41mag
06-04-2011, 11:39 AM
Well I waited all week to get to work on some 300gr GC boolits for my 454. I had my pot full and ready. First thing this morning just before day light I fired it up, cranked up the fans, and get set up to pour up enough to do a bit of load testing.
First rattle out of the box, the mold seemed to not fill out properly. I checked it and found that the soot or carbon was built up in the lube rings causing the lead to not fill out properly. So shut things down for an hour or so, cleaned the mold, redid the match trick, fired up the pot, and waited, and waited. Well just about the time things were getting to the point of pouring, I got one of "those" little pains. Figured I had better deal with the priorities first. So I set my little copper catch cup under the spigot to catch the few if any drips and hurried inside to take care of business.
Now in several years of using this pot to pour hundreds of surf fishing weights, and recently a few cast boolits, it has never dripped more than about a teaspoon at most from the spigot. Well not this morning, OOHH NOO it dribbled I guess from the instant I turned around until it plugged it's self off.
http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f285/41nag/Shooting/P6040204.jpg
http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f285/41nag/Shooting/P6040205.jpg
So, the good news is, at least I didn't set anything on fire. Course having the makarta board under it helps avoid some of this. Also the pot didn't quite empty it's self and overheat. It still had around an inch or so in it, and wasn't turned up very high past a good pouring temp.
The sort of good news is I had enough aluminum blocks under it that it managed to cool it quick enough that it was all contained, sort of, in the one blob.
The bad news is I ain't gonna get no boolits pored up today looks like, since it is going to be a tender job getting the "blova flow", (short for blob of lava), as the wife called it once she quite laughing, removed from around the support post.
I was going to post this in the Cast Pic's as it has to be worth something, but alas I will put it here for some other newbe to admire and compare his "blova flow" to someday.
Later,
Mike / TX
First rattle out of the box, the mold seemed to not fill out properly. I checked it and found that the soot or carbon was built up in the lube rings causing the lead to not fill out properly. So shut things down for an hour or so, cleaned the mold, redid the match trick, fired up the pot, and waited, and waited. Well just about the time things were getting to the point of pouring, I got one of "those" little pains. Figured I had better deal with the priorities first. So I set my little copper catch cup under the spigot to catch the few if any drips and hurried inside to take care of business.
Now in several years of using this pot to pour hundreds of surf fishing weights, and recently a few cast boolits, it has never dripped more than about a teaspoon at most from the spigot. Well not this morning, OOHH NOO it dribbled I guess from the instant I turned around until it plugged it's self off.
http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f285/41nag/Shooting/P6040204.jpg
http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f285/41nag/Shooting/P6040205.jpg
So, the good news is, at least I didn't set anything on fire. Course having the makarta board under it helps avoid some of this. Also the pot didn't quite empty it's self and overheat. It still had around an inch or so in it, and wasn't turned up very high past a good pouring temp.
The sort of good news is I had enough aluminum blocks under it that it managed to cool it quick enough that it was all contained, sort of, in the one blob.
The bad news is I ain't gonna get no boolits pored up today looks like, since it is going to be a tender job getting the "blova flow", (short for blob of lava), as the wife called it once she quite laughing, removed from around the support post.
I was going to post this in the Cast Pic's as it has to be worth something, but alas I will put it here for some other newbe to admire and compare his "blova flow" to someday.
Later,
Mike / TX