Having trouble...

[selmerfan]

I'm just trying to figure out this casting thing, so bear with me. I'm using a Mini Mag furnace and Lyman dipper with a SAECO #354 180 gr. GC .358" mould. Even after I get things warmed up, I still get wrinkled, unfilled out boolits. The crimp groove and lube groove are NOT sharply defined. My Lyman book says this could be due to poor venting, but the vent lines are blatantly obvious, even to my untrained eye, in this mould. I scrubbed it down with HOT water and dish detergent before starting. Any suggestions?
Selmerfan

[IcerUSA]

If you have some kind of pick or awl or scribe I would check the vent lines anyway just to make sure . How long does it take the sprue to harden ? should take about 3 - 8 sec. . Got any denatured alcohol ? mineral spirits ? brake cleaner ? carb cleaner ? for an extra bath after the soap and water . Otherwise I would clean it again as some of the cutting fluid is nasty to get out of a mould if it has soaked in for awhile .

Keith

[TAWILDCATT]

Its not hot enuf.if your using aluminum moulds you have to run them hot.if iron your still not hot .

[selmerfan]

Ok, I've been casting boolits in this same mould since I posted the first message 40 minutes ago. The mould is HOT, but I still get wrinkly boolits. I'm going to cool it down, run a scribe down the vent lines, and scrub again. I'll update you, I'm just leaving the furnace on until after I do these things, then I'll try casting again.
Selmerfan

[Brownie]

before you start molding give your mold a good cleaning with brake cleaner then start molding bullets and it should not take very long to get good bullets. you must get the mold hot enough to burn all the oil out of it and make nice smooth bullets. this should not take long if you washed it out good with brake cleaner. throw the wrinkled ones back in the pot , have a sip of beer and make some good ones.

[45nut]

Also make sure the sprue plate is not too tight. no slop, but should swing of its own weight. The air displaced by the lead will vent better from that fit. As a last resort I smoke the cavities but prefer them clean.

[runfiverun]

to clean vent lines i like to use a razor blade.
carb cleaner and a rag is the stuff for steel molds
also are you bottom pouring with a stream or forcing it in the mold
or usind a ladle? you may want to not use pressure to fill the mold.
if all this fails use a bit of tin 1-2%.

[John Boy]

Selmerfan ... put the mold down and read this before your next casting session ...
The Eight Phase Casting Cycle (http://www.longrangebpcr.com/8Phases.htm)

[mstarling]

Clean the mold with a strong detergent and use a nylon brush. (If it is aluminum, test the detergent on some scrap first.) Use very hot water last so that the mold will dry quickly. Wipe the mold with isopropyl alcohol and q-tips.

[BTW: After a run, I let the molds (I run two at a time and alternate) cool and spray them down with WD-40. I store molds in a closed plastic cat litter container. WD-40 is not too difficult to clean off and the reduced airflow space saturated with WD-40 vapor keeps the molds from rusting.]

Cast long enough for the mold to get warm enough. Until the mold is hot it will not fill out properly. May take a while ... be patient.

Try to fill each cavity quickly so that the metal in the cavity stays hot.

When the sprue starts being a bit too soft ... you're going too fast ... slow down a bit. Clean up the sprue between pours. The bigger the bullet the slower one must cast.

When the mold is hot and it seems your moving too slow, lower the temperature of the pot some. Find the sweet spot where the pours fill out and you can add a pound ingot of alloy at a time AND you don't have to wait too long between pours.

I only have one aluminum mold and I have found that it gets warm enough to cast with faster than steel. Seems to work fine ... will have to see how long it lasts. Several of my steel molds are nearly 40 years old and still going.

[hyoder]

I may have some culpability here.

1. Clean the mold. Hot water won't cut the oil out of the mold. You need boiling water with a little Dawn in it . Boil the mold for 5-10 minutes. Spray it down with brake cleaner or flush it with lacquer thinner or MEK(bad stuff -go outside)

2. Warm the mold up while the lead pot is heating up. Hang the mold over the edge of the pot or even better get an electric hot plate and lay it on the hot plate.

3. Get the lead hot - 700 - 725 degrees for starters. I highly recommend a thermometer.

4. now you're ready to start casting - you should have good bullets in fewer than a dozen.

[Blammer]

Heat Mon! HEAT! We need some more HEAT!

[HeavyMetal]

The quickest way to find out if your mold is hot enough is to dip a corner of it into the molten alloy.

two seconds should be enough. If the mold is hot enough no alloy will stick to it. If you get alloy stiking then dip the mold back in for a 10 count and pull it out again.

When the lead don't stick it's time to cast!

If the mold is clean and your useing the good lyman dipper that pours from the bottom your fist boolit should be good!

If it's not cool and reclean. when you store molds I'd give some serious thought before spraying anything on them. WD -40 in particular can be annoying to remove completely.

Storage is a whole nother topic! For now seal them in a container( no plastic it sweats!) with some type of moisture absorbant.

[selmerfan]

Thanks for all of the tips guys. I've gone through all of the vent lines with a razor blade and will boil the mould with Dawn tomorrow morning and see how thing turn out tomorrow evening when I try. On a side note, will my 2 cav handles that fit the SAECO mould fit my 2 cav NEI mould, or should they? I tried the NEI mould in the handles tonight and the pins fit and the jaws fit, but it seems the angle of the jaws must be wrong, the mould blocks don't completely come together.
Selmerfan

[runfiverun]

then either you need different handles need to modify the ones you have
or have an alignment pin problem,
i would suspect no 1.

[HORNET]

selmerfan, did you try getting that Saeco mold warmed up and smoking the cavities like you would on an aluminum mold? It works pretty good on steel molds sometimes, as well as on aluminum ones. You might still have to crank the heat up more on the alloy, though. Alloy that's not hot enough still won't fill a too hot mold.
I believe that someone mentioned in another thread that NEI molds use RCBS handles, but you can modify LEE six cav. to work. I wouldn't swear by it (get independant vefification).

[EDK]

I had some fill out problems with two LEE group buy moulds until I "sweetened the alloy" with a couple ounces of babbit (tin bearing alloy.) A little bit of lapping helped a lot also. Square edges can be a problem if you don't have alloy, temperature, and everything else just right.

My LYMAN Cowboy moulds (round nose, flat point) cast good boolits a lot easier than the semi- and full-wadcutter moulds do. After using them for a long time, casting the 44 SLIM and 44 full wadcutter (GLL) boolits were a learning curve.

Wait until you think the alloy temperature is right...and give it a few more minutes!Flux it twice and check your dipper or ladle to be clear.

There's a million questions to be asked...and twice as many good answers to them!

:cbpour::redneck::Fire:

[selmerfan]

Ok, I finally have experienced success! I'm not sure if it was thoroughly cleaning the mould via boiling with detergent, or clearing the vent lines, but now the SAECO mold is dropping boolits like no tomorrow. Well....at last I got 72 in under 40 minutes last night that are perfect and all within .5 grain of one another. I'm very pleased, now I just have to get the 4500 set up!
Selmerfan

[GSM]

Selmerfan:

Now that you figured that one out, get a notebook and write down what you did and how you did it (lead temp or themostat setting, alloy, how you filled the cavities, ambient temp, etc.).

I didn't believe in writing it down until I had several moulds and started using different alloys, then I CRS one time and couldn't buy a good bullet form one mould.

[montana_charlie]

I tried the NEI mould in the handles tonight and the pins fit and the jaws fit, but it seems the angle of the jaws must be wrong, the mould blocks don't completely come together.
Selmerfan
Which section of the mould doesn't meet up?
CM

[selmerfan]

The very outside edge of the mold does not meet up. I almost wonder if the jaws are just a hair to thick and if they are not allowing the mold blocks to pivot properly and meet up. I thought about grinding them down just a little, because my saeco mold blocks pivot, and these don't, the fit is too tight. If I take my hand and press the blocks together with the jaws closed, then the come together and I can cast boolits in the mold, but that seems to be a pain in the rear to do that every time, especially with a HOT mold. The pins are the right size.
Selmerfan

[floodgate]

selmerfan:

(Are you a brass player? Selmer is a maker of brass musical instruments IIRC)

First, check to see if the inner faces of the handle jaws are hitting the bottom of the block slots AT THE REAR. This can prevent the jaws from fully squeezing the blocks closed at the front, and commonly arises in using the older "small-block" handles on the larger blocks; or sometimes it happens even with the correct handles - several of my handles have had to be "fine-tuned" over the years. The solution is to file a taper on the INSIDE REAR face of the handle jaws, from about 0.020"-0.030" at the back to zero opposite the mounting screw holes. Also, check that the wooden handles are not contacting each other as you try to close the mould. (If the blocks gap at the back, file from the FRONT of the jaws.)

floodgate

[selmerfan]

Thanks floodgate, I'll try that when I get back to school. The nei mold is at my apartment at school, I'm home with the wife and kids for the weekend. No, I'm not a brass player, I'm a saxophone player. :) Selmer does make fine brass instruments, but nobody, and I mean nobody, makes better saxophones than Selmer, at least for my preferences. (It's the only thing made in France that I would ever buy) In the sax world, that statement is alot like saying that Freedom Arms are the absolute best SA revolver there is. You know that you're right, but somebody else thinks differently...
Selmerfan

[ben1025]

I use a case chambering tool on the alignment pin hole. Just don't get carried away.
Also I gave up dipping a mould 20 years ago. Get a hot plate or if you got a electric stove use it. I read a few times about warping a mould and in 20 years never happened to me. I've left moulds on a hot plate for 12 hours or more (forgot) more then once. with no problem. One thing I might say is remove the bullets first, or you will be sorry.
I just received a mould off of e-bay. The bottom of the bullet wasn't filling out. I cleaned that mould half a doz times. Even went to my other furnace. Didn't do any good. Even e-mailed Gussy about a new spruce plate. The bullet is a 335 gr.375. The spruce hole was normal size but there was harley no taper to it. I drilled it out till it looked right and it still didn't work. In desperation I recut the top 3 vent lines on both cavitys. Worked great. I've been casting for 38 years and owned more then a 100 moulds first time I ever recut vent lines. Never to old to learn something new.