I was given some old Lyman / Ideal bullet molds by my granddad in a bunch of other reloading stuff (including thousands of 12ga wads and shotshell primers [8D][8D]) and thought these molds might be beyond saving. I called Lyman about them to see if they could refurbish the molds. As expected, they said they couldn't do anything due to the age of the molds. After a little googling, my google-fu turned up a few old posts on this forum saying that EvapoRust is the way to go, so for $11 shipped from Amazon I figured it was worth a shot. Here's what happened:
Here's what the molds looked like before I did anything to them:
Wadcutter mold:
Double cavity round ball mold and handles:
Single cavity round ball mold:
This is the EvapoRust, seems to be a totally "green" product. At this point I'm skeptical based on how gentle it seems. But then again, I'm not looking to etch the molds, just remove the rust.
I disassembled the molds and placed them in a tupperware container that I planned to throw out anyway. I poured in enough EvapoRust to cover the molds completely and placed the mold handles in so that the metal parts were submerged but the wood was not. I didn't take a picture of this, it's pretty self explanatory. I soaked the parts overnight, then gave them a scrub with a brass brush. The 89 cent version from Harbor Freight.
The molds looked surprisingly good, but the EvapoRust had turned a very dark and muddle brown/black. I thought I might as well give them another soak so I poured the used Evaporust down the drain, according to the packaging instructions, and let the parts soak overnight again in fresh EvapoRust.
Another once over with the brass brush and these molds look infinitely better than how they started off. There is slight pitting on the outside but the cavities look great, and I can actually read the stampings on the molds. I might have to get a black powder revolver now
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Originally Posted by gwpercle
