Locking mold handles.

[lar45]

I was in Harbour Freight today and saw some big C-clamp vise grip looking things on sale for $3.99. I remembered somewhere back about some talk about locking mold handles so you can run them hot and set it on the bench and not worry about it cracking open and leaking the boolit onto the bench.
http://www.lsstuff.com/temp/locking-mold.jpg
I got two sizes. They had some rotateing flat pieces to clamp the work. I ground the rivets off and pulled the rotateing peices off. The hole needed to be closer to the edge, so a few minutes at the gringer and they fit pretty good.
One big problem is that the plier jaws are too thin and let the mold block halves flop around. I think I'll cut a couple of small pieces of flat bar and weld on to see if that will keep them lined up close enough.
The other thing I'm wondering about is if the vise-grip handles will get too hot?

[454PB]

Sounds like you're on to a good idea. I doubt that the heat will affect them, I use the same design all the time for welding, and they get VERY hot! The worst thing I've had happen is that the spring in the closure mechanism can get annealed by the heat and quit "springing".

[lar45]

I was just worried about my hand getting too hot.

[MT Gianni]

I wonder if it will pull heat away from the mold? I use welding gloves to cut sprues and can be happy to cool them down on the wooden handle occassionally. Gianni.