Soft Weights

I bought soft weights some time ago. Later I heard that some pellets used for these can leave a residue that is not good for the environment, but I thought I had clean pellets. Today I rinsed them after a dive and was horrified to see a gray residue come from them. Are there any soft weights that are not bad? I greatly prefer them to the solid ones, but don't want to pollute the places I dive.

ask the guy on this blog that 'home makes' his weights from discraded car battery lead plates, i'm sure he has an answer.

Well, at least you have made me feel better about my weights. Car batteries?

I don't feel so bad about wanting to use irradiated reactor shielding now

Sure that's not the salt coming off? Mine have done that since day 1 when I rinse after a dive.

on_two_wheels:

Sure that's not the salt coming off? Mine have done that since day 1 when I rinse after a dive.

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I was diving in fresh water, so it was not salt.
Anyone have any thoughts on environmentally friendly soft weights?

Generally, the larger the pellets the less friction between them which would be the cause of the lead dust coming off. You'll have to look around but I have found pouches that are filled with lead shot about 1/2" in diameter.

It usually isn't too big of a deal unless you're handling the weights a lot. Leaving your weights in their holders and only donning and doffing your gear doesn't cause too much movement in a weight.

Scuba Do:

Well, at least you have made me feel better about my weights. Car batteries?

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Hey Scuba Do:

The car batteries have lead plates that are bathed in an acidic solution, actually acid, along with plates of lead oxide that when combined produce electricity. This is in the simplest of terms but the bottom line, you can harvest any or all of the components to yield things for certain projects. In our case, the lead plates can be melted down to produce weights- drip molten metal into water and you get lead pellets (NEVER EVER add water to molten metal!). Pour your liquid lead into a mold and you know what you get (a gold bar with a lead coating).

Now I have used Sea Pearls and home made soft lead weights with the same issue that you have. I used mine in fresh and salt water and when I thought I had them "clean" I let them dry. Subsequent immersion in fresh water yielded cloudy water. Hmmm. I eventually likened the scenario of cleaning rice (for those that do before cooking) of the starch. Rinse the rice in cold water until the water runs clear. If I re-rinse after a while, the rice yields more starch! Apparently I am not as good of a cook as I thought! The moral to this story is that maybe we aren't cleaning out things as well as we could and in the soft lead weight scenario, maybe the pouches are holding some of that cloudiness we see when we re-rinse out weights.

Try this: weight your soft weights. If your weight is decreasing over the course of your dives then your lead pellets could be deteriorating with salt water exposure and poor cleaning. If not, and they just rinse cloudy each time, then it could be the salt water being liberated. And I just caught the post by mkutyna: that could be a possibility too, especially considering fresh water. If that is the case and the dust is the lead deteriorating, just wet them before handling to reduce friction.

And finally, if it makes you feel any better, I wear a weight belt with hard weights to offset the damage that killers like you are doing to our precious dive sites! You're welcome. See ya' in the Humor, Games, Clips, Yarns and Tales area!

With kind regards,
Thomas

mts0628:

And finally, if it makes you feel any better, I wear a weight belt with hard weights to offset the damage that killers like you are doing to our precious dive sites! You're welcome.

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Ah, Cap and Trade comes to the soft weights arena. Excellent!!!

Have you ever considered making soft weights with sand? I use to offset the suit for freediving and am very satisfyed (for scuba I do not use belt, all the weight in the BP/W setup).