? about using lead in stones

[CharlesDMickey]

I just picked up about 70lbs of lead in small pieces. They are old weights used for wheel / tire balancing. So they vary in size from about 1” to 4-5”.

Has anyone used them or something similar for adding weight to stones? I have a few ideas of what may work to keep the lead grouped together and centered in the mold. But I thought I would throw it at the experts and see what you guys think would be the best way to keep the lead in the center of the mold.

Thanks
Mick

p.s. I’m trying to get away from melting it down….

[ClayEdgin]

I wondered about this too. I think that just putting them in a small pail and suspending it in the mold would work. When I suspended some weight plates inside my last stone, I put a keg on either side of the mold. Then I put a wooden block on top of each keg. The Slater mold was being supported by two car tires. I duct taped 3 10lb plates together. Then I took a strip of the fiberglass packing tape and twisted it until it was a rope. Then I taped the "rope" to the mass of weights inside the bottom half of the mold and then put the mold together. Then I grabbed the rope ends from inside the mold and brought them outside the mold. Remember those kegs and wooden blocks on each side of the mold? I put a piece of pipe across the kegs/blocks and tied the rope ends over the pipe. Hard to explain, but I hope that helped.

[Joshua Davis]

Put them in an old sock. The sock will "meld" in with the concrete... and what dosen't meld will be eaten by the lye in the concrete mix. Either that, or do what I did when I sank a hex-blob into one of my stones... I put it in a pillowcase (the blockweight was bigger than the hole in the mold), poured the concrete, keeping the pillowcase and weight above the level of the pouring, and when the mold was just about 1" over half-full, I cut open the pillowcase, letting the blockweight sink about 1" to be pretty much centered into the core of the stone.