeboard forums. There were guys melting down lead plates to make custom fitted lead ballasts for their crafts.

To reiterate, water = good, as in a sinking, water will ONLY seek its own level, where as solid ballast will seek a lower level than a lighter cmpound, namely, water.