Sounding weight

[Bill Perkins]

Well ; anyone else inspired by the WB article on metal cutting circular saw blades ? I was vaguely aware of them , but this prompted me to take action . No need for a 10 inch I decided , depth of cut is not an issue .So I went with a 7 ¼ inch Lenox blade that can also cut steel .

I’ve been wanting a 2 lb. sounding weight for use inshore .Davey & Co. used to have them but no more . I’ve got a stash of Naval Brass , originally meant for an architectural detail that never got built . A blade that can cleanly rip and crosscut the material seemed to be the missing link between the two .

I made up a simple 2 piece bed so I could do the crosscuts with my 10 in. slide miter box . This produced incredibly smooth and easy cuts in my 3/8ths by 1 in. Brass stock . I tightly locked the slide feature so if the blade did bind the material wouldn’t be thrown up into my hand .The ripping was done on my table saw with finger boards holding the piece in and down . I tried a full thickness cut at 45 deg. which the saw handled perfectly .

I’ve been impressed by the metal working posts here ,the most recent a video from Eye In Hand showing his construction of rudder hardware for his two Mellonseeds . http://www.eyeinhand.com/Marginalia/...brazing-brass/ After watching this a number of times I was ready to move up to Mapp Gas and try my luck .

My sounding weight consists of 3 pre-shaped pieces stacked and soldered together . Because of the low stress on and large surface area of these joints I could use hardware store plumbing solder . I tried heating with propane as an experiment and might have gotten this pile up to temp with it eventually but I ran out of patience and gladly switched to the Mapp gas . The same torch works for both. Everything was bought at Lowe’s but the brass.

My stock dimensions didn’t lend themselves to producing a regular polygon ,nor did I care about that : just every edge chamfered or eased a little . The ripping had left a few small marks so I ground the sawn surfaces with my belt sander clamped to the bench : first using 80 grit ,then 120.

Now I’m thinking of trying a pair of candlesticks . If they don’t work out they can always be repurposed as presentational sounding weights.

[Lew Barrett]

Don't forget to put a hollow in the bottom of the weight, Bill. That's for picking up whatever might stick from the bottom to help figure out what is down there. (I never used my weight, couldn't tell you if it actually works that way or not!) Yours is way to pretty to put in the water!

[Breakaway]

hat's for picking up whatever might stick from the bottom to help figure out what is down there.

Arrrg! Ye needs some tallow, tallow I say, stuffed in the hollow. There be the way to find good holding ground. Arr and avast!

kevin

[Wooden Boat Fittings]

Very nice work Bill, beautifully finished -- and looking surprisingly like this larger one, recently cast for a customer of ours.

They normally come in lead of course, but this customer particularly wanted a bronze one so that's what he got. The weight is a little less than 7 lb. (The line markings were deliberately kept simple, as the lead was for use by non-maritime people who didn't want or need to learn the correct marking system.)

The hollow Lew mentions can be seen (more or less) in the photo.

Mike

[purri]

I just use a deep sea fishing tapered lead sinker (8oz) with draft measured at the cockpit toerail , draft + 2 ft, 6ft, thence (knots) marks at 2 metre intervals up to 10m, thence again/finally at 20M. The cord is fluorescent green synthetic. The rest I rely on charts, binos and prudent navigation.

[Lew Barrett]

Arrrg! Ye needs some tallow, tallow I say, stuffed in the hollow. There be the way to find good holding ground. Arr and avast!

kevin

Right, tallow. How foolish of me! And to think I just used it for my hair!

[Bill Perkins]

No need to sample the bottom on the Georgia coast . It's typically a thick mud that sticks to everything .If the weight comes up clean I'll know I've hit sand .Mike ; would you explain your line markings?

[paulf]

Hi Bill,
Mark like this:
The Lead Line -- Construction and use

by Allen Mordica, TMLHA
(photos: USNLP)

Two leads are employed on vessels: the deep sea lead weighing 28 lb., and the hand lead weighing 14 lb. (a lead weighing somewhat less is sufficient for a small boat). We will look at a small, easily constructed line suitable for instructional and light duty use.

To prepare a lead line, assemble the strips of material, a 3-8 lb. lead weight, and 25 fathoms (150 ft.) of 3/8" cotton or manila line. (A note on the sinker; I was unable to obtain a lead, and so was required to cast my own. I carved each half of the mold from pine 2x12's, and the resulting weight didn't look half bad.) Splice the eye of the weight to one end of the line. If you want to allow for hollow in the heel of the lead (see below), flatten the base of the lead with a hammer or, on a large lead, saw off the base flat with a hacksaw, then drill a shallow hole for the tallow (also see below) in the center of the base. At each appropriate point, measured from the weighted end, use a fid or marlinspike to open the strands of the line. Insert the appropriate strip of material, so that the strip extends equally from both sides of the line, then allow the strands to return to their normal position, trapping the strip in the line. Then place whipping immediately at either side of the mark to help hold the strands tightly in place. The line used for a hand lead is 25 fathoms long, and is generally marked as follows:
At 2 fathoms-....Leather, with two lobes.(should look like a flat Milk-Bone biscuit)
3 ".........Leather, with three ends (like above, with 3 "lobes" at each end)
5 ".........White calico. (2" wide x 6"long strip)
7 ".........Red bunting. (same size as above)
10 "........Leather, with hole through it at each end.(same as above)
13 "........Blue serge.(same as above)
15 "........White calico.(same as above)
17 "........Red bunting.(same as above)
20 "........Strand of light line, with two knots in it at each end.
It is possible, by the different feel of the materials used, to tell what mark is in one's hand in the dark. The above depths are called marks; the unmarked depths in fathoms are called "the deeps".
Thus, at five fathoms, the leadsman calls, " By the mark five," in eleven fathoms,"By the deep eleven." He also calls halves and quarters of fathoms i.e.," And a half six,'' for six and a half fathoms, "A quarter less six," for five and three-quarters.
To take soundings while under way, the leadsman would take his place at the bow of a small boat, or at the forward chain plates on a large ship, secured from falling overboard by a "breast band", a wide strip of canvas used like a seat belt tied between two shrouds. The leadsman could then lean forward against the band to swing his lead in the clear. He would then swing the lead round and throw it as far forward as possible, so that the lead would be resting on the bottom and the line tight, when the vessel is directly over the lead.
If the lead is hove properly, so that the line pays out with a little tension as it passes through the hands, it is easy to tell when it has reached the bottom by the sudden slack felt in the line. When sailing in shoal waters, soundings can be taken much quicker with a pole or boathook than with a lead.
There is a hollow at the base, or "heel" of the lead which can be filled, or "armed", with tallow; a specimen of the bottom (mud, sand, or shingle) is brought up with the lead, and this, by referring to the chart, which generally marks the nature of the bottom, may help find your position precisely.

From this site: http://www.navyandmarine.org/planspa...undingline.htm

[Bill Perkins]

Mine's for shoal water ;30 feet long I think , with the first fathom marked by the foot ,then each fathom marked thereafter.Another idea I've looked at is the numbers WB sells for marking one's rode .These are in intervals of thirty feet ,running from 30 to 270. I would use them at 3 foot intervals , out to 27 feet .I can't make out what holds them in place though .

[Wooden Boat Fittings]

With all respect to Paul, that traditional form of marking was just what we were trying to avoid for our client -- firstly, the users were to be amateur crew-members, primarily landsmen, who might be changed quite often; and in addition the vessel was not to be operated at night, hence there was no need for sounding by feel but only by sight. So our form of marking avoided the necessity for crew to learn what would be, for them, the overly-complicated traditional method of marking.


This is how we proceeded. First, I should say that the leadline itself was cored braided starter-cord, which has minimal stretch. The total length of line was ten metres (much the same length as yours, Bill) which gave a made-up sounding depth of 9 1/2 m (allowing for a splice around the thimble and a large wrist-loop). We marked the line with one black band for every metre up to four, an orange one at five metres, and a combination of orange and black thereafter. (So, for instance, two metres was marked with two black bands, while 8 m was marked with one orange and three black bands.) The centre of any group of bands was where the actual mark fell. In addition, each 1/2 m was marked with a thin black thread for the whole length of the line. So soundings could be given visually to about the nearest quarter-metre or 10".

If we were to be marking the line in fathoms instead of metres we would probably have marked each fathom and half-fathom the same way, but in addition marked each foot below one or two fathoms (depending on the vessel's draft and the waters she was to be operating in).

The marks we made were about 1/2" long, they were made from whipping twine, and all markings were stitched through the line to hold them in place.

End loops for the wrist and around the thimble were made with racking seizings, also stitched through the line for added security.

Finally, we locked the pin of the shackle joining the thimble to the lead with copper wire.

Mike

[Bill Perkins]

Thanks Mike ,that all makes allot of sense to me . Seeing you post has reminded me of what could be my next piece : a Rang ;a single fluked land anchor which you posted about some time ago . I'll need to step up to the high strength braze or solder though .I remember you had knowledge of the optimum angle between shank and fluke ;also the relative lengths of the two . My stock is 25 in. long,but I could extend it if necessary.

[paulf]

With all respect to Paul, that traditional form of marking was just what we were trying to avoid for our client

No offence taken. I would do it the simple way myself. The traditional method seems a bit convoluted.

[Wooden Boat Fittings]

No worries, Paul. That wasn't meant to be a chip at you, just an explanation of why we chose the non-traditional route for our markings on this occasion.

Bill, the drawing you're thinking of is posted here. I make no claim regarding the size of the stock or the anchor itself, or the accuracy of the angles. This design was based on what I knew of rond anchors from reading UK literature, and was sized to suit my fifteen-footer. It was originally to be of galvanised steel, but the galvanising for this one item was going to be so expensive that we finally had it made in stainless. At the size I had the prototype made it was quite strong enough, but I didn't much like the amount of flex in the shank and if I were making it again I'd up the shank diameter to the 1" shown. To rig it you splice an eye in the end of the painter (which can stay there permanently), then thread the painter through the anchor-ring from above, pass the eye over the entire fitting, then draw the painter tight.

Apparently these anchors are a bob a dozen in the UK (as I was told after I published the drawing,) but I've never seen any here which was why I designed my own. They're perfect for mooring alongside a river-bank where you can just stamp on the shank to drive the fluke into the ground, leaving nothing for anyone to trip over. A fisherman with one fluke either bashed flat or preferably cut off altogether would work just as well.

Cheers, Mike

[Garret]

That's mighty nice!

I have put a mark on mine (which is nowhere near as nice as yours) at one foot over my needed draft. In fact it's leather through the line so I can also feel it. I put a second at 3' over (cloth).

After all - my main concern is do I have enough water - though knowing how it's shoaling is important as well.

[Bill Perkins]

A Rond ; right..Thanks . Here's a fine one I've found in my files .

I may need a bigger torch .