CA2042643A1 - Weighted line - Google Patents

Abstract

WEIGHTED LINE
Abstract of the Disclosure A lead-line having a plurality of longitudinally aligned weights snugly enclosed within a flexible, resil-ient sheath. The weights have ">" shaped ends which are offset between adjacent weights and which make point contact with the ends of adjacent weights, thereby allowing the lead-line to flex in all directions.

Description

2~42~43 WEIGHTED LINE

Field of the Invention This invention relates to the field of braided ropes having lead cores, also known as lead-lines. In particular, this invention relates to a lead-line having a hardened extruded lead core of improved flexibility and a method of producing same.

Back~round of the Invention Lead-lines are a specialized type of rope, used extensively in the commercial fishing industry. Conven-tionally, a crimped lead core is sheathed in a braided fibre cover to produce a somewhat flexible, weighted rope.
Such rope is a common component in commercial fishing nets.

Before the advent of braided rope lead-line, lead-lines were made by using twisted cotton ropes with external lead weights. The lead weights were manufactured by pouring molten lead into dies which were placed around the rope. A spaced array of weights could thus be attached along the length of the rope.
Braided lead-lines came into use as a common component in commercial fishing nets in about the early 1950's. Their construction differed from that of twisted cotton rope lead-lines. Instead of being attached exter-nally, lead weights were sheathed in fibres which werebraided together to form a rope.

Three United States patents are illustrative of the development of the art. Paulsson, United States Patent No. 1,050,748 which issued 14 January, 1913; Herzog, United States Patent No. 3,400,628 which issued 10 September, 1968; and, Hayashi et al., United States Patent No. ~ 623,397 _which issued 30 November, 1971, illustrate the prior art method of producing lead-line comprising a>

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2~42~43 transversely crimping a lead core, sheathing it in a fibrous covering, and then breaking the crimps to produce a lead-line which is flexible in one plane.

In particular, Paulsson teaches manufacturing sinking-weights for fishing tackle by forming incisions or indentations in a lead wire by means of a rotary star wheel or tooth drum. Paulsson further describes placing a woven tube over the lead wire and separating the sections of wire within the woven tube by breaking them apart.

Herzog describes a process of manufacturing braided-jacket lead-line. The lead-line incorporates a lead wire core which has been nipped or partially severed at closely spaced intervals. The core is sheathed in a braided jacket, and then broken into separate sections by winding the jacketed core over a pair of parallel rotating shafts.

Similarly, Hayashi et al. describe a process for producing lead-line which comprises the steps of crimping lead wire between a pair of toothed rolls or drums, braiding a jacket around the lead core, and passing the jacketed lead core between laterally offset rolls or drums so that the core is separated into cut lead pieces at the dents or depressions within the weighted rope.

The present industry standard is to manufacture lead-lines using an extrusion press to extrude a continuous rod of lead in diameters from about .125" to about 1.125", depending on the weight per fathom of lead-line which is desired. The lead rod is passed between two rotating wheels. The wheels have a spaced radial array of spurs which crimp the rod from opposite sides as it passes between the wheels. Once crimped, the rod is fed into a braider which jackets the rod in a braided sheath. The resulting jacketed rod is fed through a series of rollers 2~26~3 which break the crimped lead rod into separate "slugs" at the opposed crimps, thereby producing a lead-line which is capable of flexing somewhat at the break points.

The main disadvantage of lead-line manufactured by a crimping process is that the lead-line has only limited flexibility.

It has been found that there is only a restricted range of included angles which may be usefully incorporated into the crimping wheel spur. If the spur is other than substantially knife-like (i.e., has a small included angle), the rotating motion of the crimping wheel produces humps in the lead rod ahead of the spur. This creates a hump at the end of each individual lead slug. These humps are undesirable if later elongation of the slug is to be minimized. Thus, to avoid the formation of humps, it is necessary to limit the included angle in the crimping spurs to an angle no larger than about 20. This means the resulting lead slugs have rather flat wedge-shaped ends.
That is, the wedge-shaped ends have an included angle of at least 160. The lead-line incorporating these slugs thus has reduced flexibility because adjacent slugs cannot pivot more than approximately 20 relative to one another.
Further, due to the fact that the vertices of the wedge-shaped ends are all aligned in generally the same plane due to the crimping process, lead-line manufactured by a crimping process is flexible in only one direction.
Flexibility in any other direction is restricted.
The flexibility problem characteristic of prior art crimped-core lead-lines is compounded by the softness of conventionally extruded lead cores. When a lead-line is placed under a heavy tensile load, the line's fibres (pri-marily synthetic fibres such as polyester and nylon), tendto elongate, creating a tensile stress in the rope sheath.
At the same time, the rope sheath also exerts a radial 2~26~

compressive stress on its lead core. If the lead is soft, a combination of both tensile and radial stresses induces a longitudinally elongate deformation in the individual lead slugs. Similarly, if there are humps on the surface of the lead rod, these stresses are concentrated at the location of the hump. This also acts to induce elongate deformation in the individual slugs. This type of deforma-tion is known as "cold flow". When the tensile load is removed from the rope, the fibres tend to return to their original length. However, the elongated lead slugs do not permit the rope to fully relax. Hence, the lead-line gradually stiffens and thus becomes less flexible.

Recently, a new type of lead-line sold under the trade name Superflex Seine Leadline, has come into use.
Individually cast lead slugs having rounded ends form the lead core instead of a continuous line of crimped lead.
This type of construction yields a more flexible line than has been accomplished in the prior art by allowing relative pivoting movement of the lead slugs in any direction.
Further, the casting process results in a harder slug than is produced by the extrusion process.

However, lead-lines incorporating cast lead slugs have some disadvantages. The first disadvantage is in-creased manufacturing cost. Each lead slug must be indi-vidually cast. The second disadvantage is the fact that, notwithstanding their increased hardness when compared to extruded lead slugs, cast slugs will also cold flow when a tensile load is applied to the lead-line. Tensile testing conducted on cast lead slug lead-line samples rated by weight at 14 pounds per fathom of line resulted in notice-able stiffening of the lead-line after incremental loading reached 15,000 pound tensile loading. Further incremental loading resulted in the samples becoming stiff, almost to the point of being rigid, after 30,000 pound tensile loading. Incremental loading of the samples indicated that S~ 2 ~ ~ 3 initial cold flow of the cast lead slugs occurred between approximately lO,ooo and 12,500 pounds tensile load.

The third disadvantage is that the lead slugs may only be loosely packed in the braided sheath if the flexi-bility of the Superflex lead-line is to be maximized. I~
the lead slugs are packed tightly, the blunt rounded shoulders on the ends of the slugs interfere with flexible bending of the lead-line. Instead of pivoting about a single point contact between adjacent slugs, the slugs roll one against the other. The point of contact between adjacent slugs thus moves relative to the slugs. Bending the lead-line moves the point of contact towards the centre of curvature. The outside shoulders on the ends of the slugs thus increase the tension in the outer circumference of ~he braided sheath, restricting bending beyond the resilient limits of the braided sheath.

An indicator of whether cold flow will occur in a lead slug during tensile loading is the hardness of the lead slug used. The Brinell and Rockwell hardness tests are two commonly used tests for hardness. The principles are similar in both tests. An indenter is pressed into the surface of a lead sample by applying a specific load for a standard time period. For example, the Brinell hardness test uses a 5 millimetre diameter indenter exerting a 30 kilogram load applied for 30 seconds. The size of the impression made is then translated into a Brinell hardness number. It has been found that extruded lead-antimony slugs have a Brinell hardness number of 8.6 (with an approximate 4% antimony content), but may vary depending on antimony content. A cast lead-antimony slug has a Brinell hardness number of 15.4 (with an approximate 7%
antimony content), which again may vary depending on antimony content.

~2~3 It is known that the introduction of antimony into molten lead will increase the hardness of the result-ant lead-antimony alloy. It is also known that if a lead-antimony alloy is used in a casting process, the hardness of the alloy is increased in proportion to the percentage of antimony used, until a saturation limit of approximately 11% antimony is reached. However, it has been found that in an extrusion process, the hardness of pre-cast lead-antimony alloy is drastically decreased as a result of the extrusion.

The type of extrusion typically used to manufac-ture crimped core lead-line is a cold extrusion process.
A billet of lead-antimony alloy is loaded into an extru-sion press and compressed against a die by a hydraulic ram.The alloy is forced through an aperture in the die. As the alloy is extruded, the material undergoes severe cold working by being plasticly deformed below the alloy's recrystallization temperature. It is believed that such cold working is the reason for the resulting softness of the extruded alloy.

The lead-antimony alloy's hardness, lost during extrusion, may then be regained by using a heat treatment hardening process. The amount of hardening may be con-trolled by varying the amount of time over which, and the temperature at which the lead-antimony alloy is heat-treated.

Precipitation hardening, sometimes known as "age hardening", is a process for heat treating metal which involves thermal treatm~nt to increase hardness and strength. The increase in hardness is attributed to the formation of a very fine precipitate within the structure of the metal.

h ~ 3 Lead-antimony alloy is classified as a eutectic partial solid solubility alloy. "Eutectic" refers to an alloy, or mixture, having a lower melting temperature than any of its constituents. I'Partial solid solubility" refers to a limited amount of solute (in this case antimony) in the solvent (lead). There is a limit on how much antimony can be absorbed by the lead before the lead becomes satu-rated. "Absorb" means the substitution of antimony atoms for lead atoms in the matrix of the alloy.
The amount of antimony which can be absorbed is dictated by the solid solubility level. Lead-antimony alloy has a solid solubility level which decreases as a function of decreasing temperature. Thus, as the tempera-ture lowered, less antimony can be absorbed by the eutecticlead-antimony mixture, under normal equilibrium conditions.

Precipitation hardening involves heating a lead-antimony alloy to a temperature which allows the antimony to dissolve back into the lead. This produces a single phase, that is, a homogeneous mixture. The dissolved antimony is absorbed by the lead because as the temperature is increased the antimonial solid solubility level is also increased. This portion of the process is called the "solution treatment".

The next step in the hardening process is to rapidly cool the mixture to room temperature. This drastic change in temperature "freezes" an excessive amount of uniformly distributed antimony in the eutectic mixture.
This state is referred to as a "supersaturated" solid solution. Under normal equilibrium conditions this mixture would not exist.

The supersaturated lead-antimony alloy is out of equilibrium. It thus spontaneously changes while in its solid form and at room temperature. This process is 2~2643 referred to as "aging". During aging the supersaturated single phase precipitates submicroscopic particles of a second phase into the matrix of the first phase. The precipitation continues until a state of equilibrium is reached.

The introduction of the second phase in the form of a fine precipitate amongst the first phase matrix increases the overall energy required to cause deformation of the alloy matrix. Hence the matrix is hardened.

The present invention incorporates precipitation hardening in a method for economically producing novel-shaped slugs of lead-antimony alloy from extruded rod for use in lead-line. Because of their shape the slugs may form the core of a lead line without suffering from the reduced flexibility of prior art crimped-core lead-lines.
The heat treated slugs are sufficiently hard that cold flow due to tensile loading is delayed beyond the point where, typically, the braided fibres will fail.

SummarY of the Invention Lead slugs are manufactured by feeding extruded rods of approximately 96% lead, 4% antimony alloy through a punch press. The punch press shears individual slugs from the extruded rod. The punch press comprises an opposed pair of chisel-like blades, each blade having an included angle between the blade surfaces of approximately 48. The punch press blades are mechanically driven together to cut individual slugs from the extruded rod.
The rod is rotated approximately 90 after each cut, and is then fed further into the punch press ready for the next cutting cycle.
The opposed cuts made in the rod by the punch press blades are deep enough to shear lead slugs from the ~2~4~
g rod. The slugs have wedge-shaped ends which are offset at approximately 90 relative to one another. The ends form wedges having included angles of approximatel~ 130.

The slugs are collected, heat treated, smoothed by a tumbling process, and then loaded into a feeder device which feeds the slugs into a braider. The braider is oriented to accommodate the feeding of the lead slugs into the braider at the point where braiding occurs. The braider produces a braided cover over the core of lead slugs.

The resulting lead-line is flexible and may be bent in any direction due to the offset ends on the slugs.
It has been found that it is not necessary to carefully orient the slugs being fed into the braider. It is thought that when the resulting lead-line is initially flexed, the slugs tend to rotate about their longitudinal axis within the braided cover so as to roughly orthogonally align the ends between adjacent slugs. This effect is due to the alignment of the wedge-shaped ends such that adjacent slugs make only point contact with one another. The lead-line is flexible because adjacent slugs are free to pivot about their point of contact in any direction. Lead-line incor-porating these slugs is thus very flexible and easy tomanufacture. The lead-line will remain flexible due to the lead slug's hardness.

Preferably a lead-line comprises a plurality of longitudinally aligned weights snugly enclosed within a flexible resilient sheath, the weights having ">" shaped ends which are offset between adjacent weights. Advantage-ously, the weights are extruded and their ">" shaped ends have an included angle between 90 and 160. The weights are hardened by a precipitation hardening method.

2 ~ 3 The preferred method of manufacturing weighted rope of the present invention comprises the steps of: (1) extruding a rod of lead-antimony alloy; (2) making a pair of opposed "V" shaped cuts through the rod; (3) making another pair of opposed "V" shaped cuts through the rod at a short distance from the immediately preceding pair of cuts, thereby severing a weight having ">" shaped ends from the rod; (4) sequentially repeating step (3) to yield a desired number of such weights; and, (5) longitudinally lo aligning the weights, while covering them with a flexible, resilient, sheath.

Brief Description of the Drawings In drawings illustrating an embodiment of the invention, Figure 1 illustrates a prior art fishing net incorporating a lead-line.
Figure 2 illustrates a prior art twisted cotton externally weighted lead-line.

Figure 3 is a partial cut away view of a braided, internally-weighted prior art lead-line.

Figure 4a is a perspective view of a typical extrusion machine employed in prior art lead-line produc-tion.
Figure 4b is a schematic illustration of the crimping technique used in prior art lead-line production.

Figure 4c is a side elevation view of a typical braiding machine employed in prior art lead-line produc-tion.

2a~2643 Figure 4d is a schematic illustration of the crimp breaking technique employed in prior art lead-line production.

5Figure 5 is a partial cut away view of a prior art braided crimped-core lead-line.

Figure 6 is a partial cut away view of a prior art braided cast-slug core lead-line.

Figure 7 is a partial schematic view of a punch press for forming lead-line in accordance with the inven-tion.

15Figure 8 is a side elevation view of an offset-crimp lead slug according to the invention.

Figure 9 is a schematic view showing a series of offset-crimp lead slugs being sequentially fed into a braider.

Figure 10 is a front elevation view of a braider and lead slug feeder.

Detailed Description of the Preferred Embodiment Figure 1 illustrates a portion of a commercial fishing net as it would appear when deployed. Cork-line 6 supports web 8. Weighted line 10 deploys web 8. Purse-line 14 is suspended from weighted line 10 and runs throughrings 12.

Prior art lead-line which used external lead weights on twisted cotton rope is illustrated in Figure 2.
Figure 3 illustrates a prior art braided lead-line with the braided fibres partially cut away. The '2 ~ 4 ~

individual lead slugs are formed by a crimping process.
The crimping does not shear completely through the lead core and consequently the lead core must be broken between opposed crimps. The prior art braided lead-line is manu-factured by the prior art process illustrated in Figures4a, 4b, 4c and 4d. Billets of lead-antimony alloy 36 are extruded by extrusion press 38 as extruded rod 24. Ex-truded rod 24 is crimped between an opposed pair of rotat-ing crimping wheels 16 (Figure 4b). The crimped rod 17 is then fed into braider 32 (Figure 4c) so as to be sheathed in a first braided covering. Additional braided coverings are applied later. The braided line is then fed through an array of offset rollers 18 (Figure 4d) which break the crimped lead core into individual lead slugs within the braided covering.

The resulting lead-line is as illustrated in Figure 3. Humps 15 are formed on the lead slugs if the spurs on crimping wheels 16 are too thick, that is, if they define an included angle which is too large. Typically, humps 15 will be formed if the included angle defined by the spurs on crimping wheels 16 exceeds about 20.

Figure 5 illustrates how the resulting lead-line may be flexed in one plane only. The lead-line illustrated in Figure 5 has the braided covering partially cut away so that it may be seen that the lead slugs only allow bending in direction A. Because of the interference between adjacent slugs, bending in direction B is restricted.
A piece of Superflex Seine lead-line showing the inner sheath and core is illustrated in Figure 6 with the braided cover partially cut away. The point of contact between adjacent lead slugs moves relative to the slugs as the line is bent (not shown). Unless the lead slugs are loosely packed some flexibility is lost due to the outside 2~26~

shoulders of the lead slugs tensioning the braided cover around the outer circumference of the bend.

To produce the lead-antimony alloy used in the lead-line of the present invention, ingots of 88% lead and 12% antimony are heated with ingots of lO0~ lead to form a solution of molten lead containing approximately 4% anti-mony. A flotation agent readily known to those skilled in the art is included in the melt to assist in floating out impurities, which are skimmed from the melt. The melt is poured into cylindrical casts and allowed to cool to form billets 36 (Figure 4a). sillets 36 are then fed into a hydraulic extrusion press 38 which cold extrudes the alloy as a continuous rod 24. The diameter of rod 24 is preset by the diameter of aperture in the die (not shown) used in press 38. The diameter is chosen depending upon the weight of the lead-line required and in a manner which is well known to those skilled in the art. For example, if a lead-line weighing ten pounds per fathom is desired then a die aperture diameter of 15.25 mm is used.

As illustrated in Figure 7, rod 24 is fed in direction C into punch press 20. Punch press 20 comprises a pair of opposed "V" shaped blades 22 which are mechan-ically driven together to cut through lead rod 24. The ">"shape of the resulting ends 30 (Figure 8) on rod 24 is dic-tated by the included angle ~ of blades 22. An included angle ~ of approximately 48 has been found to produce ">"
shaped ends 30 having an included angle ~ of approximate-ly 130. Punch press 20 is used to produce cylindricalweights, or "slugs" approximately 1.5 inches long. Lighter lead-line will typically require shorter slugs ( 11/4 inches approximately), and heavier lead-line will typically require longer slugs (1 5\8 inches). It has been found that, in terms of practical utility, lead slugs should not be shorter than ~ inch or longer than 2~ inches. After each cut is made by punch press 20, rod 24 is rotated ap-2~2~

proximately 90 so that the resulting slugs 26 have offset ">" ends 30.

Included ang e ~ must be small enough, and, consequently, blades 22 sufficiently thin, that rod 24 can be cut without forming surface irregularities, or humps, on the outer surface of slugs 26. If angle ~ is too large (and, consequently, included angle ~ too small) then the amount of material displaced by blades 22 to form ">" ends 30 will form humps on slugs 26 on either side of ends 30.
These humps are different from humps 15 formed on the prior art lead core illustrated in Figure 3. Whereas humps 15 result, at least in part, from the rotating motion of crimping wheels 16, the humps which may form on slugs 26 are due solely to blades 22 having an excessive thickness.
These irregularities, if too large, may interfere with the rotation of slugs 26 within lead-line 34 and thereby possibly inhibit the flexibility of the lead-line. They may also cause points of irregular wear.
Angle ~ must be small enough (and, consequently, included angle ~ large enough) so that "~" shaped ends 30 allow for lead-line flexibility by the pivoting of adjacent slugs 26 about their point of contact 40 (see figure 9).
Of course, included angle ~ must be sufficiently large so that rubbing between adjacent slugs 26 at point of contact 40 does not cause excessive notching of ">" shaped ends 30.
That is, if the vertices of ">" shaped ends 30 are too narrow (the wedge being too knife-like) then relative rotation and pivoting between adjacent slugs 26 when they are abutted compressively during flexing of the lead-line will eventually result in notching of the vertices of ">"
shaped ends 30 at point of contact 40. Such notching may reduce the flexibility of lead-line 34. Further, included angel ~ must be sufficiently large so that the resulting lead-line does not have excessively large voids between adjacent slugs. If such voids are too large (i.e., angle ~

2~42~3 is too small) then the resulting lead-line will have a corrugated appearance and will have an excessively large diameter compared to conventional lead-lines with the same weight per fathom of line. An excessively large diameter is undesirable as it increases under water drag.

Once slugs 26 are cut from rod 24 they are hardened using a precipitation hardening heat treatment process. Slugs 26 are first heated to approximately 230 Celsius (450F) for three hours. The slugs are then quenc-hed and left to stand at room temperature (approximately 20C) for approximately 48 hours. This process has been found to approximately triple the hardness of slugs 26 as compared with their hardness in non-hardened, extruded form. Brinell hardness numbers of 25.4 have been obtained.
The antimony content of the lead-antimony alloy which will accommodate the aforementioned hardening process has been found to range from between two to six percent antimony.

The hardened slugs are tumbled together for approximately forty-five minutes or until their edges are rounded, any burrs removed, and their overall surface polished in appearance. The smooth lead slugs 26 are then placed into a feeder 42 feeding a braider 32 (illustrated in Figure 10 and schematically illustrated in Figure 9).
Feeder 42 comprises an inclined track 44 along which a series of vertically aligned lead slugs 26 slide in direc-tion D. The track is vibrated by a rotating, off-centre motor-driven weight 46 attached to the track. The slugs are fed end-wise into a vertical feed tube 48 and thence move in a vertical column of longitudinally aligned slugs in direction E into braid collar 50. A spring-loaded microswitch 56 is mounted on feed tube 48. Microswitch 56 shuts off braider 32 if no slugs 26 are in feed tube 48.
Braid collar 50 is part of inverted braider 32 and forms the work surface over which threads or fibres 52 ~2~

are fed as they are braided to form a sheath over the column of longitudinally aligned slugs 26 feeding from feed tube 48. Braider 32 may be a model 224 braider manufac-tured by August Herzog Maschinensabrik of the Republic of Germany. Slugs 26 form lead core 54 in lead-line 34.
Typically, lead-line 34 will have 3 or more sheaths of braided threads or fibres 52 covering the lead core. Once covered by at least one sheath, lead-line 34 is wound onto a storage reel (not shown) and later tested for gaps in lead core 54.

Gaps will occur in the lead-line if a lead slug 26 is missing or has broken. Lead slugs occasionally break if they are produced across the interface of two billets 36 in extrusion press 38. This may occur if the extrusion pressure is too low, or if oil or grease is included in between the plane where one billet ends and the next billet starts during the extrusion of rod 24. Extruded rod 24 is weakened across that plane and may break later during the tumbling process. Broken slugs or gaps in lead core 54 are repaired by spreading apart the fibre sheath, inserting fresh slugs 26, and replacing the sheath back over the slug.

The resulting lead-line is flexible due to the offset ">" shaped ends of slugs 26. It has been found that it is not necessary to carefully orient the column of slugs fed into tube 48. It is thought that when the lead-line is initially flexed, slugs 26 tend to rotate about their longitudinal axis within the braided cover so that the ">" shaped ends between adjacent slugs rotate into roughly orthogonal alignment due to the offset ">" shaped ends 30 on each slug. An orthogonal alignment of ends 30 on each slug, so that adjacent slugs make only point contact, facilitates such self-aligning rotation of the slugs. The lead-line is flexible because adjacent slugs ~2~

are free to pivot about their points of contact in any direction.

As will be apparent to those skilled in the art in the light of the foregoing disclosure, many alterations and modifications are possible in the practice of this invention without departing from the spirit or scope thereof. Accordingly, the scope of the invention is to be construed in accordance with the substance defined by the following claims.

Claims (17)

1. A lead-line comprising a plurality of longitudi-nally aligned weights snugly enclosed within a flexible resilient sheath, said weights having ">" shaped ends which are offset between adjacent weights.

2. A lead-line as defined in claim 1, wherein said weights are extruded.

3. A lead-line as defined in claim 2, wherein said ">" shaped ends have an included angle of between 90° and 160°.

4. A lead-line as defined in claim 2, wherein said ">" shaped ends have an included angle of between 115° and 145°.

5. A lead-line as defined in claim 2, wherein said ">" shaped ends have an included angle of about 130°.

6. A lead-line as defined in claims 3, 4 or 5 wherein said weights are hardened by a precipitation hardening method.

7. A lead-line comprising a plurality of longitudi-nally aligned weights snugly enclosed within a flexible resilient sheath, wherein said weights are precipitation hardened.

8. A lead-line as defined in claim 7, wherein said weights are extruded.

9. A lead-line as defined in claim 8 wherein said weights are made of lead-antimony alloy which comprises 96%
lead and 4% antimony.

10. A method of making lead-line, comprising the steps of:
(a) extruding a rod of lead antimony alloy, (b) making a pair of opposed "V" shaped cuts through said rod;
(c) making another pair of opposed "V" shaped cuts through said rod at a short distance from said immediately preceding pair of cuts, thereby severing a weight having ">" shaped ends from said rod;
(d) subsequentially repeating step (c) to yield a desired number of said weights; and, (e) longitudinally aligning said weights, while covering said aligned weights with a flexible, resilient, sheath.

11. A method as defined in claim 10, wherein said weights are precipitation hardened.

12. A method as defined in claim 11, wherein said ">"
shaped ends have an included angle of between 90° and 160°.

13. A method as defined in claim 11, wherein said ">"
shaped ends have an included angle of between 115° and 145°.

14. A lead-line as defined in claim 11, wherein said ">" shaped ends have an included angle of about 130°.

15. A method as defined in claim 11, wherein said "V"
shaped cuts have an included angle of between 90° and 20°.

16. A method as defined in claim 11, wherein said "V"
shaped cuts have an included angle of between 65° and 35°.

17. A method as defined in claim 11, wherein said "V"
shaped cuts have an included angle of about 50°.