Looking for a water resistant 'sandbag'

[don dougan <dondougan@zzzzzzzz>]

Ad Sach,

Two of my solutions for keeping my sandbags dry and
mold-free.

Being a thrifty-and-not-a-slave-to-fashion I make sandbags
 from two layers of old blue jeans legs, tied-off with several
wrappings of high-tensile nylon string (string such as a mason
would use for a line-level).

At my studio at home when I carve outdoors I just to keep
the bags dry by putting them inside between carving
sessions, but when I know I need one for wet-sanding I
just slip a tall-kitchen plastic trash bag over it, twist it a
few times and then re-slip the excess over the other way
so I get a double layer of plastic.  I usually use vinyl tape
to seal it, but sometimes use the same nylon string I use
for the jeans legs.  The plastic doesn't last forever without
getting holes in it, but it keeps the jeans-leg bags dry for
all the wet-sanding cycles for a single carving, and then some.

But while you are still roughing-out you are more likely to
tear the plastic, so perhaps the above suggestion is not as
workable as the one below:

When I teach in Italy we carve outdoors on a terrace on the
side of a hill.  The carving tables are out in the open-air which
is no problem in the Summer as it rarely rains, but during
the Fall (when I am usually there) rain is fairly common.
We use the same type jeans-leg sandbags, so I have the
students cut a piece of 4-mil plastic to drape over their
carving tables -- including carving and sandbags -- between
working sessions.  Sometimes the wind coming over the top
of the hill is brisk, so the plastic needs to be weighted-down
with some scrap tailings so it doesn't blow away.  The plastic
also serves to keep the carving tools the students occasionally
forget to put away rust-free as well, and also the helps keep
the leather of their carving gloves dry, soft and supple.

Good Carving to You,
Don

http://www.dondougan.homestead.com/indexdd.html