Is Lead Vastly Prefered Over Castiron Keels?

[captain58sailin]

Since the lead keel vessel is not an option, I would stick with the CI, and not swap keels, the old adage, if it isn't broke ... as you said before, dry bilge no evidence of leakage, I wouldn't fool with it. As far as the lead goes, you might shop it around as a lead keel first and if the money isn't there then crank up the forge and start pouring, as the preious posted stated there is some serious money in smaller bits preshaped, in my area a cast 16 oz banks sinker is worth $5.00 or more. It doesn't take a lot of heat to melt lead and you can buy the sinker molds off of ebay for not too much, it would be worth the investment.

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by captain58sailin

cast 16 oz banks sinker is worth $5.00 or more. It doesn't take a lot of heat to melt lead and you can buy the sinker molds off of ebay for not too much, it would be worth the investment.

Originally Posted by delmarrey

And at $10-12 a lb. you could make bullets.

What? Could we have found a way for a cruiser "out there" could make a few dollars?

Scuba weights, sinkers and bullets.
Just hope for a war and the prices will skyrocket.

[captain58sailin]

That thought had crossed my mind as well, go around scrape out lead from derilict boats, the bullets bring more money, but it is also a lot more handling. And diving weights would be less handling than sinkers, I recently hired a diver, who used a sand pouch on his belt for weight, so I thought that lead dive weights were a thing of the past. We could also make saps for vessel defenses.

[GaryMayo]

I could make bullion bars, and spray paint them with heavy layers of gold paint. Has been done before. Several countries have done this over the years, stealing the real public treasury.

[steamgoat]

Thread drift,but thanks for the memory jerk Mark, I made my dive weights from broken up batteries in the destroyer pens in Gib 35yrs ago,still have them !