I use a DegiWeigh brand postal/shipping scale like the link below. 6 years old, gets heavy use this time of year, and still going strong. Paid about $15.00 for it as I recall. Has 20 lb limit but that is not a real issue as you just weigh in separate portions and add.

One seldom weighs 50 lbs of anything food wise so if you want a 50 lb scale you'll pay much more for it. More important I find is the ability to accurately weigh in ounce increments under one pound.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: DegiWeigh scale

Even as a market vendor I very rarely have to weigh more than 20 pounds. I have 2 digital ones that I use for market, one over $300 other one at an auction for $40. Inside the kitchen we have one from Walmart, less than $20 that does a very good job. After 3 years, we need to replace battery. It is digital and I won't go back. You can be the hanging type of scales at farm stores and in the sporting goods areas of big box stores.

I use three different ones for the produce. I have an antique hanging store scale, still accurate for the heaviest loads, and sometimes another old vintage platform scale like all old kitchens had for loads up to twenty pounds, and then my digital I bought at Aldis for ten bucks. I even have a balance scale for very small measurements I've used when I need to be very accurate. But then again, I'm a kitchen/foodie nerd. Unless you are working with strict directions when doing things where accuracy with measurements are required for safety's sake, having gigantic bowls are a better tool to gauge when you have a canner's worth of fruits/veggies done up. I've canned so many years now that I can eyeball how full my canning bowls are and hit it just about spot on when doing up straight runs of stuff. Big, crockery bowls from Nelson McCoy I bought back when they were still in production.

For bowls, I use the cheap Walmart $1-1.50 bowls that come out each holiday/season. I pick them up after the holidays, and when they break, I'm not out much money. I agree after awhile you can weigh by sight or feel.

I like those Wally World bowls as well. Purple with pumpkins and witches around the rim or green with Christmas trees and snow flakes. All year round... 25 or 50 cents apiece. Who cares what's on them? :-)

Found this link to convert weight into volume, may be of help to someone else, problem is determining the density of the product. Some guidance can be found via Google. for tomatoes I found the density of a tomato ranges from .7g/ml to 1.4g/ml. at 1.4g/ml the calculator estimated 24lbs of weight would be a little over 8.2 quarts. (i'm using paste tomatoes so I used the higher density). referring to some of the other ketchup recipies in the Ball Blue Book, it's about a 1 Quart starting product to 1 pint finished product. so I thing this is well in the range of where I need to be to keep it safe for BWB.

p.s. scale was ordered but I don't think it will get here in time for the weekend processing.

Here is a link that might be useful: Weight to Volume Cooking Converter

so I did get my scale in time, measured, 24lbs of tomatoes worked out to be 8 quarts 1 pint. so I was pretty close to
what I had worked out.