To say I am discouraged is an understatement

[462]

Snuffy,
Try pressure casting, with your bottom-pour pot. Hold the mould against the pot's spout, open the valve, fill the cavity, remove the mould from the spout, repeat with the next cavity, then pour a sprue to cover the cavities. I have a mould that requires pressure casting, in order to get base fill-out.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Snuffy...or anyone else looking for tin.

I just seen this group buy today and signed up.
about 2/3's the price of midway.
Hopefully the tin will be delivered this fall.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=84432

[snuffy]

Snuffy,
Try pressure casting, with your bottom-pour pot. Hold the mould against the pot's spout, open the valve, fill the cavity, remove the mould from the spout, repeat with the next cavity, then pour a sprue to cover the cavities.

I thought of that long after turning the pot off yesterday. I suspect I would end up with fins from the vent lines with a full 20 # lee. At least that's what I got the last time I tried pressure casting. That would certainly speed things up. I really hate the mess with a ladle. Spills, splashes, and the irregular sprue give me fits! I realize that contact ladle casting IS pressure casting, just the pressure is far less than 20# of lead can create.

Jon B. I saw that months ago. I almost put my name in, but now would have to retract it. Maybe if it lasts a couple more months, I can get in after returning to work. Looks like the grand canyon 50 cal mold is getting close. I'll need to scrape the cash together for that one!

[giz189]

You use a pipe of course! Dr Grabow makes the "Keith", the "Loverin" and the "Veral" models. You can usually order the "Lee Special" or the cadillac of them all- "The Royal Hensley Meerschaum". The last one comes with a derrick that attaches to your scalp and forehead to support the weight. Very chic!

Burn your lips indeed. Bosh!

Bret, somebody had to say it!

[geargnasher]

Oh, Bret, don't forget the "Gates" model, he gets a little huffy when not credited!

Gear

[Recluse]

Try pre-heating your muffins on the hot plate while your casting. If you drop in muffins at say 375-400 degrees you'll drop the pot temp far less than dropping in room temp muffins. When you use any of the pre-heated muffins from the hot plate replace them to keep some ready to use.

EDIT to add: Adding alloy to your pot can easily drop the pot/alloy temp below the liquidus temp of your alloy. The alloy may still look melted but some of the metals such as antimony with a much higher melting/liquidus temp may no longer be completely melted. Add new alloy slowly to prevent this, yet another reason for using a thermometer.

Rick

Wondered if I was the only one who "preheat" ingots while casting. I set an ingot on the edge of the pot, and by the time I need to put it in, it's already pre-heated quite well.

As far as the thermometer? It's kind of like calipers and micrometers. I don't know how I managed to reload before I had a set of calipers. Yeah, everything turned out okay, I guess, but when I can be precise, it eliminates that series of variables as to what I did right/well or what I did wrong/poorly.

[armoredman]

Gotta get a thermometer. Wow, this thread really took off...
Mold preheating.

[armoredman]

AHA!
OK, heated the mold both bottom and side, to get the sprueplate. I used the stove top setting of about medium, coudn't think of what the settings are in real world degrees. It sat heating until the melt was fully liquid and fluxed. Then I armored up, grabbed the mold, sat down, and...I didn't put any bullplate on...to late, let's go!
BIG difference. First, pot temp back down to just above 7, where I had always had it, good liquid, fluxed well with old wax. First cast was fully bullets, not cold stubs like last time, but they were still wrinkled with poor fill out. Well, of course, that was the first cast!
I picked up speed, and even with being interrupted twice by the better half, I got a good rythym going. Then the lead ran out. Whoops. I had meant this to be kind of a trial run, a test, and I got some interesting results, but, I had only put in about 5 pounds of lead..
First, once the MOLD was up to temp, just like everyone said, I got GOOD boolits! Slightly higher melt temp and preheating at a higher stove temp will probably help.
Mold dropped boolits with no issues, NO smoking done since I cleaned it.
I had a high rate of rejects, from the pre heated mold not preheated enough, BUT, nowhere NEAR the rate from last time. Also got a tiny bit of finning on the very pointed noses of the good ones, no problem, comes right off.
Interesting was I measured how fast this went. Plugging in the mold was at 3:45, same time mold went on the stove. Mold melted slowly, so it wasn't fully liquid until about 4:15. Once again, need higher pot temp.
Casting took 15 minutes. That was all, until I ran out of lead - that gang mold goes fast when it's running right.
Now I have enough good ones to get ready to load up some testers...and that was when I realized I had exactly 19 primed cases...*groan*...time to break out the lube pad and resizing die...

Thanks to EVERYONE who posted here, you guys helped a lot! Perhaps tomorrow I'll try the higher temps, and get more good ones, but now it's time to barbeque...mmm, barbequed chicken...mmm....

[cbrick]

Mold melted slowly, so it wasn't fully liquid until about 4:15.

Oh . . . I hope not, that's just a bit too much pre-heating.

Rick

[armoredman]

Whoops, I meant the lead.
I am very much encouraged by this casting session.

[462]

Way to go! You must be excited.

[Doby45]

It totally changed my casting when I got my hot plate...

[armoredman]

For you guys, 74 good boolits is a drop in the bucket, no pun intended,but I'm happy.


Not enthused about the decapping/resizing session to come...

[geargnasher]

Try getting the mould hot enough that you have to wait at least 5-10 seconds for the sprue from your first pour to barely cool enough to cut (but is still soft and breaks into several pieces when dropped in your sprue can). I like my gang moulds to be on the "too hot" side for starters and slow down the casting rhythm to let it cool gradually to the right temp, then even out the pace when things get just right. Otherwise, you're working overtime trying to get the mold and sprueplate hot enough to throw keepers. I'd rather let the stove/hotplate do the work than do it with cycling lead. Plus that saves lead in the pot for keepers rather than heat-up culls. Don't be afraid to get that mould really hot, odds are you ain't gonna hurt it, especially if you heat it evenly on a piece of metal.

As for the fins, you might hold the mould up to a bright light with the sprue plate "open" and the blocks closed and check for "daylight" between the mould halves. Sounds like you have a slight alignment issue if you're getting true fins on the noses of your boolits. You can also check the diameter of you boolits (especially the finned ones) in several places to see if they are round or elliptical in cross-section. If the mould isn't closing fully due to a handle or alignment pin issue or trash between the blocks somewhere the boolits will be out-of-round.

Glad you've had enough success to see you're headed in the right direction now, keep up the good work!

Gear

PS I had an interesting casting session tonight, trying to get a "cruise missile" mould to work with just one cavity. Aluminum two-bangers that are extra-deep and only filled in one cavity are a real bear to keep hot. Normally I ladle cast extremely long or super-skinny boolits, but there's no way I can keep pace with this mould. Pressure casting with Lee moulds almost always gives me fins and flashing trapped between the blocks, so that's out, too. I fiddled with pot temp, added a touch more tin, and finally found the sweet spot: Open spout adjuster to wide-open stream, adjust mould prop for a 3/4" drop, drop the heavy lead stream through the center of the hole (nuthin' but net!), and cut the sprue while still molten (that is to say, immediately after withdrawing the mould from under the pot. The boolits were solid the instant the mould was filled, so no smeared bases. I ended up keeping a pace of EIGHT pours a minute to keep the mould just barely hot enough to cast with 680-700 degree alloy. Never have I had to go to such extremes to get a mould to fill out. If it was iron I could ladle cast no problem, but the aluminim loses heat too fast and those long 6.5mm boolit cavities don't vent worth beans.

[Bret4207]

Something I've noticed over the years- some moulds take 3-4 casting sessions before they seem to want to work right. I always put it down to minuscule amounts of oil gassing off or something like that. Lately I've wondered if the surface of the mould doesn't oxidize to an extent. like the Lyman iron moulds "blue" over time. I know that if I lap a mould I sometimes go through the break in process all over again. Anyway, a lot of my moulds seem to need that hot/cold cycle a few times before they really cast right.

Just a thought.

[Calamity Jake]

Yap every new mold I've owned(40+) needed a breakin period of some kind.
Even some of the used that I have aquired, after cleaning needed a little.

[armoredman]

Boolits sized, lubed, and being loaded today, see if I can get to the range tomorrow to try 'em out!

[armoredman]

My son destroyed my good camera, trying to get a decent picture from a camera phone is hard. Here is a quick snap of the 160 next to the 129. Discolorations are from LLA.



What was wild is the point on the 129 grain boolit was sharp enough to prick your finger! After sizing with the push through sizer, it didn't get much duller, which was also a trip.
Wonder if that would penetrate deeper before mushrooming, or just slide all the way through...might be a good varmint boolit.

[KirkD]

I've only started casting a year ago, but to clean them I submerge my moulds in a soup can of gasoline for about 5 minutes, then pull them out, towel them off with some tissue, and then stick the mould in the propane burner to burn off the rest of the gasoline, then use them. This is how I clean them and it seems to work fine, even with spanking new moulds. After the session, I liberally coat the moulds inside and out with 3-in-one oil, which easily comes off in the gasoline next time.

[Dangibson]

I almost misunderstood you! You mean it is more IMPORTANT that the mould be hot than the alloy. You'll never get the mould hotter than the lead. If you did the lead wouldn't solidify.

750 is WAY too hot. It's the MOULD temp that makes boolits fill out, NOT the ALLOY temp.

Gear

RCBS recommends 775 degrees alloy temperature for wheel weight alloy.