I wanted to create a weight which will keep the hangline down in a pretty good current. I have seen the can shaped weights and decided to go one better. I figured that if the weight presented less cross-sectional area to the water flow it would not add to the drag of the line, thus be more effective. This is what I came up with:

As you can see the weight looks amazingly like the Titanic, and it floats just as well. The fin is to keep the bow into the storm, so to speak. I made the mold from an old coffee can and some plywood. I used tacks to attach the tin to the plywood form and use duct seal putty to seal the cracks.

Here's the complete mold with the first pour in place:

I did not mold the bolt into place because I was not sure of where the point of balance would wind up. I later drilled a hole into the point of balance and screwed in a stainless steel screw-thread eyebolt. I found the center by balancing the weight on a pencil laid down on it's side.

The fin is some 1/32" scrap aluminum that was attached with SS wood screws. The completed weight is about 25lbs. This was a real ugly end product because I poured the lead in too fast and the moisture in the wood sent up bubbles. If I were to do this again I would use something other than plywood for the bottom of the mold. But beauty was not a goal in this project, thank goodness.

Using the tin was a bit of a problem as lead loves to bond with tin. I had to break out the "persuader" to detach the mold from the lead. The mold was destroyed in the process (note: use release agent next time).

The first test of this weight was a dive with a 1.5kt current running. I use a 45' long rope, the first 7 feet are attached to the boat and I have knots set at 10', 20', and 30'. On this day the 20' knot wound up being the 10' stop but the line was very stable and did not swing around any. The fin on the weight served it's purpose to keep the nose upstream, if it was not there the weight would problably have spun all over the place. Verdict: worked great, and looked cool!