Weighted Base Box Build Process

25/9/2021

For a bit of a change from planing and scraping padauk, I decided to have a go at sorting out the lead for the base weight. I started by grabbing an offcut of 0.8 mm steel, scribbling over it with a magnum sharpie and marking out a simple pattern.

Still trying to stick to hand tools wherever possible, I used some snips to cut out the pattern:

Then my home-made bender was used to bend the pattern:

The resulting box (with inside dimensions 50 mm × 50 mm × 20 mm):

Next up I used both of my third hands (or should that be third & fourth hand?!) to prop the box pattern on its end.

I could then weld along the corners:

The finished steel box.

The plan is to use this as a mould to cast a lead block to go in the bottom of the box. I've never cast anything in my life, but lead has a nice low melting point, so it seemed a good first option. The design (such as it is) has room for a 50 mm × 50 mm × 15 mm block in the bottom, so I thought I'd make the box slightly bigger in height in case of any impurities floating to the top. It should be easy to trim it down to size after casting.

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