Weights?????????????

I'd like to learn a little more on the different weights that everyone uses and why they use them I'm going to try to get into making my own sinkers and I think pappy is right about just buying the molds, but it will still be nice to make a custom mold for different sizes you can't get! I know the answer to the question can be long, but all the information will help other's! Thanks!

I seldom fish in current heavy enough to warrant the need of no roll sinkers, and when I do I am in my boat so all I use out here where I live is bank sinkers. In lakes, resevoirs and calm water with slow moving current they work well. When I catfish I use a sinker slider. I used to fish Sturgeon this way too and it has always worked well for me. I like to let a fish run a little bit before setting the hook on them. Last year I bought a new sinker mold. The old one that I have is probably older than I am and it's getting worn out. Now because we have very little current to deal with here, I bought a new Do-It brand sinker mold with four cavities. I bought the mold for 3 ounce sinkers due to the lack of current. Do-It makes a real nice mold and they are not very expensive for the quality that they provide. I did learn something the hard way though. After I had poured a coffee can full of sinkers we went fishing and when rigging up I discovered that the eye of the sinkers made in the Do-It mold are much heavier and thicker than those of my old mold. You can see from the picture below the difference in the thickness of the eyes. The eye's in the Do-It made sinkers are too thick for my snap swivels on the sinker sliders to close on. Now I have to find some kind of really large snaps to replace the ones that come with the sliders. I wish I would have thought about that before purchasing that particular mold. So that's something to think about when buying molds. I use to have a no roll mold years ago, but like a lot of other things, I loaned it out to someone and never saw it again. That mold was made to accept little thin wire eyes. You bought them seperately and placed them in the mold before you actually poured the lead. I really liked them because the wire was small enough that you could hook anything to it. I'm sure some of you guy's have seen these. Like I said, the Do-It molds are about the best I have used and they make just about any configuration you can think of, but their bank sinker molds could use a little smaller eye in them.



Here are some pictures of a couple of the Do-It molds that I have. You can see that they come with nice wooden handles and the milling work done to actually make the mold cavaties is really nice.




Another campany that seems to make nice molds is Hilts. I have one of their molds and it has worked really well for me and seems to be about the same quality as the Do-It modls.



I hope this information may help somebody who is thinking of pouring their own sinkers. It's a lot of fun, and when you price sinkers at the stores ( I did recently and an 8oz. sinker is almost $1.00) you can see how cost effective it is. One last thing I would mention is that if you are pouring molten lead for any reason, do it in the outdoors or at the least a really well ventilated area. Breathing those fumes out of a lead melting pot CANNOT BE GOOD FOR YOU!

Link to Do-It sinker mold company:
www.do-itmolds.com/ www.do-itmolds.com/

Link to Hilts sinker mold company:
www.hiltsmolds.com/ www.hiltsmolds.com/

Jim

Jim Buddy That Is Some Great Info There And I Like Them Molds, I Still Have To Get Me A Mold Or 2 For My Fishing Needs.

I like the bank sinkers if I'm fishin' off shore, but in the boat I use regular egg sinkers since I've got so many.I also use the lindy type sinkers, they don't roll around much. That's for river fishing. Lake fishing, usually I just chuck out my chicken liver with a couple split shot. Those sinker sliders work slick for changing weights fast, too.

Use ones like jimhs
also some pyramid sinkers for fast water...

I just had a thought. This might work, might not. You know a lot of people now have a metal cutting band saw, or at least know someone that does. I wonder how it would work if a guy were to get a length of round bar stock and cut wafers off of it in a band saw and then drill a small hole in the outer edge of the wafer? It would be the same shape pretty much as a no roll. It certainly would not be as heavy as lead, but to make up for that you could use either larger diameter bar stock or cut thicker wafers. Might be worth a try and probably would be cheaper than buying a mold and tryng to find lead to melt down. Now that I think about it, even square bar stock would work too.



Jim 8-)

I'm learning, thanks to all of you! And I thank you all for your input!