found an old dive belt

[Castlead]

I was out in the woods today and found an old dive belt with about 60 lbs of weight, I know its lead, but it seams quite hard. Any one know the alloy dive weights were made of?

[Castlead]

Nope, much harder than WW.

[Castlead]

I don't think these are home made, I will post a pic tomorrow. Good find though.

[shunka]

I don't think these are home made, I will post a pic tomorrow. Good find though.

As a teenager in college, I did a lot of weight belt casting for the local dive shop. We used anything we could get. They had a commercial mold and the weights were sold as commercial products, with (as I recall) the U.S. Divers logo on them.

Truly commercially manufactured diving weights are usually coated with vinyl or some such so as not to clank as badly on the tanks.

hope this doesn't confuse you any further
shunka

[Longwood]

I got several a few days ago. I can carve a groove in all but two with a thumb nail.

[bumpo628]

Is anyone else wondering what someone was doing with a dive belt in the woods?

[troy_mclure]

im a commercial diver, and a avid scuba diver.

ive made several kinda scuba, and commercial weights.

most were made from old beat up trade in weights, and lead from the local scrap yard.

ive used lots of scuba weights for bullet alloy, and until a month ago all have been lead.

i recently found 4 "12lb" marked weights that weighed 3.7lb each. the scrap yard tested them as zink.

[Castlead]

Well, I can't figure out how to post a pic using my phone and my computer is still packed.
But any way I have 4 - 8lb with orange rubber coating, 2 - 6lb 1 w/black rubber 1 bare, and 1 5lb bare. All the rubber coated ones have a" ping" after striping them and giving a smack test with a hammer, the bare 6 lb I would guess is about the same as WW. The 5 is dead soft, and looks home made. So if they were made using anything that melts, perhaps I found some lino, or trouble....

Hmmm, now when can I unpack my smelting pots and saco hardness tester. Too bad they are at the back of the storage unit.

[41mag]

Hmmm, now when can I unpack my smelting pots and saco hardness tester. Too bad they are at the back of the storage unit.

Rule #1 - when storing things, always put the most important things in the truck first, then they are last to be unloaded and in front of everything else. :kidding:

[Hardcast416taylor]

So, how much rain and flooding did you have in this area this Spring?

A friend has a dive shop. He says his weights are made from anything that melts, including zinc!Robert

[drhall762]

They are probably left over from the Great Flood.

Thanks for this post. I had forgotten I had a weight belt in the garage from the old days.

[insanelupus]

I picked up over a 100 pounds of lead a few years ago at a garage sale. The ingots were muffin ingots and I asked the fellow if he know what the composition of the lead was. His reply was that part of it was wheel weights and the rest were dive weights from when he lived in California in the 70s and 80s. A very crude hardness test with a ball bearing and vice using stick on wheel weights as "pure/ BHN 5" said they were a bit harder than my current WWs (about 9-10 BHN) at about 12-14 BHN. I keep planning to melt those things down at about 700 degrees and check for zinc before I throw it in a 20 pound pot with good melt in it.

[jsizemore]

Is anyone else wondering what someone was doing with a dive belt in the woods?

sink-hole

[RayinNH]

Is anyone else wondering what someone was doing with a dive belt in the woods?


Scuba diver came ashore on a heavy dew...Ray

[WILCO]

Is anyone else wondering what someone was doing with a dive belt in the woods?

I was.......

[Castlead]

For the ones wondering what a dive belt was doing in the woods, these woods are only 30 miles from the ocean and the old trash pile I found them in is about 60 feet from a lake. Hope this clears things up a bit.