Repair Design Furniture

Manufacturing of lead sinkers. Homemade sinkers. Silicone molds


Fishing is one of the most favorite activities for almost every man. Outdoor fishing, clean river or lake water - what else is needed for a real holiday? By the way, not only men but also many women are fond of fishing. And many ladies are even superior to men in this exciting activity.

Every real fisherman knows almost everything about fishing - how to choose the right fishing rods and hooks, how to fish correctly and where are the best places for fishing, what lures and weights to choose.

And a real fisherman can or wants to learn how to make fishing tackle on his own, with his own hands. After all, only the fisherman himself knows what he needs, what is more suitable and how best to do so that the fishing is successful.

Pike perch is a fairly common type of fish. And at the same time it is quite large. Fishermen do not mind catching this predator, and the hostesses will not refuse to cook fish for the dinner table.

There are many ways to fish for walleye and other fish. In order for the catch to succeed, it is proposed to make eared sinkers for catching pike perch, or as they are called in another way "cheburashka". You can do this with your own hands, with a little effort. Since the necessary sinkers are not always available for purchase, homemade "Cheburashka" will be an excellent find for a fisherman.

So, we make casting plaster molds (chill molds). Every fisherman can do this.

To make the mold, you will need a cardboard base (for example, a box for matches), plaster of Paris and a "long-eared sinker" as a sample. The first thing to do is to pour the base with gypsum dissolved in water.


Then the sample of the "Cheburashka sinker" must be half immersed in plaster. While the plaster is drying (this will take about 15 minutes), you need to prepare another portion of the plaster for the second half of the eared sinker. After that, the two halves need to be joined together - put the base with the "cheburashka" on fresh plaster. Also, with the help of a sharp object, two holes are made to allow air to escape and two holes for the guides.


In order to remove the "Cheburashka" from the chill mold, pliers, lead and a crucible (tin can) are required.


Before that, the inner part of the chill mold must be lubricated with oil and "ears" made of wire. The mold must be placed on a wooden plank.


The lead is lowered to the bottom of the crucible and set over a small fire. After the metal has melted, the lead is poured into the chill mold using pliers. After 15 minutes, you will be able to disassemble the mold and remove the remaining lead with a knife. Now you can weigh the sinker and go fishing.

Like all types of bait, sinkers of a certain weight and shape can also be made at home. Of course, not all fishermen are locksmiths or milling cutters, and not everyone has the opportunity to make metal molds, therefore, gypsum or sealant can be used as the mold material. Or ask a familiar craftsman at a local factory for a metal mold.

With a successful transaction, within a day or two, you will receive the necessary molds for casting. But first you need to take care of determining the exact diameter of the future ball-shaped sinkers and inform the master in order to eventually get the weights of the required weight.

If you are not good at mathematical calculations, you can find tables on the net showing the correspondences between the diameter and weight of a lead ball. It is also worth remembering that balls made of lead and, for example, Wood's alloy, with the same dimensions, will have different weight indicators, since lead has a high density.

How to make a mold for casting plaster sinkers (video)

Form for lead weights from sealant

A mold for making sinkers or spinning lures can be made without any special difficulties on your own using plaster or silicone sealant as well as a finished sample. For example, it is easy and also very unusual to make a form from a sealant like "Hermesil" and the like. The main factor in choosing a sealant is its ability not to change its physical properties when exposed to high temperatures.

The upper temperature limits for most common sealants are 150 to 180 ° C.

In this regard, the use of pure lead for casting sinkers is not very appropriate, since its melting point reaches 350 ° C. But you can take some alloys, namely the printing alloy, Wood's or Rose's alloys. Their melting point fluctuates in the range of 60-110 °, and therefore, when using such alloys, the silicone mold will serve you for a long time and the castings of the sinkers will be of high quality.

If lead is taken as the material for the sinkers, the manufactured casting mold will withstand approximately 8-10 castings. It is also worth noting that each time the lead sinker will move more and more away from the original ideal due to the gradual burnout of the mold from the sealant.

You can buy silicone sealant at specialized building materials stores or auto stores.

Although such a casting mold at first glance may seem completely unreliable, in fact it can withstand quite high temperatures, and thanks to its properties, it will make it possible to make a sinker or bait of almost any shape.

Making molds for casting weights

Making a mold is not so difficult. First, take a small box and completely fill it with quality sealant. When filling, be careful not to form bubbles.

Further original the weight must be lubricated with a solution of wax or paraffin in gasoline. After drying, the sinker on a thin wire is completely lowered into the sealant, but at the same time it should not touch the walls of the box itself.

In this position, the sample weight must remain until the sealant hardens. Due to the nature of the sealant, this process can last as long as a couple of days or take 5-6 days. Do not remove the weight until complete polymerization.

After the substance has solidified, cut out a small hole through which we remove the sample of the sinker. The elastic shape is ready, which means you can try to make your own lead or lead alloy.

The metal is poured through the same hole that you made earlier to remove the original sample weight. Thanks to its unique physical properties, the silicone mold makes it easy to reach homemade weights or baits, after which it returns to its original form and is ready for use again.

How to paint lead



Aluminum Mold for casting weights (video)

Related articles:

DIY fishing homemade products

Review of the best balancers for winter fishing

Fishing with jigs: varieties, tackle, fishing technique

Types of fish finders for fishing

Overview of aluminum boats for fishing

How to choose a spinning reel?

Electric motors for inflatable boats (review)

Fishing boats

Which coil to choose for a feeder - an overview of characteristics

Feeder Rod Features and Capabilities

Buy with good discounts for personal use and as a gift to friends and acquaintances.

Buy quality products at affordable prices c. Make gifts for yourself and your loved ones!

Subscribe to us on Facebook, Youtube, Vkontakte and Instagram. Stay up to date with the latest news from the site.

Sinked with their own hands

Making homemade weights is not only useful, but also a very simple procedure. Weights are mainly needed for donor and spinning rigs for rigs with branch mounting. Even a beginner angler can master this technique. The main thing is to have lead, create a fire source and find suitable dishes. In this article, we will learn how to make fishing leads, where to get lead, and which fire sources are best.

Where can I get lead?

Do-it-yourself fishing sinkers are poured from any lead that is at hand. The easiest way to get lead is to go to a tire shop and buy used balance weights. Such lead will cost much less than buying sheet lead. You can buy the required amount of kilograms and get a large number of weights from them for various purposes. The only point to consider is the steel elements poured into the middle of some of the weights. It is advisable to remove them during melting. But there are usually not many such sinkers. The weights can be melted all together without sorting them by density.

The second way to get lead is from old batteries. It is better to find points where old batteries are accepted and buy them for a reasonable price. This is a more difficult method, since you will have to disassemble the batteries to remove the lead from them.

The third way is to get the lead out of the cable sheath. It is made of 1, 1.5 and 2 mm thick lead sheets. If you know an electrician, ask if they can get this braid. Such lead can be used not only for casting weights, but also for cutting strips for feeder troughs.

The most expensive way is to buy lead. It is sold in sheets and ingots. Better, of course, sheet, but its size is very large. In such cases, the anglers team up and buy one sheet at a time.

You can also make your own sinkers from old weights, which almost every angler probably has.

One thing is for sure: absolutely any lead is suitable for casting sinkers with your own hands. It doesn't matter if it contains impurities, or how dense or soft it is. Our task is weights for bottom fishing.

We pour out the sinker for the donkey with a rubber shock absorber

Let's first consider how to make fishing weights for an elastic band. We will perform this procedure on the street. We need a fire or a gas burner with a spray can. In the first case, more time is needed to melt the lead, but there is no need for adaptations and extra costs.

Melting lead with a gas torch takes minutes, but a can of gas is required.

We also need a tablespoon, a tin can for lead, and a little patience. We will pour the cargo into the ground. We find a wet piece of land and press a depression with a spoon to make such a boat. Next, take a stick and insert it into one of the ends of the resulting shape. Then we are already waiting for the lead to melt.

After it becomes liquid, pour it into the resulting depression. We wait until it cools down a little, after which we take out the stick. The result will be a load weighing about 300-350 grams. It will lie well on the bottom and be easy to cast over long distances. We inserted the stick to get a hole in the weight.

You can pour several pieces at once if you can get a fire source with a high temperature.

Many anglers ask themselves the question: “How to make fishing weights for elastic bands of light weight, so that they stay well on the bottom and are not carried away by the current. It is quite simple to make such weights. It is necessary to take 3-4 pieces of wire 10 cm long and bend them into staples. Then place it in the recess. After filling, you will get such a spider. After casting, the weight will lie in one place, and these pieces of wire will hold it. In this case, the weight of the cargo may not exceed 150 grams.

Pouring out the cone weights

Donors and spinning players often use do-it-yourself tapered weights. The former are used because they fly far and accurately, and spinningists use them in spaced installations. It is very easy to make such weights yourself. Even forms are not needed. We need hard paper, from which we will make cones in the form of small bags.

We also need a thin and stiff wire. From it we will make eyelets through which the weights will be attached to the main line.

We will pour the sinkers with our own hands in the same way as last time. Instead of a gas burner, you can use a portable two-burner burner. It will be possible to pour in two containers to make the process faster. In this case, we put the jars on the stove with an interval of 5 minutes. Lead has melted in one, pour it directly into the molds. After this operation, the lead should also melt in the second container.

We insert wire staples into paper molds so that the eye sticks out from the top of the cone. We immerse the molds in the ground so that they take a vertical position. We select the size of the molds experimentally. We estimate by eye what kind of weight we need. As a reference, you can take a weight of 35 grams and look at it already. It will be enough to pour out the first batch of fishing sinkers with your own hands. The weights obtained will be used as samples when we will make molds for the next batch.

The pouring process is identical to the previous one. You can use an unnecessary metal mug as a container for lead. It is convenient to take it by the handle and pour lead out of it. In order not to burn your fingers, it is better to wear gloves on the palm of your hand. After pouring, you should wait a little and remove the weights from the molds. We simply tear off the paper, not sparing it, since the molds are initially disposable.

We pour out flat sinkers for donuts

Flat weights are often used in bottom fishing. They are usually oval in shape. Such sinkers lie well on the bottom, even when fishing in strong currents. How to make such fishing weights? To do this, cut out an oval blank 4 cm long and 2 cm wide from an elastic band 3 mm thick. You can also make heavier sinkers. For this, we will use more dimensional workpieces.

Further, we make 7-8 dents in the ground, as in the previous case, when a large sinker was poured for the rubber band. We will be making two types of weights. One type is sliding, and the other is with an eyelet. To pour out the sliding weights, cut the thin wire into pieces that exceed the length of the recesses by 1 cm. Insert the wire into these recesses.

To obtain weights with lugs, we will proceed in the same way as when pouring tapered weights. Only the ear this time will look out of the recess. If necessary, holes can be drilled on the edge of the sinkers

Pour the molten lead carefully into containers and wait for 5 minutes. After that, you can carefully collect them with a spoon.

Pouring fishing weights into molds

To obtain calibrated sinkers of various shapes and weights, various types of metal forms are used.

Consider how to cast weights in a metal mold of this type:

The form consists of two halves. After pouring, weights with a weight of 130 grams with swivels should be obtained.

In addition to lead, we need two clamps for clamping forms, swivels and files with nippers to remove roughness from the weights obtained. Before casting, we lubricate all the molds with machine grease so that the weights can be easily removed after pouring.

First, insert the swivels into the four lead molds.

Then we press the halves together with clamps.

Next, we put to heat the lead in a suitable container. In this form, the sprues are large enough, so there will be no special problems with casting. The part of the lead that remains near the sprues is collected and used in the next pour.

We install the form on a flat surface. When the lead has melted, we start casting:

The container in which the lead melts is clamped with pliers, and we begin to carefully pour the lead into the holes.

After pouring, wait a few minutes and disassemble the form. The result should be the following ribbed sinkers:

From it is necessary to process a little with a file. Remove the section from the sprue side. Large growths can be bitten off with nippers, after which the place is processed with a file. As a result, a very large number of leads can be made.

They can be used in feeder fishing for bottom punching. Such heavy sinkers will be useful for bottom-sinkers for fishing in strong currents. They fly far and hold the bottom well.

conclusions

We have considered the simplest methods for casting sinkers. You can make weights even if you don't have shapes. If you have metal molds, you can cast custom weights, making money on it. The main thing in this process is to find lead and a well-ventilated place. Remember that lead casting is harmful in an enclosed area.

There are also ways of casting weights in plaster and wood molds. But for this, we also need to make forms, which only complicates the task. And the term of their use is not very long. It is important to understand that weights are a consumable. Therefore, you should not spend a lot of time on this process, trying to get products of perfectly correct shapes.

In the article, you will get acquainted with the main types, as well as with the tactics of using them.

Learn everything to become a real angler and learn the right choice.

The widest possibilities for selection of the optimal weight of the rig are provided by eared sinkers or "cheburashka". With the same bait, you can explore all the depths where the pikeperch might be. But this requires a line of sinkers with a weight difference of 1-2 g.

Then it will be possible to find the key to the careful predator. It is not always possible to get eared sinkers of the required weight. And sometimes, for fishing in tight spots, you have to leave almost the entire set. Therefore, some fans of jig spinning are thinking about making "Cheburashkas" at home.

Pros and cons of homemade making

To start making eared sinkers with your own hands, you need to weigh the pros and cons. Perhaps not every angler wants to overcome the difficulties that have arisen.

The main disadvantage of home production will be the need to make many chill molds (casting molds).

The second disadvantage will be the harmful effects of molten lead on the body.

But on the other hand, having overcome these difficulties, the spinning player has advantages over other anglers. The most important plus will be a good catch of pike perch.

The most widespread are metal and plaster casting molds. Although materials such as wood, sand mixture and silicone are also used.

Gypsum chill molds can be made by every angler. This requires a cardboard base (matchbox), plaster of paris and a purchased "lead-cheburashka" as a sample. The gypsum is dissolved in water to the consistency of sour cream, and the base is filled with the mixture.


After that, the eared sinker is half immersed in the plaster. While the gypsum mixture dries up (5-10 minutes), you can knead another portion for the second half of the chill mold. Half of the "Cheburashka" should be covered with fresh plaster mix, and wait until it dries. It only remains to make holes for filling and air outlet, as well as two holes for installing the guides.


Metal molds are much more reliable and durable than gypsum chill molds. But manufacturing requires the help of a milling machine and a locksmith. Two hemispheres are made with a ball cutter, and then the necessary holes are made with drills of different diameters.

Manufacturing technology

In order to remove the finished eared sinker from the chill mold, you need a little lead, a crucible (tin can) and pliers.


Previously, the inner surface of the chill mold is lubricated with oil or lard. "Ears" for "Cheburashka" are made of soft wire. The casting mold is going


and set on a wooden cutting board. Now the lead is lowered to the bottom of the crucible and placed on the fire source. After the metal is completely melted with pliers, the lead is poured into the chill mold. After 5-15 minutes, the mold can be disassembled. Excess lead is removed with a knife, wire cutters and a file. It remains only to weigh the sinker and mark.



Subtleties of obtaining "cheburashkas" of different weights

Naturally, to make eared sinkers with a discreteness of 1-2 g, many chill molds are required. But it is enough to show a little ingenuity and the situation can be simplified.

Firstly, to catch pike perch, "Cheburashki" of a certain mass range (15-40 g) are usually required.

Secondly, in the same chill mold, you can get eared sinkers of different weights. The secret lies in the use of tin, which has a lower specific gravity than lead. But these two metals are fused to glory. As a result, by selecting the required ratio of lead and tin, it is possible to obtain a whole line of "Cheburashkas" from one casting mold. Thus, having made 3-4 chill molds, we will be able to provide ourselves with a full arsenal of "eared".