Another case of something new for a n00b

[BBQJOE]

So there I am casting away today, and kerplonk, one side of my mold falls off.
Fortunately I found the pin on the floor, and tapped it back in.
This doesn't seem like something that should happen to a relatively new Lee mold, or is it?

[fcvan]

I've got a lot of Lee molds, some over 25 years old, and I've only had one drop a pin. It is a newer one, go figure. Anyway, put the pin back and peen the opening, at least that's the advice I was given. What I did was put the pin back and put the hole to the spigot of my bottom pour pot and applied a quick dab of molten alloy. I went back to casting and it has held for probably 20k more boolits over the past three years.

[41 mag fan]

You said Lee...enough info right there. They can produce a good boolit, but it's the QC work a person has to do to them that gets so irritating to me.

[44man]

Yeah, my block fell into the water bucket. I put it back and used an automatic center punch to peen the edges.

[ku4hx]

This doesn't seem like something that should happen to a relatively new Lee mold, or is it?

I own steel, brass and aluminum molds and they all cast great boolits. But one thing I decided a few years ago (for reasons such as you've experienced) is the Lee molds are all consumables on my bench. When you consider the very low cost for a Lee mold, you're not exactly making an investment. I've got steel mold blocks I bought in the mid to late '70s (Lyman mostly) that still cast great boolits. Even one two cavity Lyman that was sold as flawed casts beautiful boolits with a two grain difference between cavities. Not a problem.

I have no illusion of any Lee mold ever having that useful a life time. They're like shoes: as long as they fit, do the job and don't cause pain they're welcome to stay. But as soon as they get ragged and used up ... they're gone. Life's too short and Lee's too cheap to fret over problems that aren't worth the effort.

[Lizard333]

Never had it happen on a lee but on my Lyman and RCBS a couple times.

I use a wooden mallet on my molds so I'm not entirely surprised. It sucks when the pin fallen your lead pot after knocking the sprue in the pot. Makes it a little more interesting....

[BBQJOE]

It sucks when the pin fallen your lead pot after knocking the sprue in the pot. Makes it a little more interesting....
I was totally afraid that's where it went.

[lesharris]

Some Lee molds drop pins some don't.
Simple fix peen hole over job done.
For the price of the molds QC is sometimes sacrificed. We make up the QC by lower cost prices for the mold.

[PS Paul]

I wonder if the newer-designed two-cavity molds from Lee suffer this sort of thing? I own several six-cavity Lee molds and LOVE them. Never had one of the two-cavity versions, which seem to be the most problematic.......

Seems an easy fix. easier certainly than about 25% of my Lyman molds where I had to grind a flat on the sprue pivot bolt to keep the thing from gettin' loose under heavy use.

[BBQJOE]

I wonder if the newer-designed two-cavity molds from Lee suffer this sort of thing? I own several six-cavity Lee molds and LOVE them. Never had one of the two-cavity versions, which seem to be the most problematic.......

Seems an easy fix. easier certainly than about 25% of my Lyman molds where I had to grind a flat on the sprue pivot bolt to keep the thing from gettin' loose under heavy use.

It is a new 2 cavity mold. Way less than 1000 pours. It wasn't so much as a big deal, as it was a surprise.

[fcvan]

I was casting the other day with my Lyman 225-415 and one of the pins fell out. I chuckled and thought of this thread. I grabbed a pellet of #6 bird shot and screwed it in both pins, something I learned from another thread here. I love this website