DIY 100 pound pot/master caster

[CGT80]

Update: Post 68 with links for photos and video.

With a browser plugin/add on, you might be able to see photos in this thread (I can) but I don't have a new host for photos and would have to take the time to update all these photos.


Instead of starting my own thread, I just commented in another thread and my project kept growing, so now I have decided to make my own thread. This thread title should make it a bit easier for others to find info on building a pot or casting machine.

When I first tried casting, I was probably 14 years old and I used two cavity steel molds and a 10 pound lee pot that my dad and grandfather used. It wasn't until 4-5 years ago that I got back into casting and started to read this forum. After I bought a Smith 460 XVR, I got in on a group buy for an MP 45-270 SAA brass HP mold, with 4 cavities. The 10 pound pot was way too small and it dripped more than my $15 coffee maker.

The next step was a PID and a 20 pound lee pot.

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20131231_213932_191.jpg

It likes to drip as well, but hold more lead. The sickness continued and I ended up with two NOE 5 cavity molds. One is a Saeco #315 175 grain 30 cal flat point plain base. It works great in the 30-30 at 1300 fps for Silhouette shooting and it is also great for plinking with the 1926 Winchester 54 bolt gun in 30-06. The other mold is a 402 160 rn plain base for my XD 40 competition pistol. The pistol boolits get powder coating and my rile boolits get Cred in the rcbs LAM I. The new mr drippy isn't too bad from full to half empty, but after that, it no longer has enough pressure for a good fast stream. It takes forever to get back up to temperature and I would have to fill it again when only half way through a casting session.

A master caster sounded and looked like a great way to make boolits, but also an expensive one. After seeing a bunch of other DIY pots I got more serious about at least having a 40 pound pot with more wattage to keep up with my casting. The RCBS pot was also pricey for what it is.

After more research, I had a bit of a plan and started to buy some parts.

I think I will copy my posts from the other thread, and likely shorten what I have in the other one.......

[CGT80]

05-01-2016
I am considering building a bottom pour pot as well, and maybe a bullet casting machine. Jmorris has posted on a few forums to tell about his. He used a new oven element and bent it around a pipe. Amazon has elements for $16. I wonder if a stove element would be better so that the heat is from the bottom. The spout would have to pass through the middle of the element and the weight of the pipe would be on the element, unless you made stand offs to hold the pot, or supported it by the sides.

Jmorris used a 3500 watt element, IIRC, and he melts 60 lbs at a time, but it will hold more.

I need to go to my metal supplier and find a remnant of pipe and then work from there.

[CGT80]

05-04-2016
I stopped by Industrial Metal Supply, today. They had a 13" section of 6 1/8" ID x 1/4" wall pipe in the remnants area. It was also uncoated on the inside, which is great. Much of their pipe is galv. It cost a whopping 5 bucks. I also picked up a rem of 3/8" plate for 6 bucks that I can cut a base from. The pipe is beveled on one end, although I would likely use more bevel for my tig weld on the bottom. I have some 1/4" plate around here, if I just match the wall thickness for the bottom. The CNC plasma machine is up and running, that my dad and I built, so I plan to use it where possible for my build.

That is a 5" grinder and a pair of tilman 750m gloves for size. I didn't set the pipe next to my lee 4-20, but I know it is huge. I was also considering cutting it to 6" deep. The lee pot sucks when it gets below half full. It seems that 6"x6" of lead would weigh 80 pounds, if I found a decent calculator for volume and lead weight. This was with a quick google search on my phone while in the steel warehouse.


http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Welding%20Fabrication%20and%20Building/IMG_20160504_223258778_HDR.jpg

[CGT80]

05-05-2016
Last night, I also ordered a heating element to try out on my pot. It was just under $15 shipped on amazon prime and it is an oven element at 2585 watts with 1/4" terminals. Hopefully it bends as easily as jmorris said his did. The stove burner seems like it would put the heat in a better place, but it complicates things too much, at this point.

Here is the link: http://www.amazon.com/Exact-Replacements-Erb44t10010-Bake-Element/dp/B004FO8JZ0/ref=sr_1_4?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1462073580&sr=1-4&keywords=heating+elements (http://www.amazon.com/Exact-Replacements-Erb44t10010-Bake-Element/dp/B004FO8JZ0/ref=sr_1_4?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1462073580&sr=1-4&keywords=heating+element)

[CGT80]

05-05-2016
Jmorris said he used a stainless sheet and wrapped it around the heating element. I plan to do something similar to hold the element, but I may end up insulating the pot and building an outside case/cover that is square. It would be nice to make it look well finished and like something you would see advertised for sale from a manufacturer. That would satisfy the OCD in me and also give me more of a challenge with my fabrication skills. Only time will tell how far I take it.

It looks like my current PID should work for the 240v heating element. The PID will work on 120v or 240v and the ssr is 25 amps (more than double the load of the new element), and I would just have to change the plug ends to 15a or 20a 250v style and double check that my wiring is correct on the inside.

[CGT80]

08-15-2016
It was finally time to get a start on the monster lead casting pot.

Here is the pipe partially blasted with 220 grit garnet and marked where it will be cut for the proper height. I went with 9" tall x 6.125" ID and it should put me at 102 lbs of liquid lead, according to an online calculator. In reality, I don't plan to fill it that full. The Lee 20 pound pot needed at least 2" of lead to have good flow and when it was filled to 3.5", it did not have enough material for me to do one casting session. It also was very slow to catch up when adding more than a single sprue. 4 to 6 inches in the new pot should give me 22-45 pounds on top of the 2" which gave good pressure at the spout. I don't know if the larger diameter will have any effect on pressure.


http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20160815_194101387.jpg

I didn't take a pic of wrapping the heating element around the pipe, but this shows how the pipe fits in my big vice to make it easier to wrap. It wasn't tight enough, so I stuck a section of 6" thin wall tube in the vice and wrapped the element tighter. Then, when I wrapped it on the 1/4" wall pipe, it fit snug. I still need to mount this vice to a bench outside. It is 14" from the jaws to the table and 22" front to back. Last week, I finished restoring them. The little parker is likely 70 years old, from what I could find on it. You can also see the fabrication table that I finally finished. It came in handy to clamp the pipe when I ground a bevel on the bottom of it.

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20160815_203630537.jpg

My thought was to drill and tap the bottom of the pot for a 1/2" pipe thread and to use a pipe plug as my spout. It would hopefully seal up and be easy enough to remove if I had to work on the spout for any reason. I don't have a 1/2" pipe tap or the proper size drill bit, but I had a bung that I cut on the lathe for another project but didn't use. It is 1" OD on the small part, so I will cut a 1" hole in the 3/8" bottom plate with an annular cutter and the mill and then tig weld the bung in place. A 60 degree counter sink should make a nice spout opening for a tapered rod to go into. I will probably try to turn that on the lathe.

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20160815_194301778.jpg


The heating element is 2585 watts 240 volts. Amazon has ceramic insulation for $27 that is 1" thick and will just cover all four sides of my pot. The outer skin will likely be stainless sheet which will screw to the edge of the 3/8" plate at the bottom and it will be in the form of a box with a round hole in the top to be screwed in the top edge of the pot. The stainless is a couple of door kicks that never got used, which are in the scrap pile. I will tig the joints and unfortunately don't have a brake so there will be plenty of edges to weld. I have only welded a small amount of stainless, so it will be good practice. I could do it with my MIG with tri mix gas, but it will likely look better to tig it.

I have not decided on a stand yet. My goal is a stand that will automatically fill and empty a boolit mold, but that is a ways out.

[CGT80]

12-02-2016
After a break, I finally got back around to this project!

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20161201_193828086.jpg

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20161201_193730492_HDR.jpg


I just wasn't sure about using plumbing fittings for a spout, so I drilled the bottom of the pot and ran a 60 degree counter sink in that hole. Then, I turned a steel rod in the lathe and attempted to match that 60 degree angle. Some aluminum oxide powder and grease served as a lapping compound. At that point, it was time to attach the pipe to the base. With the 5" angle grinder, I ground a bevel on the bottom of the pipe. I think I tack welded it together with my MIG, and then I preheated the thing on a hot plate and then hit it with the mapp gas torch. I set the TIG welder on kill mode (460 amps) and gave it two passes. It never got the full pedal, so I'm guessing I didn't go over 400 amps. The base did warp a bit, but it isn't too bad.

This week, I started in on the valve mechanism. There is a piece of 16ga aluminum under the valve mechanism, as a place holder for my final skin/box. I have a few stainless door kicks sitting around and wanted to use those as the skin, but they have holes drilled in them and I went bigger on my pot base, after I decided to allow room for insulation. So, I either have to fill the holes, or just build it out of aluminum. The vertical bars which hold the lever are cold roll 1/2" by 3/4". The lever is 1/4" by 1/2" hot roll, left over from another job. It was slow going when I milled the slots. My mill is a 1/4" diameter 90 degree drill point which I purchased to slot 3/16" material. For this heavier stuff, I set the spindle speed at 1200-1400 rpm and ran lots of mist coolant. My feed rate was an average of 30 thousandths of an inch per minute. I just went out and checked the drill/mill again. It took 1.5-2 seconds per thousandth of an inch on the handle of the mill. The cutter was just long enough to do a half inch in a single pass and I don't think it would have done it in multiple, with the drill point on it. I did not know the proper feed rate and the only way to find what that small of a mill was capable of, was to find out when it would break. Ruining a $25 cutter wasn't an option.

The flow control bolt is 3/8x24tpi, and I wanted to be able to adjust it with my welding glove on and without tools. If needed, I will add a wing to the bolt head so it is easier to adjust. The pivot bolts are 10-24, IIRC, and are too short. The cheap screws I had in there actually had slop in them. The cap head screws are nice and tight, so I will get longer ones and nuts to match. 1/4"x20 bolts hold the whole assembly to the ear (1/4" plate) that is welded to the pot.

Now, I need to make a base for the pot. My goal is to make this an auto caster, so I want to allow room for that down the road.

[CGT80]

12-04-2016

I looked a pics from J. Morris again and a few others and took a stab at the dimensions required. My base is 1.5" square steel tube and is 1/8" wall. The heat shield for the element is 16 ga steel and I bent it by hand. The element was wrapped as tight as I could get it, but it expanded a bit after heating. It is still too hot to touch, after cooing for an hour or so.

The red wire is 18ga and is rated at 200 degrees Celsius. Quality wire is normally 105 C., so this is rated for double the amount of heat. It was left over from when I used to repair the heat lamps in Carl's Jr fast food joints. I also have some woven glass tube to run over the terminal and wires, until it exits the housing for the pot. The element is 2500 watts at 240 volts. It was pulling 10.5 amps. The pid has a 25 amp ssr and was wired for 120v, to run my drip-o-matic casting pot. It wasn't easy to fit the ssr in that little box with the PID, but it was clean looking. I may have to add a heat sink to the back and possibly a fan. It got pretty warm to the touch, but not overly hot.

Originally, I wanted to make a body out of stainless steel, but my remnants are on the small size and have some holes. Maybe I will try it for the heck of it, but I considered aluminum instead. Today, I started to wonder if aluminum was the right material. With a lead temp of 800 F., the outside of that pot will be extremely high. Then again, I plan to use 1" of ceramic insulation around the pot to help keep the heat in and away from the skin and myself. Hopefully, that will allow the pot to work even better. Right now it seems like the element is none too big for the amount of mass in the structure of the pot and the pot would take 50lbs of lead to just fill half way.

The frame, under the pot, got hot, but I could still touch the cross brace against the bench. The legs were too hot to touch. Since the base of the pot warped, from welding, I had to add spot welds under the corners of the pot so it would sit steady. Two 1/4"x20 bolts hold the base to the pot. It might help to have some distance between the bottom of the pot and the frame, but I wanted the thing to be rock solid.

My mig welder had flux core in it (I hate the stuff but will use it for mobile repairs) and I didn't want to deal with the splatter and fumes, so I tig welded the entire base and the tabs on the outside of the pot, along with all the parts for the mechanism. It was a good excuse to practice my tig welding. It also makes for small beads which I can leave, or make flush with minimal grinding.

The element is only held at each end by a tab. The screw is for my ground wire.
http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20161203_230125499.jpg


http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20161203_230131167.jpg

Back view:yes the ground should be bare or green, but I wasn't buying hi temp wire just for that. The green tape is good enough for me.
http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20161204_195237461.jpg

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20161203_230311968.jpg


My plasma and welders are wired with 50amp 250v plugs (and my dad and brother also use the same plugs on their tools), so my dad, brother, and I all use extension cords made up like this. The tig welder has a 6ga cord and this garage is only fed with 6ga, so when I welded the bottom of the pot, I only had a few minutes to weld before the 50 amp breaker would pop. It pulls 104 amps at full power, on 240 volt service. Unfortunately, It wasn't a continuous weld, but it is water tight, and is lead tight. I considered a 15 or 20 amp plug for the pot, but the only other item in my garage with a small plug is the mill/drill. If I needed to run the lee pot, I could change the cord end back to 15a120v and the PID would be ready to go.
http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20161204_195142994.jpg


It has no problem heating up the inside of a single car garage.
http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20161204_195302412.jpg

[bstone5]

I bent a new stove heating element around pipe to make a pot heater. The element will bend new but once heated it can no be bent again. The pot was used to heat water for bending thin wood strips. The control was a simple off and on switch, the water was allowed to boil with the wood in the water boiling.

[jmorris]

Looks like you are well on your way. One thing I would do different on mine is to make the frame wider and instead of having the mold carriers shaped like "F" with the mold between the horizontal and the flat rubbing on the arms I would make them like two back to back f's with a "wheel" opposite the mold vs just rubbing.

[CGT80]

This pot puts off some serious heat with that 2500 watt element shielded by only some sheet metal. It also seemed slow to heat up ingots that I added to it. So far, I have only had up to about 30 pounds of lead in it. The valve dripped quite a bit, as I cut the seat and rod then lapped them, but welded the base afterwards, from what I recall.

It functioned well enough for me to order some 1" thick ceramic insulation from Amazon. It was $27 for a 12"x24" sheet. The temperature rating is around 2400f. It was easy to cut and came with a throw away knife. There is a 3"x12" strip left from that sheet. Bailing wire worked to hold the insulation tight to the heat shield and I was able to snug it up at the top, to try and keep the heat down around the walls of the pot. Woven glass insulation will protect the high temp wires even more, as they exit the pot.

Even though the insulation had great reviews, I wasn't sure that it would block enough heat to allow the use of aluminum for a skin. Heat will be conducted where the base meets the skin and where the top of the pot meets the skin. I opted to use some stainless door kick plates that were in the scrap pile. They were not very tall and had holes drilled in them, so the cnc plasma table was not a good option to cut the sheet. Instead, I used the plasma and a straight edge to hand cut the sheet. It cut easily and wasn't hard to clean up with a 60 grit flap disc. Tig welding the box was another story. My SS welding experience is limited to small repairs. I didn't bother to back purge the box with argon since it isn't a critical part. The welding table make it easier to tack together. When it looked like a box, I skip welded the edges. Amperage was probably around 75 and I tried not to overheat the welds. 1/16" filler was a bit big and 0.030" was too small.

Of course, the box warped. Grinding the corners was no fun either, but the welds looked like **** and I had the screw holes to fill as well. 60 grit discs cleaned up the welds and then I ran 3" surfacing discs in brown and maroon, on my 90 degree die grinder. For the corners, I cleaned them up a bit more with a blue surfacing disc. The hole in the top was plasma cut within a 1/4" and then I removed the valve and screwed the top to the pot so I could run a 3/4" dia carbide burr around the inside of the pot to match the parts. It took a lot of work to grind that stainless and I was trying not to overheat the SS, since it can work harden and I didn't want to trash a $30 burr. At least my new (old LeRoi Dresser 2AVC 5hp 80 gallon) air compressor kept up just fine with it's 20cfm output.

To clean up the valve, I removed the valve assembly and pulled the rod out of the machined block that holds it. It is just a hand press fit. Some drilling lube and 220 grit aluminum oxide worked for a DIY lapping compound and my M12 1/2" drill was great for spinning the rod in it's seat. Yep, I just eyeballed the alignment If that failed, I was going to make an alignment plate based off the valve mechanism. It worked! It will drip a little at 800f, but at 650-725 it almost stops.

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20161222_172625093.jpg

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20161222_172646590.jpg

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20161222_183458745.jpg

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20161220_194735024.jpg

[CGT80]

I bent a new stove heating element around pipe to make a pot heater. The element will bend new but once heated it can no be bent again. The pot was used to heat water for bending thin wood strips. The control was a simple off and on switch, the water was allowed to boil with the wood in the water boiling.

Luckily, you are right about it bending when new......that is what I had read on the forums. My element bent just fine, but I didn't want to heat it up until I had the pot further along. After a certain point, I forgot about trying it (just in case) and figured if it doesn't work, I will address it at that time. The new element was inexpensive and luckily I didn't try to bend a used element.

That is a use I hadn't thought about for a pot like this.


Looks like you are well on your way. One thing I would do different on mine is to make the frame wider and instead of having the mold carriers shaped like "F" with the mold between the horizontal and the flat rubbing on the arms I would make them like two back to back f's with a "wheel" opposite the mold vs just rubbing.

I really appreciate this advice. That is the step I was thinking over today!

Everyone else has copied what you and the factory did. It made me wonder if wear would be an issue. It looks like the bottom of the arms would have the same sort of wear (maybe worse) where it is pushed to force the mold open.

When I built the frame for the pot, I thought about how much space was needed between the legs. To go wider, there would have to be some sort of bracket to extend back toward the middle to hold the pot. With 20+ pounds of steel pot and up to 100 pounds of lead, I wanted the thing to be built like a rock. It would have been nice to thermally separate the pot from the base as well. At this point in the project, I hadn't fired up the pot and I wasn't sure if it would stay a manual pot or progress. The simple route seemed best and I had the 1.5" steel in the scrap pile.

Now that you have given me a heads up, I can work on incorporating your idea into my build. It is raining right now and cold and wet in the garage, so I have spent part of the day just looking over other builds to figure out how to make the mechanics work on my pot.

Thank you for the ideas.

[CGT80]

What molds do I use???

The NOE 40 cal 160 rn is perfect, as is the S 315 copy. I also have an RCBS 45-225 rn and RCBS 311-115 GC for the 30 carbine.

Lee 2 cavity molds are cheap, but the old ones I have (and don't use) are pinned to the handles with a blind pin/hole. A few people say the master casters will beat up an aluminum mold, otherwise NOE aluminum molds would be an option. Magma molds would work, but I don't use their castings right now and I already have my load data and pet loads. Same goes for more RCBS molds. It takes too long to get MP molds and the brass MP is really heavy for hand casting. The NOE 5 cav aluminum became my favorite.

I thought long and hard after looking at the NOE site. They have a 2 cavity brass 402 160 rn in stock and a 2 cavity saeco 315 brass in stock, but it is a gas check design and they don't even offer it in brass PB. Well, I have some leading in the 30-30 with range scrap (I'm cheap and lazy and only pushing them with 9.6 grains of Herco) and GC's would be a better route. My fingers did the walking and my credit card did the talking. They should be here by next weekend, if all goes well.

This will give me 2 steel RCBS molds to use and two brass NOE molds. Hopefully the brass will hold up well. For future molds, I would choose NOE first and then RCBS, anyway. The spacing between sprue holes will matter as well as the dimensions of the mold.

Now, I need to make an adapter for a double spout. It will bolt in place so I can make a second one with different spacing, if needed. The NOE molds are a bit wider where the handles mount and the RCBS narrower, but I don't know if the brass NOE are the same dimensions as the aluminum I already have. It would be nice to have a plate/s for each brand that can be changed out of the mold holder on the machine. It wouldn't be much more than a couple sections of steel bar cut or machined to the right width to make up the difference between the two molds.

A few days ago, I ordered 3/4" steel rod, pillow block bearings, and couplers from Amazon. The bearings are cheese grade but the shaft will only move a quarter turn. I wasn't paying $35 each from McMasterCarr for quality bearings when a $12 import should do the job. Hopefully the heat in the base of the machine and mold won't cause all of the grease to run out of the bearings. The seals don't look all that great. The bearings will go outside the frame of my machine, so I might be able to control a little of the heat transfer at that point, depending on how I mount them.

Right now, I am debating on pneumatic vs. servo actuation. My dad has an Arduino starter kit that he hasn't done much with. It seems like a good way to go. The problem is that neither of us have figured out how to control the servos he has. The servos are 25oz/52oz peak, 44v, 40watts. He actually has 10 or so of those and the power supply. I have a pdf spec sheet. I don't know if I need another controller board for the Arduino or if the Arduino can connect directly to the data wires on the servo.

He also has some pneumatic pistons with solenoids which I could use. It seems that air would give a nice push to the end stop, where the jolt would help knock the booits free. Tappers could assist. A servo would be easily controllable and could be stopped in the middle of travel to cool the mold/sprue with a fan, but I don't know if I could get the jolt at the end, or if it is even needed with tappers. A fan could just blow on the mold at the bottom of it's travel as well.

The Arduino or similar device seems like a better option than a bunch of timers and other controllers, from a cost stand point, but I am open to suggestions.

The plan is to make a manual master caster, then automate it. It would be great to PC or lube my boolits while the machine drops boolits.

Thanks for following along!

[Tazza]

Looking good so far.

The F shaped mould carriers and the rods these run on to hold the mould closed, ore more to the point, ensure there is no crud between the mould halves when it returns to under the spout are all hardened. Same with the angle blocks at the bottom that hold the mould open, they are all hard.

As for the arduino, the digital outputs are very low current at 5v, i am using IRF740 mosfets on mine, they are rated at a 400v 10a, they are only running air solenoids, so they don't even get warm.

Personally, i'd look at air cylinders, they may handle the repetition better than a servo would.

[robg]

Admire your skill .hell of a job

[jroc]

I think you will find the pneumatic pistons will work better as they are more able to be adjusted by raising or lowering air pressure to them. Also I believe Hatch came out with a basic panel that I think is quite affordable. Just for your information.

[jmorris]

It made me wonder if wear would be an issue.

Its not wear that is an issue but I have to keep the rails waxed or they get "sticky".

I suppose it's not a critical flaw but you can tell the motor I used is working harder to move the mold into and out of the pour position. The rails taper at the end to hold the mold halves together. You can see when the taper opens up enough to "let go", rollers would eliminate that.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2U1ujg_nzo

I used a DC gear motor I had and the only "control" is two one shot timers I put together. There is a switch that is contacted by the lever when the mold is all the way at the top.

That switch activates a timer, controlled by a 10 turn pot to adjust activation time. It triggers a DPDT relay that when energized, cuts the power to the motor and the other pole applies power to the solenoid, pouring the lead. When the timer is done the relay flips back cutting the power to the solenoid and powering the motor up again.

The other timer can cut the power when the mold is all the way down and open, if additional cooling is needed.


It would have been nice to thermally separate the pot from the base as well.

My pot is bolted to the base and it is only in contact where the bolts are.

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o213/jmorrismetal/caster3.jpg

Your work is looking great.

[M-Tecs]

Very nice job.

[CGT80]

Thanks for all the compliments, guys.

Jmorris, thanks again for the details on your build. It is possible for me to change the mounting on my pot so it is a bit more isolated. Right now, it sits on 4 spot welds and has two bolts to hold it in place. There is so much heat off the bottom, that I don't know how much is transferred through contact and how much is just radiant. The good news is that the spout hasn't froze so far, a major problem with the lee 20.

[CGT80]

Yesterday, I didn't have much else to do, so I started in on the shaft and bearings for the movement of the machine. The bearings are cheap China made units that I sourced on Amazon. Maybe those $35 Mc MasterCarr bearings wouldn't have been so bad after all. These needed to be aligned, but they are supposedly made to have some play in the mounting. The steel rod from Amazon was cheap plated rod like what HD carries. I was hoping it would be nice and straight, but it seems it isn't. Again, ground rod from Mc Master might have been better. With all that said, I think the parts will still get the job done to move 90 degrees.

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170101_171307064.jpg

In my scrap pile was some 1/4" plate left over from the company who laser cut my fab table. A short piece was able to stand on end in my little Femi band saw, so that I could cut it longways. You can see in this pic it is already drilled and tapped for 3/8"x16. The shaft needs to be right against the back of the front legs, so that the spout will be centered over the pivot. Here is where a larger base would have given me more flexibility. That is also why the plates are proud of the legs, by 5/8".

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170101_171021581.jpg

The drill/mill isn't anything great, but it beats a drill press and at least I have a nice set of Norseman drill bits and a finicky mist cooler that keeps the tooling very chilly when the flexible sections don't pop off. To find the center, I ran it without coolant and just barely touched the plate to make a mark, then adjusted the table, and made a slightly bigger mark. At that point I was ready for mist cooling and it was ready to drill.

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170101_155344233.jpg

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170101_160004945.jpg

Something was off with that 5/16 bit. It didn't want to spin straight in the chuck and I don't think I had that problem with other drills. You can see the evidence in the finish of the hole. It is something I will have to check up on.

Hand tapping sucks! This is a tap I picked up from a shop that a family member closed down. I'm not sure of the condition, but it is stamped HS, so I assume it is high speed steel. Should it be HSS, instead?

It took a while to tap the holes, at 30 rpm. Yes, too slow.

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170101_163607749.jpg

Here is the Versatapper. My dad picked it up on CL for $75, IIRC. It was just a few months back that I figured out it would actually hold a decent size tap, when I needed to tap a bunch of 1/2"x20 holes for my welding table. It works with hand taps and has a clutch and reverse mechanism. Push down and it turns forward (always at 1/4 of the speed of the mill) and stop and slightly lift to get neutral, then pull up to reverse. On these holes, I reversed after about two turns of the tap, to break the chips, then went back down. I looked at the paperwork to see what the gear reduction was and found a speed chart. It shows 1500 rpm for a 3/8" tap and I was running 120 rpm on the spindle, but this doesn't look like a machine tap to me and it didn't work like one.

The tapping tool is mounted in a 1/2" R8 Collet. It has flats and should go in a drill chuck as well, but that adds a lot of height on this machine.


http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170101_163635421.jpg

Here is the shaft and bearings mounted. To mount the plates, I just tig welded a few spots on the bottom and ends. Don't tell anyone, but I first made tacks on the top of the plate, and then had to grind them with a cut off wheel because they interfered with the bearing housings. :groner:
I underestimated the sloppy build of those housings and they do have a sharp corner on the casting.

Not in the picture are two couplers for this shaft. One is for the middle and will have the arm to the mold attached. This would let me make adjustments or remove it........although I might skip that and weld right to the shaft. The other will go on the end of the shaft to attach a handle or gear if needed; again, it may or may not get used.
http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170101_182207515.jpg


I figured I might as well add more pics and description of the process. Photography used to be my hobby and I have an AS degree in it, but I used to shoot 6x6 and 35mm. This is cell phone format. Some people here might not understand what goes into making parts like this and when I have searched threads on these type of projects, I have been thankful for any details the person includes so that I am better prepared to take on the same project.

The bottom of some of the pictures looks messed up right now. Photobucket must be having an off day. We'll see if it changes or shows up on your end.

[jmorris]

I think the parts will still get the job done to move 90 degrees.

I would design it with more movement than that, if you are going to use a motor, you are not going to have the inertia that you would by hand or pneumatics.

Even then, I wound up with a "sticky" mold and had to add tappers.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ih32UPvuuks

I just used what I had collecting dust. If you already have pneumatics/controls, might be less work to just use them.

[skeettx]

wonderful project
Thanks
Mike

[Plate plinker]

That thing is a monster way to go. Only thing better would be a caster that runs two molds at once.

[CGT80]

I would design it with more movement than that, if you are going to use a motor, you are not going to have the inertia that you would by hand or pneumatics.

Even then, I wound up with a "sticky" mold and had to add tappers.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ih32UPvuuks

I just used what I had collecting dust. If you already have pneumatics/controls, might be less work to just use them.

Yes, 90 degrees is just a ballpark and it wouldn't be hard to allow the mold to drop down further. All along, I have kept tappers as an option for mine, since others have done the same. It seems they would add some assurance and insurance to make sure the boolits drop free.

Right now, I do agree with the pneumatics. Those DIY automation projects look like they have a nice abrupt stop when the mold opens. Hopefully tuning the air pressure or flow will allow the right amount of force without beating the snot out of the mold and machine. There is a bunch of pneumatic parts in those couple boxes that my dad picked up and he said he has played with them on the bench. I haven't messed with them yet, although he says the larger piston has so much force that he couldn't push it in (pushing the cylinder against a bench with his hip) with his body. It is similar in size to what I have seen on another casting machine. There are a couple smaller cylinders that might work for the lead valve or tappers.

It is still cold and wet in my garage and I am waiting on the new molds, so I didn't do any work on it today. The plan is to run it by hand at first. If/when that portion works as it is supposed to, I will work on automating it. It might not be long between steps but the option to run by hand is nice since I haven't used one of these machines before and I need some bullets and don't want to change the plugs on the PID and deal with the Lee 20 when this thing is coming along. This will be my first time powering a hand operated machine or automating it. I did build my own trimmer, but it uses CTS trimmers for a drill and I just built an aluminum case around the motor and attached a coupler to the motor.

That video is great as it shows the linkage for the motor and the tappers. You can really hear the motor change sound as the mold moves away from the spout. I also have a couple motors, one with a gear box, and another separate gear box, but I have not torn into them to see if they can be salvaged.



That thing is a monster way to go. Only thing better would be a caster that runs two molds at once.

Don't even get me started! [smilie=l:

With two molds, it would drop 40 cal and 30 cal at the same time. A controller, of some sort, could even change how long the lead valve is open for each mold. I could PC the pistol boolits and have my clone GC and lube the rifle boolits at the same time. Right now I don't even cast for 9mm, but do use a number of them for my 9mm AR 3gun rifle. The 9mm moly coated bullets cost me $60 per thousand so I can't yet justify casting my own and I don't have a steady supply of lead.

It is quite a beast for less than $100 worth of material and parts, so far, not including the PID that I already had.

[shoot-n-lead]

Very nice...great looking workmanship.

But, this is way beyond my skill level, to build and production level for need.

[Plate plinker]

Sorry pal I have a sick twisted mind. It would be spectacular to do two molds at once though.

[CGT80]

I'm assuming you have seen the commercial machines that have 4+ molds on them. Each quarter turn of the shaft would fill and dump a mold. I think I saw one that had 8 arms as well.

My grandfather thought of running multiple molds, when he saw this lead pot. He was a maintenance guy for different types of industrial manufacturing plants. One of the places he worked in (don't know if it was maint. or if he made the product) produced batteries. Their lead pots were massive.

If this machine works like the one Jmorris has, it will far outproduce my needs. It should be fun to watch as I size the boolits, and half the fun is building it myself and then being able to say that I load my own ammo, cast the boolits, and even built the casting machine. Of course, some of the other guys at the range just shake their heads when they see my 40 cal ammo that looks like skittles.

If you have seen the shows such as "how it's made," "mega machines," "modern marvels" and anything else that shows how products are produced or mined, then you know what type of shows I watch on tv, after I get off the computer and go to bed. They are very interesting to me but also have a great narrative quality that is relaxing and easy to fall asleep to.

Yes, two molds would be the cat's meow.

[Plate plinker]

If I had the machines and skill I would do it just because.

[bajacoop]

I have built a similar pot that i use to ladle cast and feed my rcbs hot metal. Would you be interested in building a pour mechanism for me that I could install on my pot?

[CGT80]

I have built a similar pot that i use to ladle cast and feed my rcbs hot metal. Would you be interested in building a pour mechanism for me that I could install on my pot?

If your referring to a bottom pour setup, like mine, it is best to have the pot on hand to make it. This is the first valve assembly I have made and it took many hours to make it up as I went and then to machine the slots for the control lever.

If you want to send me a message with some photos, I will check them out and let you know if I have any ideas for your pot.

[CGT80]

The mailman brought gifts!

Now I have two NOE molds and two RCBS molds to run on this machine. The dimensions are close, but not exact, between the different brands. The biggest difference is in the orientation of the sprue plate. The quality of the newer RCBS mold is really nice. The edges are sharp and cleanly cut and they both work well. The NOE molds are almost too nice to use. The craftsmanship is great and you can immediately notice the chamfered edges. NOE just goes above and beyond what they could get away with. The pins in the NOE molds take an 1/8" hex wrench. It is a common size and is beefy compared to the smaller pins in the RCBS.

The next part may take some slow and tedious work. I have to figure out how to activate the sprue plates and how to hold the molds. It's time to go look even closer at all those pics I have saved and the links I have to videos of the other machines like this.

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170106_1918450401.jpg


http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170106_1920174771.jpg


http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170106_1916189221.jpg

[jmorris]

You just need to make the bolt on adapters (like mm010 below but with a hole for the roll pin) that one side fits the slot in the mold and the other side fits the carrier.

Its the lighter colored part in the photo I posted in #17, held to the mold with two socket head cap screws.

if you want it to be the same as the magma molds, IIRC they will convert the RCBS mold for you, then just copy it for your other one.

I would also be very tempted to get a few of their sprue plates vs building my own too. You won't need the stops any longer because your machine will return them to the same spot every time.

Also in post #17 photo, look on the left side of the mold above the curve rail. See the vertical 1/4" stainless steel rod, it's welded to 1/4-20 bolt and adjusts in or out for sprue plate orientation (I think they just rotate it, not sure MC70 below).

If you look lower on the left side, just above the shaft but below the "F" carrier on the left, you can see an arm that comes off the shaft with another 1/4" bolt, this one adjusts where the mold stops below the orifice plate, an adjustment on one means you will need to adjust the other. Magma has this incorporated into the operating handle (mc023 below).

http://www.magmaengineering.com/images/drawings/mcbase.gif

[CGT80]

The other night, I went out and started to machine some adapters for the RCBS molds.

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/0107172220.jpg


http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/0107172221.jpg


These will be cut on the bandsaw and will fit into the F shape holders. The NOE molds will have a different set of adapters. The NOE has bigger pins and the slot is wider/taller. These are a close fit, but not snug. I don't want it so tight that it is hard to swap the molds out and I don't know how much the HR flat bar will grow with the heat of casting.

Jmorris, or anyone else who has one these machines: Do the screws in the adapter hold the adapter tight to the mold. It appears they push inward and horizontally on the mold and put pressure on the pin/screw that would hold the mold to a set of handles? Then, where the adapter is pinned to the F holders, is there enough play to allow the mold to pivot side to side? Mold blocks attached to handles have some play and this allows the blocks to move a little so that the alignment pins in the blocks determine the final alignment.

It seems that if the blocks are mounted rigid, the entire assembly with the F holders would have to be very precise. If there is slight play, then the alignment pins should do their job and the two curved rails should also guide and push the mold where it should be.

The next part is to build the F holders. For this, I have some steel tube which is a good size for a 3/8" bolt to pass through to act as a pivot point. This is not a precise fit, but it has just enough clearance to make it easy for the parts to fit together. It is hard to tell from the photos, what was used for the pivot in other machines.

[Tazza]

The adaptors are held tight against the moulds, but where the pin goes through to mount to the F adaptors, there is some play here to allow it to shake a little at the end of stroke, not a lot, but there is some.

[jmorris]

It's been awhile, how is the project going?

[jlnel2]

Amazing talent! Wish I could build my own too..

[CGT80]

I didn't realize that I hadn't updated this thread with what I worked on a while back. The other day, I spent just a little time on it as well.

After starting on the adapters for the mold blocks, it was time to figure out the F shape arms and make them work together. Here is what I cobbled together:

These were in my scrap bin and I think the smaller sections were 1/4" thick x 1/2" wide flat stock.

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170111_201908.jpg


I drilled the F bracket, after I welded it, by placing it in the mill vise. The two horizontals of the F did not turn out as straight as I would have liked. After I shaped the adapter, I slid it into the F, and marked where to drill.

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170115_201557.jpg

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170115_201803205.jpg
This is just a trial fit up of the spacing for the bolts. More or less, I just guessed. There is some round steel tube tacked to the large flat and the bolts pass through the tube. It was also scrap.
http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170116_193027.jpg


I made a slight change to the spacing and then cut some 1/4" plate in half to form two sides. This was a remnant from the manufacturer that laser cut my welding table....again more scrap. The center top of it is where the laser pierced the plate. I used the band saw to cut this part.

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170319_205719087.jpg

This is where it got tough. The molds closed, but not straight or easily. I debated on how to adjust this. While others say that the adapter moves in the F arm, I found it easier to allow the mold block to move. The other day I got fed up with not making anymore progress and took the 90 degree die grinder and a 3" 36 grit disk to the adapters where they meet the mold. It gave them enough play to close much better. Now they need some springs to push the mold halves shut.

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170319_205739377.jpg

The rainy weather has left the garage floor flooded and it had been pretty cold for this area and I have been busy with work and all the work I do for the shooting range, not to mention my neck and back issues slowing me down. It got to a point where I just wanted to see if I could make the molds close and I knew I could make new adapters, so I took the less precise approach to testing them (die grinder mentioned above).

Another bummer is that I found out the tank on my big air compressor is junk. After getting down on my hands and knees to figure out how to attach casters to the feet of the tank, I noticed some major pitting on the bottom exterior. The inside looked good when I looked down through a 3/4" bung. According to guys on the Garage Journal, it looks like it must have sat outside in the snow, in a previous life. It would really suck to have an 80 gallon tank burst at 175 psi. It doesn't happen often, but the results if it does, are a nightmare. Looks like McMasterCarr has the best option with a new 120 gallon tank that is epoxy lined for $1200. A used horizontal is not easy to find around here and it would be questionable without having a place which could test it.

The weather has been very warm now and the days longer, so I'm hoping to get back to this project. The rain kept us out of the range for a week or more, due to the creek level. Next weekend, I have practical pistol and will shoot my 40 pistol with bullets from a 5 cavity mold like this (40 160 rn pb) and my 9mm AR 15 which is fed with bearcreek molly bullets. The following day, I have lever action silhouette and will use the NOE saeco 315 PB which I have just enough of to do a single match and some practice. The other new NOE mold for this machine is the saeco but in a GC 2 cav brass. The rcbs molds are for the 30M1 carbine and 45 acp, which are only for fun and practice.

I either need to get my butt in gear on this casting machine, or set the pid up on the lee 20 drippy and do some more hand casting.

[VHoward]

Looking at these pictures makes me wish I had the skill to do things like this. Awesome.

[CGT80]

Thanks for all the compliments guys.

It just takes the desire and practice. I started out in 2000/2001 while in college with the desire to make some things out of steel. I had done a very small amount of welding and had some experience working with wood and had already been a residential/commercial painter for 5-6 years and had learned to do a number of other trades while remodeling houses.

It is pretty amazing to look back at what I have learned in 16 years and it is almost all self taught, other than a few welding classes in college and what I picked up online. Metal work isn't my primary business but I have done plenty of paying jobs. Last week I did some repairs to a trailer and yesterday I looked at a restaurant which needs an iron gate and fence on each end of the building to keep the homeless from living behind the place. Today I cleaned up my Melamine desk (built at age 18) and was thinking about how I need to get the new one build that I have had planned for a while. This morning I saw my chiropractor, so I won't be doing any physical work today and I have paperwork to do for the gun club.......that doesn't mean I can't get some sketches and measurements done for my desk, though.

Thanks for checking out this project. Hopefully it will help others who decide to build a casting machine, inspire a few people to try some metal work, or just entertain the rest.

:lovebooli

[Tazza]

I always enjoy seeing what people on here can do. I think yeah i'm not too bad with a welder and lump of steel, but it seems i got nothing on some of you guys.

Keep up with the build and keep the pictures coming!

I had plans of copying my automated MC, but the usual thing, life gets in the way. The plan was to have a few machines going at once, so my casting sessions could be reduced.

[jmorris]

I machined the slot in the mold carriers I built and while it was in the vise plunged a pocket in the bottom of them where the spring locates. The vertical off the shaft has to have clearance for the spring though.

The drawing is of how I would make them, if I had a "do over" so there is a bearing opposite the mold that rides on the rails. I would use a low profile needle bearing like the blade guide on the left though.

[Tazza]

Jmorris - how do you think the roller bearings would handle the heat? I'd have guessed they would get a bit too hot and have the grease fry out of them. Nice low friction idea though. I have to keep putting oil on mine nice and smooth.

[jmorris]

Jmorris - how do you think the roller bearings would handle the heat?

I don't really know in that environment. I do know that I have bearings that have held up to a lot more load and heat.

like the caged needle bearings between wrist pins and a piston or bearings in a turbo for examples.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v160/b3passatBMX/redhot.jpg

Not sure if it really needs to be a bearing to get benefit, a bronze bushing as a roller would be better than steel on steel rubbing. Won't have the oil (coolant/lube) flow like the above examples but also 1000 degrees F cooler and 25,000 or so RPM less rotation.

It's really not going to be that much more harsh of an environment that the pivot of the arms.

[Tazza]

Point taken :) Yet, a turbo does have an oil supply to keep it lubricated. It does amaze me that the oil doesn't catch fire when the turbo is really hot like that, yet i know they don't run like that all the time, only when being really pushed.

[jmorris]

Yet, a turbo does have an oil supply to keep it lubricated.

That same oil will also carry heat away with it too.

In the application I am talking about it could be a dry bearing really. In its lifetime it wouldn't make as many rotations as a turbo would with one pass down the track and they would have years to take place, not just a few seconds.

[CGT80]

Nice timing with the suggestions! I still need to mount the springs and hadn't figured it out yet. For now, friction holds them in place.

This afternoon, I was playing with opening the mold with my hands, and was concerned about how much pressure it would take to open the mold.

It is time to cut the arm, that holds the mold, down to length. First, it would be a good idea to have a double spout that actually works so I got to work on it. It turns out that the single spout is back further than the center line of my shaft. Oops. I may have to cut the brackets and move the bearings back.

There was some scrap from making the mold block adapters and it was 3/8" thick. The bandsaw made quick work of getting it to a decent length, then I marked the new spouts and drilled them to 1/16" diameter. No matter how much I cut off, sometimes things are still too short. :smile: It is easier to start small and drill bigger if needed.

The next step was to make a trough for the lead to flow to each spout. It was probably the wrong type of mill, but I grabbed a 3/8" 90 degree v point drilling/slotting mill that I bought for a job. Instead of drilling all the way through and slotting, I just made a little v shaped channel. There was plenty of mist coolant and the feed speed was very slow. I don't even play a machinist on tv.

In the close up of the trough, you can see that the one spout is not centered in the V. I marked both spouts, clamped the part in the vice and drilled the first hole. When I moved the table to the second hole I was off by about 1/32nd so I bumped the table sideways. Mistake! I debated on just drilling where it landed and should have done that, because I left the part, changed to the mill and ran the trough. It probably won't make any difference, but it was a lesson learned for future work that may be visible.

My goal was to not have the screws protrude below the spout, so I used a decent size end mill, with a radius, to make pockets for the screws. That mill was sharp and the chips came out like it was aluminum. My dad and brother had bought a bunch of surplus mills by the pound and this was mixed in. It's too bad that place isn't still open, where they got them.

Drilling and tapping the 3/8" bottom of the pot was fun. I marked the bottom of the pot and then laid the spout on it and just touched the bottom with the same 3/16" drill I used for the through holes for the 10-32 screws. IIRC, a #21 drill was next, but I only drilled to 280 thousandths deep on one and 310 thousandths deep on the other. A standard tap was used to start the holes by hand, then I finished them with an old misc. tap that I ground the tip off, since I didn't have any blind hole taps. It doesn't seem like I got much further with the ground tap. A counter sink was used to clean the holes before tapping and to break the edges of the screw holes on the spout.

When one hole was tapped, I screwed the spout down and spotted the other hole with the 3/16 drill. It was a tight fit after it was tapped, so I opened the through hole with a 13/64ths bit and that gave me the wiggle room I needed.

The next challenge is getting the spout to seal to the pot base. The based warped to hell when I tig welded it. Yeah, 400 amps into tig welding a pipe to a 3/8" plate makes things move a bit. So, do I try to machine the pot flat or use something to seal a tiny gap?

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170328_181625873.jpg

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170328_181736152.jpg

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170328_181943423.jpg

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170328_201206197.jpg

[jmorris]

That should work. It needs to be fairly flat where they come together but it's not as important as having your valve. Some sand paper of a flat surface should get you there.

The lead is on its way out the holes once the valve opens.

[CGT80]

Tonight I decided to tackle the warped base.

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170330_193743952.jpg

To clamp the pot down, I welded a tab across from the valve mounting plate you see at the front.

A few light cuts gave me a relatively flat surface.

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170330_194052819.jpg

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170330_193924906.jpg

It isn't perfect, but I figured the same as above in that hopefully the lead will be more likely to flow out of the two spouts than any small gaps between the plates. The spout is not perfectly flat either. It is all put back together and ready to heat up to see what happens, and if the heat will effect the fit of the two parts.

[Tazza]

I don't think the lead will leak out the gaps if it's not perfect, lead is still quite thick, water may leak between the two plates, but lead won't.

Looks good, i bet you're itching to get it up and running

[CGT80]

Yes, I'm out of boolits for my 30-30 lever gun and need some 45 acp boolits as well, but I really don't want to change the cord ends on the PID back to 120v and run the lee pot. Also, I have two new NOE molds that haven't been used yet, and they are now 4 months old.

I should have just saved my 30-30 ammo. Last weekend I only got 18/40 for the Silhouette match. The new mold is a gas check version, so I can up the load a bit and see if that makes any difference.

[CGT80]

Tiny update:

This afternoon, I heated up the pot with 2" of liquid lead. The spout didn't leak at all. It dripped just a tiny tad after closing the valve, and left a little tinsel of hot lead hanging off the double spout. After 30 seconds, I could just wipe the drip off...........it was still melted and the spout was hot as a firecracker :awesome:

The flow was not great. It seems that opening the size of the hole that the valve sits in would be a good first step. That will allow more lead to the double spout with 1/16" holes. The extra flow/pressure might be enough, if not, I can drill the double spout bigger, by 64ths of an inch, until I get what I need.

It is still impressive how fast this pot melts lead and recovers when adding more ingots.

Next step is to mount the arm with the mold and get some rotational action going.

I had a thought at bright O thirty this morning, when I should have been sleeping. Why can't I use flat plate instead of round stock to guide and close the molds? Bearings should be easier to setup on flat plate and I can mount it just like the round stock so it can be adjusted. I can hand cut plate into an arc or cnc cut it. Heck, the skateboard bearings that the cnc plasma uses would work for this, and we use them in the vacuum motors which power the blow dryers that we repair for our animal grooming customers. They are ABEC 7 grade IIRC, and cheap.

[bullseye67]

Good evening,
I applaud your efforts......looks well thought out and should work well. When I start working on a long term project, I always like having a "carrot" to keep me going. Now running out of boolits....that's a mighty BIG CARROT!!!
Keep it up, piles of shiny boolits await you:drinks:

[jmorris]

Why can't I use flat plate instead of round stock to guide and close the molds?

You can use anything, even nothing if your spring closes the mold tight enough.

I imagine round was picked to reduce surface area where the two rub together, kind of like ice skates.

[CGT80]

This machine now has some rotational fortitude!

Yes, that is a Dillon 550b handle. It sucks compared to the roller aluminum handle, but it was in the scrap bin and was quick and easy to use. A 3/16" drill made a nice pilot hole and I chased it with a 9/16" twist bit, then cut it to length and welded the chunk of steel to the collar/coupler. For now, this allows easy disassembly since only the two set screws hold it tight. Down the road, I may machine some flats on the axle to keep the couplers from spinning and if necessary they will get welded together.
http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170402_211114157.jpg


In this photo, you can see the mold holder also attached to a coupler. I dropped both in the mill vice, with one just as a spacer for the left of the vice, and I made a slot in the other to accept the bar that the mold holder is attached to.

A fair amount of time was spent going back over the few tack welds that held this stuff together and creating some small beads to withstand use. It works well enough that I wanted to make it more permanent and get the shifting out of the way, that happens when tig welding this stuff. It took a little massaging with 4" grinder and a 60 grit flap wheel and then the 90 degree die grinder with a 3" brown surfacing disc to make the arms work smoothly inside the 1/4" plate sandwich.

The little pivot tubes are thin, so when I mashed the pedal on the middle notch of the amperage range, the 250 amps of juice left a few tits inside the tube. I hate dremel tools, but use the **** out of my old Cman straight die grinder and the old composite IR angle die grinder. An 1/8" arbor sanding drum, from a dremel kit, fit right in the straight grinder (with a reducer collet) and cleaned up the tits. The nylock nuts on the pivot bolts will get changed to prevailing torque nuts before I run the machine, if I don't forget.



http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170402_210807464.jpg



Did you notice the other little tid bits dangling under the mold holder?

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170402_211244814.jpg

The two 5/16x18 bolts were left over from something else and were in my add-a-bins. The bearings are 8mm ID and are 608-2rs 8x22x7 mm. I buy these 30-40 at a time, as they are all over the cnc plasma machine and they are the same size that many vacuum motors use, which we repair for customers. I didn't take any photos of drilling and tapping the holes. This time, I used the mill to drill, but tapped by hand in the bench vise.

A cereal box was the donor for the template for a cam plate. A ruler, square, marker, scissors, and a utility knife made easy work of the prototype. The high tech part comes later.

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170402_211021137.jpg


That 600 pound fabrication table, that I built, came in real handy. It is only 1/4" plate steel, but it was up to the task of clamping my cardboard template in a vertical position, so I could slide the casting machine around and actuate the arms. Rubber bands were a stand in for the springs and it actually opened and closed the arms.

Don't mind the ugly weld beads. The batteries are bad in my Miller Elite helmet and I was using the cheap miller AD helmet that came with my 211 (smaller view) and I just wanted to make some progress. The gap I was filling was probably 3 times my filler diameter (1/16" ER-70S6) and it was deep. The boolits won't care how the welds look, on the way to the target. [smilie=2:
http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170402_211033444.jpg

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170402_211133207.jpg

Some scrap plates, stacked against the front of the frame, acted as spacers to align the cardboard
with the bearings.

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170402_211058107.jpg

I'm pretty sure that Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal boxes are not military grade and they might turn to toast pretty quick with the amount of heat that 2500 watt element puts into the whole machine. It was time to get more serious.

1/4" plate seemed like a good material for a cam plate. It works on the Dillon 550b and I was able to make an upgraded plate for my Dillon, so it will run rifle brass through the pistol case feed mechanism. While I had some dirty ways to cut up 1/4" plate, in this garage, none of them were quick and all that precise. What really sucks is when you make a mistake and have to start all over again with whittling down that plate or get out one of the welders and put back what you needed.

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170402_210900557_HDR.jpg

It was time for the high tech approach. This was going to be some work, so that is why I started with cardboard. While I had a whole double, Costco, cereal box to use up, the first quick and dirty template seemed to do the trick.

CAD is a wonderful tool, but it isn't the easiest program to teach yourself just by doing. This little exercise made me feel old. I had to remember how to use the CAD program since it has been a handful of months since working with it. My drawing and writing skills..........well, they aren't. I wish I would have been able to take CAD in high school or college because it sure beats sketches on a notepad done with pen. There never seems to be enough room on the paper for all the details, then they run into each other and are hard to read. Eventually, it is time to make a new sketch. Just like my papers in HS and college, it is better to edit on the computer and just hit print again. It took two tries to get the dimensions and angles I wanted and I was thrilled with that.

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170402_211559494.jpg

The print was cut out and laid over the cardboard. It looks like it is close enough and it will look good from my rear-view mirror.

Since I mentioned it has been months since using the CAD program, you can probably guess it has been the same number of months since using the CNC Plasma Table. It dried up with plenty of plasma dust and drops in the water and needed to be cleaned out. The Santa Ana winds filled that shop with dirt, so the confuser, mouse, keyboard, everything, needed dusted off. When building that table, I thought about having to service it and the muscle it would take to do it. The water tray is light enough for two of us to move without killing ourselves as it is a full 5x10 sheet of 0.090 aluminum. The framework for the slats is aluminum as well and weighs maybe 50 pounds at most. I was able to remove all the steel slats and the remove the frame myself, to clean the table. After scraping and sweeping the trash into a dustpan, I vacuumed the tray and scraped the bottom of the framework.

It all went back together and I filled the 3 55 gallon drums with air to push the water that was left, into the tray. The garden hose was used to top off the tray. The computer worked and I was able to zero the table. The plasma had to be hung back up on the wall and the torch clamped into the machine, as I had been using it by hand for some other projects.

Next time around, I will remove the bottom part of the drawing (it was only used to figure out my angles and lengths) and get the cad file into sheetcam where it can write a file for Mach 3 (the machine software) and then it will be ready to cut the part. I didn't do any test cuts today, so hopefully it still gets the job done. The little Miller 375 extreme isn't suited so well to table use. A Hypertherm 65 is on my wish list, with both a machine torch and hand torch. Maybe I will get a video of the part being cut, although many people have probably already seen cnc plasma cutting on youtube at some point.

[Tazza]

Good to see you have made more progress, nice write up too. I wish i had that bench, would make setup easier than hands that always seem to get welding spatter on them while holding parts in place. That and magnetic clamps that never seem to be strong enough.

As for the welds you didn't like the look of, there is nothing wrong with them. Yet i do understand frustration when you know you can do better.

Keep up the good work and of course, PICTURES :)

[CGT80]

If pictures are good, does that make video even better?



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvgwsIINvO4&t=6s

Here are some photos of the CNC plasma machine. My dad ordered a bunch of parts for it, over a period of a couple years and I got tired of waiting for him to build it, so I took the lead and got done with his help.

It will easily hold an 4x8 foot sheet of material. The plasma cutter was a $300 craigslist deal that ended up needing $1300 worth of repairs (that is what they cost new) and I lucked out in only spending $200 on a new front end for the gun and the warranty was still good, to cover the rest. No more used electronic machines for me.
http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Welding%20Fabrication%20and%20Building/IMG_20170403_130403345.jpg


This is my old AMD 5200+ dual sli computer. It is running XP and is not connected to the internet. I bent the aluminum panel on a homemade DIY bender and then tig welded it and added the hinge and mounted all the electronic gear. The computer station was something I threw together in an attempt to take up as little space as possible.
http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Welding%20Fabrication%20and%20Building/IMG_20170403_130231351.jpg

Three drums allow compressed air to move the water up the 2" pvc line and into the water tray and have just enough usable volume to fill the table. The table should take 100 gallons or so, but you can't run the water level below the 2" outlets. To drain, just let the air out of the barrels and it all runs back down hill.

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Welding%20Fabrication%20and%20Building/IMG_20170403_130329225.jpg

Here is a shot of the pre filter, regulator for the drums, control valve for the drain, and the control valves for the exhaust on the barrels and the air into the barrels.
http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Welding%20Fabrication%20and%20Building/IMG_20170403_130308603.jpg

That round black thing is the secondary air filter for the plasma cutter, down to 0.01 micron filtration to remove water.
http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Welding%20Fabrication%20and%20Building/IMG_20170403_130321427.jpg

I still need to get figure out how to get artwork into sheetcam so I can cut more items. We have a business doing sharpening and equipment repair for the grooming industry and may be able to sell cnc cut items through the business. So far, I have only done two images of animals and the rest has been brackets for various other projects.

[CGT80]

Here is the cam plate for the casting machine:

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170403_130116155.jpg

This was some scrap that was given to me. The bottom side has a lot of slag and it is not easy to chip off.

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170403_130125765.jpg

The edge quality is better than some of the past cuts I have made in 1/4" material. It looks like I got my torch square in the holder. Since it isn't a machine torch, it is a bit difficult to get it so that it isn't angled in any one direction.

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170403_130151841.jpg

It took a bit of thinking to figure out brackets for this cam plate. I wanted to be able to adjust it a bit, in many directions. The urge to just weld it in place was strong. Right now, these plates just have 1/4" through holes, but I can slot them later to get some adjustment.

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170403_204915018.jpg

The brackets are just some 2" angle iron from the scrap pile.

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170403_204555002.jpg

The bearings don't engage the first part of the plate, but they hit evenly/at the same time. This picture is from when I was mocking up the plate to figure out how to make brackets. You can see the scraps acting as spacers.

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170403_133756647.jpg

The center arm bottoms out on the plate, before the bearings touch the arm. This will allow me to tap the arm to shake boolits free. The thought crossed my mind, to grind the plate to allow the bearings to make more contact with it. Bearings are cheap and this machine is just for personal use..........they should hold up fine.

The springs to actuate the arms are here, but you can't see them......
They are pushed up between the 1/4" front and back plates. This reduced the pressure needed to activate them and it allows the arms to open all the way. The compressed height of the springs is too much to allow full opening. For now, I will try it as is.

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170403_133737970.jpg



http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170403_204621774.jpg

Now that the machine has a stop for the downward motion, it needed a stop for the upward motion so the spout would line up. A little tab and a bolt did the trick.

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170403_204703332.jpg

My hardware collection is almost all national coarse thread, so I didn't get to use a fine thread bolt for more precision. This is 1/4"x20 tpi. I was going to tap that hole, but I couldn't get my little drill in there or a tap handle. Instead, I drilled at an angle with a 3/16" bit and then opened it up with an old step bit, at and angle, and finished it off with a 60 degree chamfer bit, which was short enough to get at with the drill vertical.

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170403_204744553.jpg


It is nice to see the project almost to a usable point. It could be used, but I would have to knock the sprue plate by hand. Next up is to figure out the sprue plate activation and decide if I need anything to push the mold halves closes. Gravity is a pain and it lets the halves droop a bit, so they have to be closed quickly to mate evenly. This mold is more temperamental than the 40 cal NOE brass. If needed, I can add a spot weld to the mold adapter so they can't droop as much.

Maybe next weekend, I will get it ready to run. This week, I have work, gun club meetings, and a catectomy to do on my friend's Harley exhaust header.

Thanks for viewing.

Keep your stick on the ice...........oh wait, I'm not that Youtuber!

[Tazza]

Yep a video is far better than pictures

I love the idea of the water in the drums being displaced with compressed air, so simple and a way to keep the table "dry" when not in use.

hehe shame you aren't THAT youtuber, he is quite entertaining. Love to have a chat with him, see if he is just like that in real life.

[jmorris]

This is my old AMD 5200+ dual sli computer. It is running XP and is not connected to the internet.

If you don't let them get "infected" it doesn't take much computing power to run a CNC plasma, mine is still running on the 286 I started with.

If I am just making a single part or even a few parts, a lot of times it's faster to just use my pantograph with a plastic template vs CAD and setup to CNC the part.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84eP_ws0aO0

[Tazza]

286? wow, that is an old setup. I never owned one, my first was an XT, then a 386, shows my age :(

Does your cad software run on DOS? I guess we are spoilt with modern day fancy GUI interfaces to design things.

[jmorris]

Does your cad software run on DOS?

Yes, it's old as heck the files are HPGL, torch on/off is pin up/down commands.

[DestructionDan]

Very nice. Wish I had room for something like that.

[CGT80]

BIG-little update

The other day, I added a lever to the spru plate for the 30 cal mold. I was trying to figure out where I wanted the pins to activate the plate but wasn't sure if the setup was even going to work right. The only way to find out is to fire it up and try it. The little plastic hammer I use for my hand molds was on the shelf waiting for a workout, so I dropped some ingots of range scrap in the pot and heated it up.

This was a brand new NOE brass mold and I had not cleaned it or heat cycled it. That is a bunch of work. Instead, I cleaned it with a qtip and brake cleaner and lubed it then hit it with a propane torch. It took a while to get it to run. After a number of tries, I used brake cleaner to get the excess oil out of the cavities and cranked the pot up to 850 degrees. Eventually, some decent boolits came out. This alloy likely needed some tin added to it but I didn't want to sweeten the pot until I knew it would run. Enlarging the primary spout by 1/32nd of an inch helped but the flow was just adequate with the valve adjustment raised up. There was only 2-3" of lead in the pot, so I won't drill the spout just yet. When I get it half full or so, the flow will increase. The arms for the mold carrier needed lube to move freely. The heat made them stick.

Below is what I have. The GC shanks are plenty big and are a bit of a pain to get the hornady copper checks on and even the aluminum checks from a person here. Hopefully it won't slow me down on sizing. The heater was not turned on for the RCBS LAM I, and it has Cred in it, so very little lube ended up on those two boolits.

Now, I can make a basket and figure out pins to work the spru plate. It was really nice not holding the mold in my hand and will be better when I don't have to work the spru plate. Automation is in it's future.


http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k484/CGT80/Shooting%20Reloading%20and%20Boolit%20Casting/IMG_20170412_214717875.jpg

[Tazza]

Those are some fine looking projectiles right there, well done!

Glad it's all coming together as you had hoped, and its producing some great projectiles.

[jmorris]

Been awhile, how is the progress going?

[CGT80]

Been awhile, how is the progress going?

Life has gotten in the way a bit. I have multiple positions in the gun club, including a board position, and there has been plenty of drama to deal with. The heat and my neck and back issues have slowed me down, on top of the usual obligations in life.

The boolits want to stick in the mold. I found an article on here that talked about using vinegar, peroxide, or both to patina a brass mold. I followed the directions and heat cycled it and it has a decent patina, but they still stick.

The thermocouple went bad on my pot, so I ordered a new 10" version from auberins and got that working last night. The temp was good. When the mold gets good and hot, it takes too long for the sprue to solidify. Moving the handle too early results in lead pouring down into my boolit tray. A fan may be in order to freeze it faster and keep the speed up so the mold stays hot. The bands fill out better when the brass molds are good and hot. The spring on my valve is too weak and I have to baby sit it. The valve doesn't seal perfectly. A catch tray for the drips would help.

Last night, I ran an aluminum cooking pan under the mold to catch the boolits and sprues, but I need to make proper baskets. The sprue plate moves a tad, when I tap the mold and then the arm is a bit beyond the pin that opened it, which then requires I bump it back. The weight on the sprue plate may need to be adjusted so it is more balanced when the mold is open.

Out of the last two tries, I got about a hundred usable but not great boolits. They should get me through the lever action match this month.

I didn't hear back from the guy who I was going to buy the automation setup from and I have not reached back out to him with the slow progress on the machine and with having other bills to pay.

I might pull the 30 cal mold and cast by hand and figure out why the boolits stick. When I do that, I could run the new 40 cal NOE mold and see if it drops well. There are still two rcbs molds to be adapted, but right now I really needed those Saeco 315 boolits more than anything.

It sucks that photobucket went to hell. Forums are the only social media I use and threads like this are now screwed up. Hopefully, I'll get some of these little issues mopped up with this machine and be able to rely on it.

[Tazza]

Glad you made a little progress, shame you still get projectiles sticking. I found an acetylene flame, no oxygen so it's nice and sooty on the mould halves seems to do a good job of making them non stick.

I'm with you with photobucket, they want like $500 usd to allow third party hosting, they can stick that somewhere unpleasant. I'll need to look for another free hosting site i think, little pic or tiny pic i thought was a site. I'll have to do some hunting, as i use other forums, and his has boned them too.

[CGT80]

Well, I managed to get enough 30 cal boolits out of the casting machine to do lever action a couple months ago and have enough ammo for this month. The night match last week ate up my supply of 40 cal pistol boolits, and I have a little more free time after leaving the board and committees at the gun club.

When tapping the machine to drop stuck boolits, the spru arm would move down and then not hit the pin and reset on the way up. I had to align it by hand and also tap the mold arms with a hammer. The valve leaked a lot at 800 degrees, which is what that NOE mold wanted to not stick so much and to fill out. The spring for the valve was not strong enough for the temporary handle on it and I needed some baskets to catch sprues and boolits.

A few scraps of steel and a spring out of the spring drawer gave the extra force needed. A scrap of flat stock, leftover from the CNC plasma slats (I have done a lot of projects with that machine) was welded onto the pin that opens the sprue. Now, instead of the sprue arm hitting the wrong side of the pin, it slides up the flat stock and back where it belongs, so that it can be positioned by the pin that sits next to the pour spout. It still opens the same as the flat is the same thickness as the pin.

The thermocouple went bad for my PID, so I ordered a 10" version and it is working well. Just a bit after the new year's sale at NOE, almost a year ago, I ordered a brass two cavity 40 160 RN PB 2 cavity mold. It was still a virgin, but it popped right in place of that troublesome NOE Saeco 315 copy (I need to figure out why that one worked great and then went to hell).

For baskets, I wanted something custom sized, sturdy, and ventilated so the boolits could cool. Left over from a small gate build, and living next to the tig welder, out of sight and mind, was a partial sheet of perforated steel screen like what is used on security doors. It measured out at 0.032" thick. There was enough to make the bottom and large sides from that and it was narrow enough at 16" to fit in my home made bender. The ends are solid 16 gauge cold roll sheet that I plasma cut to 4x6 inches. Well, it came out at 3.999 inches wide. They might not be exactly 90 degree corners and I need to verify that the CNC is squared. It is also faster to draw simple parts in cad and cnc cut them than it is to cut the sheet by hand with a plasma.

While I planned to do quick tack welds with the mig welder to make the baskets, since they just need to function, it turned into an evening of tig practice on thin material. Most of my work is on 16 gauge or heavier, so I needed the practice. The screen felt so thin and was such a pain to tack with mig, for that gate that I did quite a few years ago, that plan B was first on the list.

These baskets turned into a mini project and I posted it on Garage Journal. Over there, I can upload my pictures to their server since photobucket has gone to ****. By the way, I can see all of my own pictures on this thread, but I have loaded an addon to firefox that is supposed to fix the PB issue. After looking at all the hosting services, I never made up my mind on which to use.

Hopefully, linking to the other forum is Ok. Here is the project over there: https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=375673

Most of the pics of the casting pot, and a short video, are on my google drive at: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1AtpKFbCSzGdm6fmxsr7IouIXKLil1_v1?usp=sharing

Here is a short video I got of me running the pot after the new additions: https://youtu.be/c5AQGQn4qkk


https://youtu.be/c5AQGQn4qkk


Some people asked about the plasma machine, so here is a video of another part for a customer. The torch crashes at the end and I am working the bugs out of the machine, after upgrading to a hypertherm 65 and machine torch. The end plates for the baskets were cut with the same tip, which is a fine cut with a 0.026" curf. https://youtu.be/lpPjvbeJgwU


https://youtu.be/lpPjvbeJgwU



Here is the text copied from the other forum, if you don't want to follow the link above. This CastBoolit post wraps up below:

Around 17 years ago, I bought a tig welder and then took a class in community college. Since then, I have slowly improved. While I am not a welder by trade, I have done plenty of welding for hobby and work. This week, I went outside my comfort zone and worked on some small/thin material.

Last year, I started fabricating a bullet casting machine. There is a thread on Castboolits, but now there are no photos thanks to photobucket. There are some bugs to work out of it, but it is close to completion. Still to build were a couple baskets to catch the boolits and sprues. 98% of the machine was welded with Tig, including the 1/4" wall pipe joining the 3/8" base plate. Why? Because, I could and it was good practice.

Some left over screen from a gate build, quite a few years ago, was just begging to become boolit and sprue baskets. Steel sheet 0.056" (16 gauge) was cnc plasma cut for the ends (4x6 inches), the screen 0.026" (23 gauge) bent, and the parts tig welded together. At first, the plan was to do small tack welds with the mig welder just to hold the parts together. After working with the thin material, that seemed like a less than optimal idea. Tig welding could give more control and a nicer looking weld.


After playing around with amperage settings on the machine, switching to a 0.040" diameter tungsten with a nicely ground taper, changing the shade setting to 8.5 on my helmet, and replacing the smoke/splatter damaged lenses so I could actually see clearly through them, it all came together. Working with material less than a 16th inch thick is rare for me, but it was nice to have the chance to focus on a challenge, learn, and come out with something half decent looking.

It just happens that the fab squares (really triangles) for my tab and slot welding table are 4" wide. With two of the largest squares, one was clamped to the table and the other upside down and clamped to that, resulting in a 4" wide shelf about 18" above the table of which the basket parts would fit around and be clamped to. Raising the screen a 32nd of an inch above the end plate gave me some filler metal for the weld. Yes, it is a fusion weld with no filler added. In typical Garage Journal fashion, this went from a simple basket slapped together with a mig welder to something with fully tig welded seams. Go big or go home! The squares help soak up a little heat but were not overly hot and where the recessed joints are in the square, the inside of the basket still looked the same, so maybe the heat was not too much. The amperage was just high enough to get fusion and move at a slow pace but not snail like.

I should have used my newer glasses to see better and a cheater lens in my helmet might help, if I knew which value would work. This work is so small and close up good vision isn't even enough and great vision is almost a must. That tungsten got quite hot/red and should have been 1/16th or 3/32nds with a fine taper so that the full diameter portion wouldn't have heated up so badly. Lately, I have just used 1/8" and ground it to whatever diameter point was needed, but with the 0.040" and even 0.020" on hand, I tried it. The amperage range on my tig welder is 5-460 amps. The first notch, of three on the welder, is 5-60 but it was not hot enough with the pedal to the metal. Either it isn't putting out as much current as it should (no gauges) or I am just not used to working in the lower amperage range. Normally, I use the second notch which runs from 20-250 or so amps and much of the time I crank the dial up to 100% and just run the pedal where I need it for steel and aluminum 16ga on up. For aluminum, sometimes I'll get into the 3rd notch, but that kills a 50 amp breaker after a few minutes.

Last night's night match burned up most of my 40 cal ammo and I don't want to cast by hand, so it's time to give this 100 pound casting pot another try. If/when I get all the bugs worked out of the machine, it may become automated with PLCs and pneumatics. The goal is to set it to run and just babysit while powder coating the finished product.

Would you guys have done anything different to make baskets that can handle many pounds of 800 degree bullets being dropped into them?





To wrap it up:

The casting machine worked quite well this time. 660 degrees was good for pure mixed with ww and some tin, which was in the pot from casting 30 cal. Only a handful of boolits stuck in the mold and I didn't prep it from what I can remember......just pullet it out of the box and preheated with a propane torch, carefully. The valve leaked a bit, but was manageable at the lower temperature. The "ramp" for sprue lever was perfect. The machine needs a small variable speed fan to cool the sprues faster and a towel sort of worked to soften the blow as the boolits landed. They were getting dents in them, sometimes even after hitting the towel.

It seems like it is a good time to order up the parts to automate this thing. A few months back, I wasn't really happy with how the machine ran. With the 30 cal mold, I have not smoked it or used a release agent. Maybe I'll run the old lee pot with no pid just to play with the 30 cal mold to get it to drop boolits again. The other work that needs finished is making the adapters to use the rcbs steel molds. I have a 45 225rn and a 30 115sp to use with this machine. If it was automated, I could run 50-100 cycles at a time while fine tuning the machine. If the boolits weren't great, I wouldn't be out all of that cranking.

This run of 40 cal was much easier on the body than using the 5 cavity aluminum NOE mold (which I love) and the lee 20. The first part of the run got thrown back as I got the mold up to temp and got a rhythm going. The spouts did slow down and cause fill out issues. A small piece of wire fixed that and made a bigger difference than I was expecting. Then again, the whole purpose of this pot was to have full, consistent flow. Hopefully, it doesn't become a repeat issue on this one. Out of a two or three hours session, I had a small cool whip tub of acceptable boolits. They weren't all perfect but they will do the job and aren't any worse than the factory moly coated bullets I buy. They are all powder coated and ready to be sized in the lee upside down sizer. Pics are in the google drive.

It's been a while, but thanks for checking out the build. If you have issues with the links for the videos or photos, let me know. Is there a hosting site that is good for posting here when using a desktop computer?

[Tazza]

Fine job there, wish i could tig like that, i need to get a real tig first, i just have a torch, gas bottle and an inverter welder :)

How do you plan on automating it? timing relays or going computer/plc based? I do love my automated MC.

I like the idea of vairable speed fans, i use a pair of recycled 110v fans in series, so i can't alter the speed. If i used 12v dc ones, i could have lowered the voltage to slow them down some when needed.

I am still tinkering with building a bullet master style machine, i'm thinking of pinching your design idea of using a roller bearing for opening the mould instead of the factory bevel cut on the F looking mould holder. It will reduce drag and possibly handle impacts of the shaking action i hope to use by putting bumps on the steel that the roller bearing will run on as it turns. Keep up the fine work and keep us informed, there are always little things like drips or the pour orifices blocking a little, when you get the little things ironed out, it will be awesome, even better automated.

[CGT80]

For automation, the Hatch PLC touchscreen is the best option I have seen. Originally, I wanted to assemble my own and have him program the PLC, since it wouldn't be a difficult job to build, but with so many projects already going and the fact that Hatch has a very nicely built panel available, I decided to order a complete panel.

For the amount of shooting I do, running the machine by hand would be fine, but the consistency and reduced work of automating it is much better. If a batch of boolits isn't up to par, they can get dumped in and run again without wasting all the effort to crank the thing. It would be nice to sit there and size or PC them as the casting machine is running. Some shooting buddies want me to cast rifle boolits for them, but it will only happen if I don't have to crank the handle.

With an inverter TIG, you are ahead of me. Mine was built in 1965 and is transformer based and weighs a thousand pounds with the bottle and cooler, but has variable frequency for aluminum welding.......it varies based on the input power, so it's probably almost always dead on at 60 herts [smilie=l:

[Tazza]

Hatch's panel is well tested and refined, it can't be faulted, you won't regret it.

Mine is all run with an arduino uno with code that Kayak1 was kind enough to share with me. It made the build very cheap. The arduino is not an industrial computer, and is quite suspectiable to "noise" from electrical devices like a grinder or lathe can make it hang up. A true PLC is far more robust, but the arduino works for me.

I'd like an AC tig so i can weld Aluminium. I don't have a foot pedal, so i get a crater at the end of a weld too. I'd love a fancy ac/dc unit with all the adjustments to weld aluminium cleanly and have HF start, but for the amount i weld, the stick welder and MIG do all i need, just not as pretty.

Rifle projectiles will need that little bit of extra care to keep the quality, pistol don't seem to matter. Mine shoot better than i do.

Jmorris coats and sizes while his home made MC is running away. He uses Hi-Tek

[Hootmix]

Hey CGT80,,enjoy reading your thread,,very informative,,i do have a question,,i really like the solenoid on the pour lever,,"I wan't one on my MK2" instead of this air operated thing'y.Would it be possible to get a # & mfg. for the solenoid?

Thank's keep up the good work.

Later,,,,Hootmix.

[CGT80]

Hey CGT80,,enjoy reading your thread,,very informative,,i do have a question,,i really like the solenoid on the pour lever,,"I wan't one on my MK2" instead of this air operated thing'y.Would it be possible to get a # & mfg. for the solenoid?

Thank's keep up the good work.

Later,,,,Hootmix.

Thanks for checking it out!


Are you left or right handed?
What year were you born?
Where were you born?
What model number would you assign your right hand?
[smilie=l:


Maybe I forgot to mention it, but I was pulling the lever with my hand. The lever is right above the dillon 550 ball handle so my hand stays on the ball and I reach up and back a bit to pull it and let the lead out.

When I recorded the video, I wondered if anyone would think the lead pour was already automated.

It woudn't be hard to use a micro switch and actuator..........if you can figure out which one to use.......and set it up for manual crank and auto pour. It might be possible to make a linkage to mechanically trigger the valve when the mold is all the way back.

Hatch's plc will run an air valve and air cylinder for the lead pour.

Would the actuator for car door locks work? They are cheap and 12 volt, plus it seems they will push or pull until the lock mechanism stops, without damage to the actuator. I'm not sure what the life expectancy is.

Wish I could help more.

[Hootmix]

Hey CGT80,,thank's for the holler back my mistake,, "I,, thought I saw a solenoid in one of your neat video's" hang with it.


Later,,,,Hootmix.

[john.k]

Some 30 years ago I scrapped out the contents of a Tech College store before demolition,and included were a number of small training die casting machines using a small automatically clamped die block,and several old Herbert Reed Prentice small capacity pressure die casting machines using standard hydraulically clamped dies with cooling passages.In other words,exactly what you are building,with an out put of tons per hour.The mold blocks are a bit spendy,though.

[HATCH]

Would the actuator for car door locks work? They are cheap and 12 volt, plus it seems they will push or pull until the lock mechanism stops, without damage to the actuator. I'm not sure what the life expectancy is.


You would need between 20 and 30 lbs of force.
This is based on the size of the air cylinder that I use for lead pour and the air pressure that I have operated it on (70 PSI)
It may take less force.

If you google this -> Solenoid Shaved Door Pop Handle / Latch Popper Kit Hot Rod Rat Rod Complete 75lb
it will give you something I think might work for you.
Not sure if its a push or pull design and not sure of the throw.

[HATCH]

Looks like its a pull design.

[jmorris]

How did the bullets turn out from the video without anything holding the mold together except the spring below?

[CGT80]

How did the bullets turn out from the video without anything holding the mold together except the spring below?

Good!

Here is a run from earlier this year of an NOE Saeco 315 https://drive.google.com/open?id=1AX4CU0dTYlFY5AlPF8HrklaMVDcfjr3v

The run in the video was NOE 40 cal 160 rn https://drive.google.com/open?id=1k3wSS9fv5CYq5qlU3xYc96Zz7UyLrrbI

I don't have any shots of the naked boolits, in 40.

The bases were not filled out the best, on some, but that was due to the spout getting plugged slightly. After running a wire up into the spout, it poured at full speed again and the bases were good.

It is just two springs at the bottom of the mold arms, that hold it closed, but there is good tension. I don't think it takes a lot of force to keep them closed, but then again if you try to open the mold by hand, you can really feel the springs working.

[CGT80]

Here are a couple videos of the Hatch automation PLC/touchscreen running the casting machine. The first boolits weren't that great, but after a while, I got it to throw nice boolits. You will see that I mounted things a bit different than the master caster. Instead of trying to get a perfect seal on the valve, I added drip shields to the machine and a catch tray. Even with a perfect valve, there would be times when I would want to let the lead flow as I adjusted, and stuff can happen. If a major leak happened, the tray should contain it.

Instead of making adapters for RCBS molds, I opted to order NOE molds in 45 ca. H&G 68 and 9mm 124tc as they will swap right out and I plan to use a number of those boolits. The 45 270 SAA will continue to be cast by hand, for my big revolver, and I rarely shoot the M1 carbine, so those can be done by hand.

The machine turned out very nice and I did wonder if there would be any difficulties that would prevent it from working out. A year ago, or so, I wanted a master caster but thought just having a huge pot would be a step up. With only pictures and videos of other machines to go on, I knew building this could be quite a challenge.

The next little task will be to build a permanent counter weight with some 2x2 inch tube, likely filled with shot and a cap/plug so it can be adjusted if needed. The raw steel looks fine, but I'm not a fan of rust, so it will get a couple shades of high heat auto paint that I have sitting on the shelf. It will be stored in my loading room/utility room next to the garage, but I don't know if I will run it in that room. A box fan in the window provides lots of ventilation when I cast in there with the little pot, but I could run it on the steel cart that I will move it on, or just put it back on the welding table and use the swamp cooler across from the roll up door for ventilation. I don't plan to run it more than every few months or so. My style is to do a lot of casting or reloading at one time and not need to load that particular round for 6 months to a year.

The Hatch panel worked great. Sometimes the mold arm will bounce a couple times when it returns to the up position and it will trip the bullet counter more than once. It isn't worth going nuts trying to fix it, as I can just let the machine run while I'm standing next to it and stop as needed. For the first run, I sorted through bullets and made small changes to the flow on the cylinders and the timing on the touch screen. The temp on the pot has to be kept low enough to not have a lot of drips. A drip in an empty mold, half a second before lead pour, will create a wrinkled nose. It is set with a 1 second delay to let the mold stop moving before it pours.

When the other molds get here, I'll try them, and I haven't figured out that sticking 30 cal mold yet. The PID is wired for 240v and the TC stuck in 50 pounds of lead (half a pot), so I may order another PID for the Lee pot to leave with 120v ends and a 6" TC, instead of the 10" TC on the big pot.

Thanks for checking it out. Let me know if you have any questions.

https://youtu.be/KNymkXBbVPs

https://youtu.be/KNymkXBbVPs


https://youtu.be/FhpcDD839GY

https://youtu.be/FhpcDD839GY

[Tazza]

Looks good. I like the way it bounces when dropping projectiles, looks like it helps to make sure they drop from the mould. I wonder if you install a restrictor on the cylinder, you can get it to return without a bounce.

[CGT80]

There are flow control valves on the lead pour and both the up and down for the arm. With the flow turned down further for the up motion, it just acts too lazy. Lower the pressure and there isn't enough force and more pressure didn't seem to help anything. With more pressure, the flow has to be run even lower.

[Tazza]

How do you have the top limit set? I wonder if you put a stopper higher up, near the mould so there is less flexing from the top of the mould to the pivot point. That is what the bounce looks like to me at least.

The air cylinder i use is about 1.5" diameter, pretty short stroke, but it also attaches directly to the carrier that the mould is on. So there is basically no flexing of the metal to cause a bounce.

You have done an awesome job, from pictures to a working automatic machine, very nicely done! There is only a hand full of members on this site that i'm aware of that have this ability.

[CGT80]

How do you have the top limit set? I wonder if you put a stopper higher up, near the mould so there is less flexing from the top of the mould to the pivot point. That is what the bounce looks like to me at least.

The air cylinder i use is about 1.5" diameter, pretty short stroke, but it also attaches directly to the carrier that the mould is on. So there is basically no flexing of the metal to cause a bounce.

You have done an awesome job, from pictures to a working automatic machine, very nicely done! There is only a hand full of members on this site that i'm aware of that have this ability.

The top limit is set by the end of the travel of the cylinder. I didn't want the cylinder to tweak anything by pulling against everything between it and the stop, which is inside the frame rail. The stop is a 1/4" plate tab, just like for the micro switch, and it sets down on top of an allen screw and nut. Changing the height of the head of the screw will change the limit for backward movement. Of course the down travel stops abruptly when the arm hits the bottom of the cam plate that opens the mold.

The force on the up movement is very low. I will try extending the cylinder a tad so the frame stops it. Yes, I thought about a stop that would be more robust and less likely to get tweaked. Stopping the actual arm would make for a more positive stop and the forces are low enough that even on the down stroke, you can easily stop the machine by hand without the slightest of discomfort. Heck, that is a 3/4" cylinder at only 40 psi and the flow turned down to slow it. At 135 psi, it should make 54 pounds of force, which is hard to move by hand, directly on the cylinder. With such little force going up, a more direct stop should not tweak anything. Worst case, I will tack weld the chunks of steel that the handle and arm attach to.

Last night, I ran the NOE 453 200 swc HG 68 mold for the first time. It worked great.

Powder coating with screens vs. setting boolits upright on foil, looks like an improved process to get the speed up. The tedious hemostat work is hard on the hands and it takes forever.

The upside down cheapo lee press for sizing is a pain in the shoulder.

My solution:

2.5" bore cylinder with a 4" stroke, pneumatic.

Yep, the next project is a semi, or fully automated sizer for PC boolits. Amazon had the cylinder for $43 vs. $180 on McMastercarr. When it comes in, I'll play with it and see what size air lines, pressure and valves I need. IIRC, it has 12 times the force of a 3/4" cylinder. It will directly punch the boolits with no lever involved, if it goes to plan. It will need some sort of shuttle to get the boolits from a tube to the die. The MR bulletfeeder may just work to feed my 40 and 9mm boolits. 45 cal can be fed by hand into the tube for the low volume I use, since I don't have a conversion for that. The main thing is just to keep from pumping the handle.

Thanks for the great comments.

It has been a long project, that only got attention here and there, but I'm really happy with how it has turned out. The fancy mesh baskets may not be ideal, as placing an aluminum disposable baking pan on top of them actually kept the boolits from getting beat up by the basket or marred by the towels. That was one evening of welding practice, but I leaned a lot from it and when you make something without plans or prior experience with that type of work, it can be hit and miss. One of the 40 cal boolits always goes into the spru basket anyway. Sorting boolits from sprues is no big deal and gives me something to do while the machine runs. If it gets any easier, I'll just be calling up my contact and ordering bullets premade.

[Oldiron]

I'm finally getting back to my build. What size hole did you finally wind up with in the nozzle? Bob

[CGT80]

I don't recall what I ended up at, and I'm out of town right now. It started very small and I ended up going a bit bigger on the bottom of the pot and I think I went a tad bigger on the double pour spout as well. There has been an issue with the lead flowing slow from the bottom and I don't know if it was getting cool or if dirt got into it. It is easier to start small and go bigger than to find out it is too big. Of course the height of the lead column will change how fast it comes out of a given size hole.

[woodbutcher]

[smilie=s: Hi CGT80.Thanks for a great thread.Please keep us updated as you are able.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo

[HATCH]

how are the brass molds holding up?

[CGT80]

So far, the molds are holding up well, but I have only done a few runs.

In May, I started working for the same company as my brother and have been fairly busy and still do work every month for another company, as well as work for the family business when I'm available. Shooting and reloading have been very slow. Monday starts my 7th week on replacing 30,000 feet or so of barb wire fencing on a Navy base. I stay at my brother's place during the week and don't do much on the weekend since my body needs to recover. We probably have a few more weeks on this job.

Hopefully, I will have time to run that machine some more and get caught up on loading later this month. On the other hand, newer trucks are expensive and I am setting money aside to buy one.