DIY ingot molds ...

[wquiles]

I will be casting my own lead bullets, and even though Lee makes a very inexpensive ingot mold, I decided to make my own with leftover steel after seeing one in a youtube video recently.


To give him credit for the idea, here is the original video that gave me the "inspiration":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83B1hAdZIQo




I use left-over 1/4" angle iron for mine. This is how two of the "scrap" pieces looked like before starting:


http://m3coupe.com/Welding/Lead_ingot_molds/20141109_114255.jpg




The length I used was just about the height of my Lee 20 pound casting pot:
http://m3coupe.com/Welding/Lead_ingot_molds/20141109_121931.jpg


http://m3coupe.com/Welding/Lead_ingot_molds/20141109_142806.jpg




and then lots of welding to make it "water tight". Not my best work, but this should work fine for molten lead:
http://m3coupe.com/Welding/Lead_ingot_molds/20141109_151025.jpg


http://m3coupe.com/Welding/Lead_ingot_molds/IMG_20141110_145216.jpg




Close-up on the back welds:
http://m3coupe.com/Welding/Lead_ingot_molds/20141109_153456.jpg




I even gave the side facing the lead a coat of Moly Resin (should stand up to 1000F now that it is cured), to aid in the lead coming off the mold. In this first photo you can also see the DIY smelting pot and handles I welded, also getting Moly Resin in my curing oven:


http://m3coupe.com/Welding/Lead_ingot_molds/20141109_175718.jpg


http://m3coupe.com/Welding/Lead_ingot_molds/IMG_20141110_145012.jpg




I hope to try them this coming weekend to see how they turn out in actual use.


Will

[lancem]

Tip for next time, if you don't want to bother with the coating letting them rust up makes them release just fine. I made this one a couple years ago when I cleaned up a bunch of WW.

Nice work!

[Handloader109]

Those look great, has anyone tried any lighter gauge than the 1/4" angle iron?
Got a scrap couple of angle iron bed frames, about 1 1/2" angle but pretty light gauge.
Would make maybe a three hole mold, but worried about the lead warping.
Thanks!

[Uncle R.]

You might find those bed frame angles are not regular A-36 steel. I used some many years ago that were nasty to weld.
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Uncle R.

[CastingFool]

Those look good! I made my own ingot mold but took a different route. Made a pattern out of wood and had a friend that was taking a metal casting class, pour one out of aluminum. Should have had 2 or 3 poured, but the aluminum was not free.

[BattleRife]

I used 2 x 2 x 1/8" angle iron, worked great.

I cut the ends of the angles with about a 7 degree slant on them and capped them with flat bar, so that I have a release angle at the ends as well as the inherent 45 degree angle on the sides. I made no attempt to coat or rust the steel surfaces, but the ingots fall out as soon as the mould is turned over.

[PalmettoProjectiles]

any ideas for those of us without machine equipment or welding gear?

[JASON4X4]

I didn't want to go through all that work so I bought some cheap mini loaf pans from Walmart 2 for $2 or $3. If you fill them it will be close to 10 lbs ingots.

[lancem]

Those look great, has anyone tried any lighter gauge than the 1/4" angle iron?
Got a scrap couple of angle iron bed frames, about 1 1/2" angle but pretty light gauge.
Would make maybe a three hole mold, but worried about the lead warping.
Thanks!

I think it would work just fine, but as Uncle R says those bed frames are something else. I tried drilling holes in some of that stuff and ate up a lot of drill bits, it was hard, don't know how it would weld.

[ipijohn]

I went the cheap/fast/easy route and bought a cast iron cornbread stick mold on Amazon for $13 delivered. It casts 6 half diameter corn looking things at a time that are right at #1 each.

[454PB]

Very nice work! Mine isn't so pretty, but I did all the welds on the backside.

122001

The result is a smooth surface on the "business" side. The small gap between the ingots have not been a problem and don't hang on to the lead. By the way, this is 2" X 1/8" angle iron.

122002

[wquiles]

It was very cold here in Texas (38F), but I got to try them today.

http://m3coupe.com/Welding/Lead_ingot_molds/IMG_20141116_104239.jpg


It was so cold, and the molds so literally cold, that the lead solidified very fast:
http://m3coupe.com/Welding/Lead_ingot_molds/IMG_20141116_104246.jpg

http://m3coupe.com/Welding/Lead_ingot_molds/IMG_20141116_104253.jpg


The ingots separated easily from the bottom (even the ones that were soldered on the inside - bottom 4x), BUT they got caught by the upper lip, the straight side. I need to cut a relief on them, so that they can just drop free:
http://m3coupe.com/Welding/Lead_ingot_molds/IMG_20141116_110809.jpg

http://m3coupe.com/Welding/Lead_ingot_molds/Capture.JPG


Will

[D Crockett]

there is one thing that I have a problem with in Wquiles video and that is when he put his hot ingots into a bucket of water if there is a crack which do happens from time to time in ingots when you go to use them you stand a chance of a steam explosion and if he put a 15% bevel on the ends the ingot would fall out with any force at all and bead frames make the best ingot mold you can make I have a milk crate full of singles I have been using for 20 + years now not trying to knock his work down but these these are some things I see I would do and not do D Crockett

[wquiles]

there is one thing that I have a problem with in Wquiles video ...

For the record, that is not my video. The video was made by somebody else.

[dpoe001]

I used some scrap c channel(was being thrown out at work) cut it to two inch lengths and welded angle on the open sides. I ended up with 2 x2 1/2 ingots about 1 1/2 inches high. Not sure how much they weigh, they come out of the molds easy and stack on top of each other for storage.

[dikman]

Nice work, but extreme overkill! The coating might look nice, but totally unnecessary, as has been mentioned just let them rust as it doesn't cause any problems. It's not necessary to completely weld the backside, just use tack/spot welds to hold then together (I haven't had any problems with lead getting between the gaps, which are minimal anyway). Also, as has been mentioned already, cut the angle iron pieces at a slight angle and it makes it virtually impossible for the ingots to stick in the mold.

[DaveInFloweryBranchGA]

Angle iron welded together makes for some very nice ingot molds for wheel weights and other large quantities of lead. The things to be careful of is to weld up every seam so there is no trapping of liquid lead in the seams, thereby locking the ingot in the mold. Another thing to avoid is to weld the handles/endcaps in such a way they do not lock in the ingots. The final thing is to just let them rust a bit so they'll release the ingots easily.

I have three such molds 11.5 inches long and they empty a pot of molten wheel weights I've just cleaned up very quickly.

The only other molds I have are cornbread molds and one Cast Boolits aluminum mold I use for leads with high tin and antimony content I use to "sweeten" the mix for harder/higher velocity boolits.

[CGT80]

I used scrap aluminum channel and angle for mine. I cut them on the miter saw with an aluminum cutting blade and tig welded them together. The ingots come out at 3lbs 6oz if I fill them all the way up. Last week I had another batch to smelt so I made up more molds so there are 10 total. If I fill the dutch oven with range scrap, I get 20-21 of these bars of lead, so I only have to fill and dump the molds twice. I am pleased with the molds and it gave me an excuse to melt some aluminum.

I didn't want to weld the inside corners, so I made the molds individually and welded the outside. I line up the molds touching each other and ladle the lead into the molds. The ends are cut at a 15 degree angle.

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20140202_144728_011.jpg
http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20140202_144827_380.jpg


http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20140202_171212_283.jpg

Those welds look great, OP. It looks like you mig welded them with solid wire and gas shielding. I did a quick job of cutting and welding my molds, while the lead was cooking. I dipped the tungsten into the puddle a couple times, but just kept on going. I was getting time behind the hood, but I wasn't being careful enough to make great welds, as they were going to get beat up a bit anyway.

The angle iron is a great idea, but I like how the bars stack vs. triangles. I wouldn't bother with bed frames either as I have read they can have some very hard material mixed in. I think the aluminum I used was 6061 and my first molds used random filler and the second set used 4043 filler........which is just run of the mill product. I am lucky to have a huge metal warehouse nearby. They have a huge amount of remnants to choose from so you can wander around with a tape measure and pick out what will work for your project, and they have just about any material you could want in full lengths up to structural size shapes. 1/8" 2x2 steel angle was about 10 bucks for a 10 stick and the alloy is A36 and it is not painted, which beats bed frames.