Sinker Moulds?

[Forester]

I have a tire shop owner who has been giving me WWs for awhile who wanted to know if I could cast him some sinkers. He said his grandson was an expert at losing them and that if I could bring him a few pounds of them from time to time I would never have to worry about WW supply again! He indicated about 2, 5 gallon buckets a month would be no problem at all.

Where can I find sinker moulds for sale? I am especially looking for about a 1oz bank sinker or a mould with more than one size in it. I have a mould that makes 1,2,3 and 4oz pyramid sinkers but it would be easier, and probably suit him better to make bank sinkers.

[45nut]

http://www.do-itmolds.com/

that should do ya.

[Nueces]

ebay has a constant supply of these. do a search, using 'palmer' and mold or mould.

Mark

[R.M.]

Have you searched E-Bay? I'll bet there's a few there.
Nueces, you beat me to it.
R.M.

[jdhenry]

LUCKY BUM!!!!!! Wish I could find some tire guy to take me up on that offer:(

[schutzen]

I'll second, third or whatever the Do-it Bank Sinker Molds. They are far superior to the other common sinker molds. However, I would purchase a "new" mold from Gander Mountain or Memphis Net & Twine. They are $29.95. I have see several eBay molds that were dented & or warped. No bargain there. Check the Do-it web site; they have several multiple size bank sinker molds.

Just noticed the reference to Palmer Molds. All of them I have seen/used are ***'s. (Sorry Nueces, but I got to call them as I see them.) I had to trim flanges off both sides and drill out the hole for each sinker. To make it worse, this was with 3 different molds and one of them was new. If that was all that was available I too would purchase my sinkers.

[Nueces]

Hey, no foul, I've never used one myself. I did get a couple for casting slingshot pellets, and, you're right, they don't look like they'd work worth krap. Had a heckuva time finding the company on the web and thought they were the only current makers. I'm changing my search word to Do-It. Thanks for the heads-up.

Mark

[Mk42gunner]

I have a Do-it mold for 6 and 8 ounce bank sinkers, it has paid for itself many times over. I had to enlarge the hole to got enough lead in fast enough for complete fillout. If you are casting smaller sinkers you might not have to do this. For rod and reel fishing in a river I like 1-2 ounce egg sinkers.
I also wish I could find a tire shop like that.

Robert

[dk17hmr]

I make sinkers in trade for ww and radiator lead/tin. I use Palmers that my grandpa gave me, they sure do pay for them selves, not to mention my buddies like it when I throw them a 2 pound bag of different sized weights when we go sucker fishing.

[Forester]

Thanks for the information. I will look for a Do-It mould today. I am going to skip the evilbay moulds because for the relatively low cost compared to having a good supply of WWs I don't mind buying new.

[Forester]

A good looking 1oz bank sinker mould arrived today. I dont have enough daylight left to make it worth setting up this evening but I will likely give it a try tomorrow. As big as the thing is I suspect it will take several casts to get it up to temperature. Is there any reason not to just run the temp on up high-like 900-? I dont think frosted sinkers will be too big a problem:-D

Should I smoke the mould and genrally treat it about like a Lee 6 gang mould?

Lots of caustions in the instructions about using hard lead alloy-like WWs, They said they are hard to cast...I guess those of us here using them all the time must be highly skilled huh? [smilie=1:

If all goes well I will be trading him 10 pounds of bool...I mean sinkers at the end of the week for more WWs:drinks:

[Slowpoke]

That thing will spoil you, I wish someone would make a bullet mould the same way.

What you will find is it will overheat pretty quick at 900* and the handles will start smoking, and you will start looking for a thicker glove

I smoked mine and lubed the handle hinge with Beewax and graphite ran my WW melt at 750* and my production would put a Lee cavity to shame, I got the 8 cavity that goes from a 1/8 oz to a 1 1/2 oz.. what I found is that if I water dropped the sinkers made from WW the sprues snapped off real clean later with no cutting needed.

Have fun--- good luck

[Forester]

Thanks Slowpoke, I was thinking about water dropping them, I just couldnt figure out any good reason to do so. Now I have one. Good pointaboutthe temp, I will run it cooler...Those handles are theonlything that to me looks like it could stand some improvement. I will report back how it does this evening.

[Forester]

Well I cast 200 nice shiny 1oz sinkers this afternoon and made a trade for more WWs from the tire shop. I think 200 sinkers will probably keep his grandson busy losing them for a good while:-D

The mould was a piece of cake to use. I preheated it while the pot was melting and it cast good sinkers from the get-go. I couldn’t resist checking a few for weight and it turns out they dropped at an average of .97ozs. I think the fish won't notice!

I cleaned the mould up a little with acetone, just a cursory cleanup really, and sprayed it with some Frankford Arsenal mould release I had terrible luck with on Lee 6 cavity moulds. I could whack the back side of the mould with a mallet and the sprue and sinkers would fall right out. Anywhere around 750-800 degrees seemed to be right. I used the BruceB speed casting method to keep the mould cooled down enough to keep casting continuously. I am a big fan of the way the hinge on this mould is separate from the mould body. It lets you keep it well lubed with no risk of contaminating the cavities.

It did seem to do better the faster I could fill the cavities, so towards the bottom of my Lee 20lb pot it was a little harder to get good fill out, no big deal though I made 200 before it became too big a hassle and I needed to refill with alloy.

All in all a good mould for a great price (25$). I will probably own one or two more of these sometime soon.

[quack1]

I cast a lot of walking sinkers to drag livebait rigs around for walleyes. I always cast them out of the softest lead I have. After they are cast I take a pair of side cutters and cut one side of the line tie loop as near as I can get to the base. Using soft lead lets you spread the loop apart, hook it over your line and squeeze it back together with just finger pressure. Makes it so much easier to change weights when you dont have to cut and retie each time. Using harder lead or water dropping will make them too hard to just use finger pressure.