3 hours ago, Rollincoal420 said:

They are tungsten electrodes used for welding.  Most are 3/32 diameter, roughly inch to inch and half length.  Just scrap pieces I been saving for some reason.  They would make good replacements for nail weights for a neko rig or something like that, but I got a bunch, and equipment that can heat and/ or melt it.   Just need more opportunities to tinker. 

Let me know if you want to trade any? I would like to try and make some resin jigheads with a tungsten keel. 

 

Allen 

Tungsten rods for welding are usually thoriated. That means they contain radioactive thorium, which would not be a good choice for a fishing weight. You need to be sure. It to release thorium into the environment. 

16 hours ago, Bill Zollicoffer said:

Tungsten rods for welding are usually thoriated. That means they contain radioactive thorium, which would not be a good choice for a fishing weight. You need to be sure. It to release thorium into the environment. 

Interesting tidbit: what can protect you from this radiation?  Turns out paper, or even your own skin is an effective barrier.  I'm not sure that the tungsten carbide weights for fishing even have any thorium, or how anyone could tell.

 

Really interesting first post.

I might have a work around! You might be able to make weights by using a metal lathe and tungsten bar stock. Buy the bar stock and take to metal working/fabrication shop and ask if they can turn your weights? ITs a long shot but “where there is a will there is a way?🤷🏻‍♂️

I’m an industrial mechanic and fabricator. And was a diesel mechanic for 20 years. I’m all for making your own stuff. But man this one is out there as far as cost vs reward.

No one is going to make a pure tungsten jig head, fishing weight, etc. It’s to hard, to high a melting point, and to much time/money to make it happen. This is why it’s only done in very very few plants in China and only a China, I believe.

On 2/14/2026 at 10:38 AM, gandalf said:

I might have a work around! You might be able to make weights by using a metal lathe and tungsten bar stock. Buy the bar stock and take to metal working/fabrication shop and ask if they can turn your weights? ITs a long shot but “where there is a will there is a way?🤷🏻‍♂️

You would need diamond tooling to cut tungsten because it is so hard. Those tools aren't cheap.

Most cutting tools in the machining industry are made of tungsten carbide. These tools are made from these blanks and are usually made via grind from blanks or powdered tungsten carbide pressed into shape and sintered.

Most fishing lure applications are likely a variety of sintered tungsten or tungsten carbide. Many say 97% tungsten but I think that might be slightly false as there may be some alloy element that includes tungsten but it is not pure tungsten.