First post, thank you! Really!

[Ugluk]

I'd just like to express my gratitude to all you wonderfully helpful people here.
Being a newbie handloader and caster this forum has enabled me to not only get a few lumps of lead more often than not to the right shape, but also enjoy learning the process and all the stuff around it.
In weeks I've found answers and ideas here that would have taken me years to discover by myself or pry out of local shooters.

I started out small during spring this year with a few dual lee molds, a camping stove and a small stainless pot ladling with a soup ladle. So far I've only cast for the s&w 38special I shoot in local competition, but no doubt will the future bring more molds and calibers.
Thanks to threads on this forum I've put together a large capacity bottom-pour (so far drip free!) with a PID for little more than pocketchange, since it's mostly made from threaded rod and scrap.
I can really recommend the PID-setup from Auber, they shipped quickly and inexpensively and it works wonderfully for a beginner.
It let's you concentrate on the casting removing the lead temp as a variable, and you can get a reference value with just a glance. Wonderful!
http://i555.photobucket.com/albums/jj468/Ugluk/th_DSC00686.jpg (http://s555.photobucket.com/albums/jj468/Ugluk/?action=view&current=DSC00686.jpg)
It takes almost an hour for it to get up to 700f, drawing just 700w, but once there I can cast for hours as I usually have 40lb or so of lead in there.

Just thought I'd step out from the corner I've been eavesdropping from and say hi..

Please excuse spelling mistakes and such, I'm Swedish.
Cheers

[oltimer2]

Nice job on the pot, it looks like a first class set-up. DAN

[45nut]

Great Start and NICE job on the bottom pour!

[Vly]

Very nice job with the bottom pour pot! And your English is better than many people I know.

The addiction is spreading to all corners of the globe. :) Actually, we already have a Dane, a Finn, and at least another Swede or two. Now we need a Norwegian guy.

[462]

Yep, you have a better handle on the language than many Americans. Ain't that right, y'all?

The pot will serve you well.

Enjoy your new hobby. It will only become more obsessive and expensive.

[Firebricker]

Spelling I'd be happy if the southwest swim team would attempt to speak it.
That is a first class bottom pour !!! FB

[Bill*]

Vera Vera Niiiiiiiiice
apologies to Monty Python

[Buckshot]

............Ugluk, thanks for coming in out of the dark! Your command of English is breathtaking :-) I understand it's supposed to be a rather difficult one to learn. Most of the kids I see speak as if they're from some other planet.

I think Ugluk makes the 3rd Swede, and we DO have a Norwegian, but he hasn't been seen in awile. A couple Finn's, a South African, a Dane and a couple Dutch guys, a couple Germans, a couple Franc's and an Englishman living in France, and heck we even have a Scot as a moderator. We did have an Irishman post once too. I know we had a Russian asking about powder once. Canadians and Australians are as common as dirt around here :-) and a few New Zealanders too. Oh yeah and Mihec from Slovenia.

The more the merrier. Besides, I may want to take a fancy vacation out of the country one of these days, and it'd sure be nice to have a board member to drop in on and mooch off of for a bit :groner:

.................Buckshot

[Ugluk]

............Ugluk, thanks for coming in out of the dark! Your command of English is breathtaking :-) I understand it's supposed to be a rather difficult one to learn. Most of the kids I see speak as if they're from some other planet.

I think Ugluk makes the 3rd Swede, and we DO have a Norwegian, but he hasn't been seen in awile. A couple Finn's, a South African, a Dane and a couple Dutch guys, a couple Germans, a couple Franc's and an Englishman living in France, and heck we even have a Scot as a moderator. We did have an Irishman post once too. I know we had a Russian asking about powder once. Canadians and Australians are as common as dirt around here :-) and a few New Zealanders too. Oh yeah and Mihec from Slovenia.

The more the merrier. Besides, I may want to take a fancy vacation out of the country one of these days, and it'd sure be nice to have a board member to drop in on and mooch off of for a bit :groner:

.................Buckshot

Mi casa su casa..
Don't bring too many friends though, as it's rather cramped already in my little house. I'd offer food and somewhere to spend a night, but expect to be woken early by three little ones jumping up and down on your stomach..
And I'd certainly pour you a few 12yr scottish malts sitting talking on the patio..

[725]

Ugluk,
You're going to fit in just fine around here.

[sav300]

Ugluk.hi and welcome from down under.

[runfiverun]

on another forum i speak with an italian and a couple of south african's about casting also.
and at least one from mexico.

[Dframe]

Welcome. I'm sure I'm not alone in wanting to see more of your ingenious bottom pour set up. Always Glad to learn more about handloading in other countries.

[Echo]

Welcome, Ugluk - hope to visit one day. And mi casa su casa, also.

[Ugluk]

Thanks all for your welcome. I think I made a lingustical error in my second post. The offer for visitors is open, the "I'd"s should have been "I'll"s.. I think.. Consider yourselves invited anyway.

The pot now..

It's a 3 litre stainless steel cooking pot from a fleamarket, fitted to a top plate with a cirkular cutout. The heating element is fitted to a reflecting stainless steel plate beneath the inner pot. A section of 10" tubing cut from an old watertank serves as the outer shell. A thin layer of insulation, rockwool (the standard non heat resistant sort) fill the space between pot and the outer wall, and there's also a sheet under the reflecting plate.
The lid came with the pot and has a cutout for the spout needle.
The spout is a M12*75 bolt with a 3mm hole drilled through, countersunk in the bolthead where the needle goes, and just fitted to a hole in the bottom of the pot. The needle is a piece of round 10mm tool steel gound to a taper point and lapped to fit the bolthead.

The spout protrudes throug a drille hole in the bottom plate to wich the outer cylindrical shell is tacked with a minimig. The bottom plate as well as the top plate is 4mm steel.
Four pieces of threaded rod with nuts hold the thing together and act as legs.

The biggest issue was finding heating elements. I havent been able to locate any new ones, so I decided to try the coil from an ancient tabletop grill rated at 600w 220V. It's been a few years since sweden had just 220V, nowadays it's 240/400V, so I figure my pot use something like 700W of power and the donor grill had to have been made in the sixties or so, judging by appearance and the odd connectors on it.
When it burns out I'll probably have to buy 40metres of Kantal wire and make coils and set them in som kind of ceramic insulation cast. Hope it's going to last a long time..

The spout needle is of course weighted to properly close, and also fitted with springs to assist the linkage. A wooden knob remains to be made for the handle, and an adjustable stop screw limiting needle movement. If I pull the handle too enthusiastically it tends to splatter a bit as 40lb of lead pushes fairly hard..

During my first attempts I had no temp control whatsoever, regulating only by returning the sprues to the pot. The addition of the PID with a thermocouple in the lead half an inch from the spout needle really was the business. Great stuff.

Now I have full control over the casting and have by a little experimentation managed to lower rejection rate on my Lee 6-banger 105gr swc mold from a troubling 2/3 to a mere 10-15 of 300. It takes me about an hour to put 300 boolits on the sixbanger, but then I rest it on the hotplate for half a minute between every few pours as the little wadcutters don't seem to be able to heat the bottom of the mold nearly as well as the top and sprue plate.
I prefer my slow method to the speedpour with cooling, as I'm not so experienced yet and want to keep track of what I'm doing..
The logical next step is of course to get ANOTHER six hole mold and rotate.. That 356TC looks nice..
Damn! It's like riding a train..

If something is unclear about the pot, let me know and I'll try to take pics and elaborate.
Cheers