Learn just how you can make your own carp leads at home!
During a season, buying carp leads can become expensive especially if you use the ‘drop ‘off’ lead system and before you know it – you’ve gone through half a dozen or so without thinking, more so during a busy session or two.
If you’ve ever thought about making your own leads from home, read on!
There not that difficult to produce, and the buzz that comes with creating your own and catching is worth the effort.
Let’s begin with some tools and the basic ingredients required.
- Heavy Duty Pan
- Lead (a friendly plumber can provide you with spare lead or alternatively visit a scrap yard)
- Lead Ladle (you can create your own by welding a small pot to a handle) or purchase a pan with a lip capable of pouring from.
- Lead Moulds (the most expensive component, but you’ll make your money back in no time!)
- Swivels (plenty of!)
- Lead Loops
- Knife
- Pliers
- Clamp
- Dessert Spoon
- Pot of Cold Water (for cooling)
- Strong Pair of Gloves
- Lead Coating Powder (optional)
Contents
Step 1 – Melting Your Lead
Place your lead into the heavy duty pan on a low-medium heat to start the melting process – DO NOT BOIL!
Step 2 – Heat Up the Lead Moulds
Whilst waiting for your lead to melt, this is the perfect time to place your lead moulds into the oven to warm up.
Do make sure they are hot enough when you clamp and start pouring because quite often your liquid lead can congeal because there isn’t enough heat.
We wouldn’t suggest using cold lead moulds because whilst pouring the molten lead into them it’s more likely to spit out at you which is obviously dangerous.
Step 3 – Preparation
Take out the lead moulds using heavy duty gloves and place into a clamp (there should be a pouring hole at the top) which will free your hands up for the pouring step which is next….
Before tightening the clamp, place your lead links and swivels into the side of the mould.
Let’s check the lead has melted and use a ladle to scoop off any excess from the top.
Step 4 – Casting the Lead
Now for a steady hand!
Move your pan of molten lead as close to the moulds as you can and you can begin to ladle the liquid lead into the moulds.
Be careful to not overfill and this requires you to be quite quick because the lead will start to harden pretty rapid!
To be sure it’s hardened, wait a few seconds and undo the clamp (using gloves)
Place the moulds on a sufficient surface and break apart to reveal your newly formed leads!
There may a small amount of excess lead that has formed around the top of the mould which can easily be trimmed off.
If you prefer to follow along to a video rather than the above guide, we’ve some great tutorials that you can follow along to below.
How To Make Your Own Carp Leads – A Step-by-step Video Tutorial
Mike has over 30 years of fishing experience in carp fishing and general coarse fishing. He is always looking for the latest fishing kit to try out and talk about and needs a bigger shed due to all the fishing tackle he owns. You can read more about him here.