installing concrete ballast

[wolfietuk]

I am using a mixture of lead (old sash weights) and concrete for ballast Total is under 200 lbs. Should I lay the weights in and pour the concrete on top, or visa versa. Any hints before I start would be appreciated, I dont want to break up concrete.

Rick

[paladin]

why create trouble and a mess for 200 pounds...just put some screws down through the lead into the wood with some epoxy in the screw holes (wax the screws) then lay a glass tape or two over the lead....a lot easier to remove or change later if necessary.....

[RGM]

As paladinsfo suggests don't bother with cement for only 200 lbs. Come up with some more lead, fab suitable grid work or supports for it, so it doesn't lay hard against your planking and frames, and install it. The gridwork, boxes or "basketware" could be made from any non-offensive material that suits you. They can be made to be slung down between your frames (but above your planking). This will help with ventilation, makes it easier to re-arrange, inspect your hull or remove for hull repairs later. Good luck.

[Bob Cleek]

Well, for 200 pounds of ballast, that's about the most harebrained scheme I've heard in a long time. There is absolutely no justification for doing such a thing. If you need 200 pounds of ballast, use 200 pounds of lead, for Pete's sake! You want your boat to turn into a pile of rot? Use concrete. BTW, you sure your sash weights aren't really cast iron? Never seen lead sash weights, but I guess they exist. Lead is very easy to cast. You can melt 200 pounds on your kitchen stove (when your wife isn't watching.) Ladle it into tin bread pans. You'll nead about eight "loaves" to equal 200 pounds. Easy to remove when you want to paint your bilges, too.

[rickprose]

cleek's right but also wrong, sort of. my boat's 51 years old and filled with concrete, lead, boiler punchings and bricks, and she's not rotten yet -knock wood, cross my fingers and rub my lucky rabbit's foot. but, she was built by inbred bahamian shipwrights who didn't know any better, so it's okay.
but, pouring concrete for 200 lbs of ballast is a hare-brained scheme, and i've also never seen lead sash weights, only cast iron. lead was selling for around a buck a pound last time i checked, and portland cement goes for 8 bucks a bag, shouldn't need more than two, so you would be saving some money, but if 150 bucks is the deciding factor then you shouldn't be thinking about spending anything on a boat, you should be heading to the welfare office and loading up on government surplus flour and peanut butter.
building and/or owning a wooden boat doesn't have to cost a fortune, but it does cost something, and there's no point in being penny-wise and pound-foolish, now is there?

[J. A.Tones]

Well as usual Mr. Cleek is on his soapbox expounding the negatives of using concrete for ballast. Thing is, up here in the Pacific Northwest, according to Mr. Cleek, there are several hundred vessels build by "hair brained" shipwrights.
Almost every commercial shipping vessel here in the Pacific Northwest has concrete ballast and despite Mr. Cleeks speaches, they are not rotting away into oblivion. :confused:
I recently removed all the concrete ballast from my 36' ex commercial fishboat in order to get rid of all the accumulation of oils etc that had been dumped in the bilge when she was still a fishboat and the hull under the conctret looks like new. The only areas of any sign of deterioration is about 2 inches of each rib where fresh water from the fish holds was allowed to accumulate, once under the concrete there is NO rot, and the rot is only surface at that.
Either my boat is an extreme exception or concrete does not cause rot and sure as H--- is a lot easier to install than some things I have seen recommended and its all going back in next month plus a fair bit more.
Just one dumb Canucks version but hey - maybe concrete does cause rot south of the "49th", if so my appologies Mr. Cleek.
John Tones MV Penta
Vicoria, BC

[wolfietuk]

Thanks for the responses and to answer a couple of questions. It is cement not concrete called for sorry my mistake. And as for pouring I used that as a general term for placing the material. The hair-brained scheme comes from Sam Devlin, Though he actully calls for iron punchings and cement. I would assume this is to keep the punchings from rolling around. The sash weights are lead. I ran across an old house about 15 years ago that used them instead of cast iron (Ive got plenty of those also). I thought of casting the lead but it seemed easier to use enough cement to hold the lead in place. This is going into a 16' trailer sailer. Thanks for the help.

Rick

[Smacksman]

I first thought you had left a zero off the figure, ie. 2000 lbs. smile.gif Not worth the hassle with cement for less, I reckon. I weigh 200lbs. but I'm not volunteering to lie down in your bilge but it puts it into perspective.

Punchings are great and like liquid metal. I pour them into plastic engine oil bottles and strap them down. Cost zero. In fact it is a bit like car tyres - 'please take them away, it costs me money to get rid of them'.

Lead is twice as dense so needs less volume but is expensive.

Cement/concrete at 2 tons/cu.m. has no real ballast gain other than as a cheap and an inert binder of the weighty ballast.

My old smack was built in 1885 with concrete + iron pig/scrap ballast in from new. Laid straight onto the tarred planking and finished flush to the 4" sided frames it formed a smooth surface to shovel out the catch. The oak timbers are still ok and the larch planking even better but that may have been replaced in the distant past.

BUT...

a. smacks were built cheap to last say 20 years max.
b. in salt water with fish oil seeping down the cracks between the hull and the ballast it was a good preservative.

With a different use [pleasure, dry bilges, freshwater lakes] maybe keeping access to the inside of the timbers would be more sensible today.

If you do go for cement binding then use a lean mix, say 8:1 sharp sand/ cement mix or 8:4:1 stone:sand:cement concrete mix. That will allow it to be broken out easily in the future as sure enough it will be one day.

[Bob Cleek]

I SAID: "FOR 200 POUNDS OF BALLAST, THAT'S THE MOST HARE BRAINED SCHEME I'VE EVER HEARD OF..." For a much larger job, I wouldn't call it hare brained, just stupid. LOL Of course, concrete ballast, with or without boiler punchings, etc, has been used for years and years. More so in some places than in others. IF it is done properly, usually with tar well covering the wood, it is probably not going to cause rot and will last a good long time. HOWEVER, we're talking about big, heavy boats, not light trailerable boats, and usually hard workboats for rough usage in which cost was a consideration and anticipated lifespan was not long. The big boats do not flex and move like the little ones do, so a huge hunk of cement in the bottom is likely to stay put in a big heavy troller or whatever. I'd expect water would find its way down between the planking and the cement (which is porous itself) in pretty short order on a little flexible trailer job. What is hare brained, IMHO, is using concrete for just a 200 pound job. Heck, if you need that kind of ballast, three or four sandbags would do the trick, and you could empty them out before you trailered her home. Save gas, wear and tear on the trailer suspension, all sorts of good stuff.

As for the 200# boiler punchings and cement ballast being Sam Devlin's idea... well, that explains a lot! LOL You want "backyard boatbuilding," you get "backyard boatbuilding." Sam sells books and plans to people who want to cut corners and avoid taking the time to do things the right way... If they have fun along the way, great. Sam has, I'm sure, inspired many with the confidence to build their first boat. There's a place for that. Maybe Sam figured he'd sell more plans if he did it that way, and he wouldn't scare off any customers who couldn't imagine themselves casting lead themselves. But, there's no reason, and no reasonable savings, to resorting to cement and boiler punchings for only 200# of ballast. Heck, if you want to go quick and dirty, for 200#, a couple of hunks of railroad rail on either side of the keel ought to do the trick nicely.

[ 05-06-2002, 05:05 PM: Message edited by: Bob Cleek ]