Weighted Base Box Build Process

25/9/2021

I've got quite a lot of lead bits and bobs stored away, after replacing my incoming water pipe a few years ago and also having some work done on the roof. Here are some bits that came off the roof, along with a small crucible I bought on ebay for the purpose:

I started by getting an appropriate amount of lead. The internal dimensions of the steel box are 50 mm × 50 mm × 20 mm, which makes 50000 mm³ or 50×10⁻⁶ m³. According to the table on my website, the density of lead is 11300 kg/m³, so multiplying that by the volume in m³ gives an expected mass of 565 g (although I'll only need three quarters of that amount as I only need the height of the block to be 15 mm in the end). I weighed out 600 g as it seemed like a sensible amount without too much excess but definitely enough.

To get the lead into the crucible more easily I decided to cut it up. After doing a few, I decided it would be easier with the snips clamped in place, so I dug through the scrap wood bin and found a bit of cedar. I cut a couple of slots in it with my ryoba:

I then chiselled out the bit between the slots and (after taking this photo), cut off the angled bit (again with the ryoba):

The resulting jig:

The jig made it very quick to reduce the lead to a little pile of small bits.

A lot of the bits now fit in the crucible, but they won't all go in until they've melted and reduced in volume a bit.

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