Sinkers - making your own |
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I may live on Auckland’s North Shore these days, but in some respects I guess you could still call me an old-fashioned Kiwi bloke, as I believe in the value of doing things yourself.
For example, I like to get out each year to cut, split and stack the next winter’s firewood. During a storm-caused power blackout last year I took considerable pleasure in hauling out a billy and pan, and cooking dinner over an open fire – even if it was in my lounge.
This attitude applies to fishing, too. Obviously catching fish and cooking it for dinner is a form of DIY deeply satisfying to basic hunter-gatherer urges.
There are considerable opportunities for DIY activities in the tackle we use for fishing as well. I got into tying my own trout and saltwater flies as a kid, helped my late father build a number of boats, and in a spell as a professional rod builder, made in excess of 5000 fishing rods with my own hands, including designing and making the blanks. I have never made my own fishing lines (although there are a couple of flax bushes in the back yard…), but do service my own reels, rig my own assist hooks (see the piece on this subject in the August issue of FN) and have made a few successful resin-headed marlin lures, poppers and swimming minnows over the years.
Another DIY opportunity is in making your own sinkers. I came to this activity early, too. Dad was a builder and always had a good collection of scrap roofing lead and lead plumbing pipes from old houses he renovated. His early moulds were disposable types made from wood (I can still smell the charring as the lead was poured), followed by a permanent model made from mild steel.
I remember making my first, more modest sinkers as a kid on a beach in southern Hawkes Bay with my mate Dave. Some roofing lead was melted in an old pot over a driftwood fire on the sand. Moulds were made with a finger or thumb pushed into the sand. A loop of copper wire was stood up in the resulting hole (or a nail used to form the hole in a running sinker) and the lead poured. In this PC day and age, many would baulk at kids working with open fires and molten, toxic metal, but 40 years ago parents used to let their kids do stuff. We learned, became more self-reliant, and were none the worse for it.
Get the lead out
Lead is an ideal material for making sinkers, with its high density, stability, low cost (at least in comparison to alternate products) and relatively low melting point. This easy-to-work metal has had a multitude of uses right through history: lead beads are reported from archaeological sites dating back to 2500BC, and lead is mentioned in the Bible. Common uses in more recent times include: in roofing and flashing; solder; batteries; and as an additive in paint and fuel.
These days we are much more aware of lead’s toxic qualities. If lead gets into the blood stream, lead poisoning can damage nerve connections and cause blood and brain disorders, especially in young children. Consequently, it is being phased out of uses where it can cause health problems. It is a shame the ancient Romans didn’t know about this, as they used lead for water pipes – and to help preserve and sweeten wine, they added a syrup made of unfermented grape juice boiled down in lead-lined pots, greatly increasing their absorption of the metal.
One theory suggests that lead poisoning was a reason for the Roman Empire going soft (in the head, maybe) and being subsequently overthrown by more virile, clean-living barbarians.
Suggested heath and safety precautions when dealing with lead include: don’t work with lead inside your house; don’t work with it around children and pregnant women; don’t use a grinder or sander on lead, as you don’t want to inhale it or get it on your clothes; use a respirator or breathing mask if working in an enclosed area; and clean up your work area carefully afterwards.
Like most home sinker makers, I am always on the lookout for scrap lead. Useful sources are old sinkers, dive weights, roofing lead, lead-head nails, old plumbing pipes, wheel balancing weights (now being replaced by zinc in places) and lead type from now obsolete printing presses. These last two, wheel weights and printers metal, are usually alloys with a mixture of antimony and tin in with the lead, to make the metal harder and give sharper edges to the cast. Although this seems to raise the melting point slightly, it also makes the lead flow better and moulds a little better than pure lead.
You can, of course, buy lead, but this removes part of the cost advantage of making your own sinkers. I mentioned earlier that lead is relatively cheap, but the price of it has increased a fair bit in recent times. And lead is not cheap to ship. In a tackle store, for example, a 30oz ‘puka bomb is around $10 to buy these days, so it is well worthwhile making your own.
Depending on the type of sinker you are making, lengths of heavy copper wire or stainless welding rod can be useful for forming eyes or holes in running sinkers. Heavy cable or old engines can supply all the copper wire you will need.
The increasing value of scrap metal (although it has recently dropped back a bit from previous highs) has made it harder to get hold of for free, but keep your eyes open, put the word out, and you will be surprised what comes to light, especially if a share of the finished product is offered in return.
In a recent tidy-up, accumulated lead scrap from under my house was melted down into ingots. After all the old paint, oxide and dirt (dross) was removed, this totalled over 60kg; probably a lifetime’s supply.
Moulds
There is a lot of latitude in how you can mould a sinker. At its simplest, a box of sand can be used to mould simple tapered shapes. You don’t need commercial casting sand; you can go and get some from the local beach to do the job. Temporary moulds can be made from plaster-of-Paris or wood. Once, up in the Pacific Islands, we needed to replace a downrigger ball that had been lost on a coral head, and made a successful mould out of a small coconut shell sawn in half.
But for long-lasting moulds in more elaborate shapes, you can’t go past commercially-made aluminium moulds, usually available from tackle stores or over the internet. These soon pay for themselves, and allow you to really put out some decent numbers of sinkers, once you are on a roll.
You will find that you only really need a few moulds to suit the sizes and types of sinkers you mostly use. Some moulds will produce a range of different sinker weights, others multiples of the same size and type. This second type is required to produce good numbers of the sinkers you use a lot.
Heat is the key
The key to successful sinker moulding is heat. Obviously you need plenty of it to melt the lead, but having your moulds good and hot is equally important to avoid frustration. To this end it is useful to work with a second person, so you can operate quickly and efficiently and things don’t cool down, causing the lead to set when the sinker is only part-poured.
My ‘sinker buddy’ is my back neighbour and old fishing mate, Mike. His collection of moulds complements my own, and he has an old kero camping stove that really cranks out the heat. Any substantial metal pot can be used to melt lead, but Mike has a proper iron crucible, and between us we have a number of ladles for pouring the lead.
This work is best carried out in the open so any toxic fumes are dispersed. Appropriate tools for handling the hot moulds etc are necessary. A decent pair of slip-jaw pliers is a useful tool. Wear old, non-synthetic clothes (cotton, wool or leather), as should you get a splatter of molten lead on synthetic fabric, it will melt through in an instant. Eye protection is a good idea, and leather gloves (such as welding gloves) will be necessary to handle the mould and other hot items.
The thing you have to be really careful about is that the mould is very dry. Any water will instantly flash to steam when the molten lead hits it and blow back the molten metal – not good stuff to have flying around. For this reason, and to make sure the lead flows well, we make a point of really heating up the moulds before the first pour. If you then have a good production line going, the lead will keep the mould hot, and the sinkers will cast well. There is no waste, and off-cuts, scraps or rejects just go back into the melt.
I hope I have not made this simple process sound hazardous on a par with, say, offering to make Helen Clark a Dame. Home sinker making is not dangerous; with the right precautions I have been making my own for many years without mishap.
As well as sinkers, moulds to make lead jigs are available from time to time, and moulds to make lead-head hooks for rigging soft-plastics can be found on the internet. You can even find moulds for downrigger weights there – but of course you could always go and look for a coconut!
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