I picked up a bag of play sand at the local Home Depot last weekend, with the cheerful thought of pouring it into a pair of StudioTech SP30 speaker stands that recently arrived.

The SP30 stands have a 3-inch diameter steel tube, so I sort of thought this product would be a breeze. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the ends of the tube are capped. The caps are steel, and welded in place. StudioTech kindly drilled an ~7/16ths of an inch hole in the top of each cap.

How the heck am I going to get 50 lbs of marginally dry sand into a 7/16th's whole? The process is insane. I've only managed to get a couple of teaspoons of sand in to the stands, using a makeshift milk-jug funnel. Much more sand ended up on the shop floor. The amount of time wasted on this enterprise was simply agonizing.

All of which was highly amusing to my three-and-a-half year old, who is eying the remaining play sand quite seriously. Utterly inane, just the same. 50 lbs of sand through a 7/16th's inch whole? What the heck was StudioTech thinking?

Please tell me I'm not the only one who lacks the patience to fill speaker stands with sand. Are there any tricks? Should I head over to the Powerder Horn and pony up for steel shot (no lead, the kids and all)? Is kitty litter really an option?

-gL