Six Nozzle melter for Lee moulds

[414gates]

I'm jumping the gun a bit, it's not 100% working yet, but it's very exciting to be at 98%.

I made a melter with six nozzles to use with the Lee six cavity moulds.

The test pour showed that the front section of the box overhanging the burner frame was much cooler than the melt, so the lead coming through the nozzles was getting rapidly cooled, which made the flow intermittent. I got five out of six nozzles pouring, then things got a bit too cool.

I'm now modifying the melter around the nozzles to have burner gas flow around the nozzles, and under the section of the box overhanging the frame.

Picture slideshow format, will auto-play.

6 nozzle melter for Lee 6-cavity moulds

[VHoward]

Cool!

[Loudenboomer]

I like your thinking Gates. . Even flow and heat may bugger things the first stab or 2. Don't give up!

[NoAngel]

If you had an extra pair of hands and three or four of the same mold you could really boogie!
Rig you up a lazy susan to set molds on. One of you fill, one of you cut and dump.

[farmerjim]

For production I use 2 lee 6 cavity so one is cooling while one is filling. With a 6 nozzle I could go to 3 or 4 .
Looks great.

[Chill Wills]

Wow! You have clearly done some thinking about this. I will be watching to see how this turns out. "A" for effort and thinking.

[Bzcraig]

A very ambitious project!

[Walter Laich]

love the hinged 'doors' for the top cover...got me to thinking....

[OS OK]

Are you going to face the nozzles sideways so they are all visible at the same time?

I couldn't figure how you were gating the Pb into the spout manifold...they all start and stop at the same time right?

Was the material you put in-between the steel an insulator?

Looks pretty cool...

[414gates]

Are you going to face the nozzles sideways so they are all visible at the same time?

Nozzles all face down.

I couldn't figure how you were gating the Pb into the spout manifold...they all start and stop at the same time right?

Nozzle manifold is for gas to circulate from the burner around the nozzles, and heat the underside of the box around the nozzles.

I had originally blocked the gas off from reaching the front, which left about 1.5 inches of underside being cooled by the air.

Lead comes from screw valve, into nozzle base plate, runs in the channel out the nozzles.

The first pour through the nozzles comes out nearest the valve first, but after that they all run at the same time.

Was the material you put in-between the steel an insulator?.

It's a refractory cement, it's not strictly an insulator, it just slows the rate of heat loss through the steel.

[414gates]

Re-tested with the gas baffle around the nozzles, and there was a great improvement maintaining the melt temperature. But not as smooth as it could be yet.

This picture is the crux of the whole thing.

Lead drops in from the screw valve over the nozzle marked "1".

It then flows left and right in the channel, to nozzles at positions 2, 3 and 4. This needs to be changed slightly.

The channel ending at "4" needs to be widened between "1" and "2", because there is not enough volume flowing to supply the nozzle at "4"with enough lead.

At the moment the nozzles are 1.2mm diameter. They will be replaced with 1.0mm nozzles, to try reduce the outflow and increase the back pressure, to get the lead to flow evenly out to the nozzle marked "4".

[OS OK]

Nozzles all face down.

I know...I meant that they would all be perpendicular to you so that the mould would be held sideways to how you normally pour going inline and straight forward. You can see all six nozzles pouring at the same time?

With this much of a time savings, filling all the cavities simultaneously...you prolly can run 3 or more 6 bangers at once huh?

That's an ingenious way to feed all the nozzles when the volume thing is fixed...before I saw the pictures, I was wondering how you would create 6 valves that all adjust independently and operate at the same time.

Will this pot be dedicated to 6 ganger moulds only or have you a way to run a 4 or 5 gang mould?

I'm amazed at all the inventions that come out of this forum.

[Beagle333]

Very interesting project. Thanks for sharing! Watching as it progresses......

[williamwaco]

I am in Awe of your skills and imagination.

Way to go!

[414gates]

Nozzles all face down. I know...I meant that they would all be perpendicular to you so that the mould would be held sideways to how you normally pour going inline and straight forward. You can see all six nozzles pouring at the same time?

Yes.

Nozzles all face down. I was wondering how you would create 6 valves that all adjust independently and operate at the same time.

It's possible to have six nozzles, each adjustable, but the level of precision that I'm capable of with hand tools is not sufficient for the job. With the correct degree of precision, I believe it is possible, and I tried six nozzles at first.












[not sure why this last pic shows upside down, if you right-click view image in the browser it's right side up ]

The alignment wasn't true enough, so it wasn't possible to get a proper seal on all six nozzles. I'm sure that someone with the proper tooling and skill could do this quite easily.

Nozzles all face down. Will this pot be dedicated to 6 ganger moulds only or have you a way to run a 4 or 5 gang mould?

This is made for the Lee 6 cavity moulds. It is possible to replace a nozzle with a 6mm bolt, so if you want to run Lee 2-cavity moulds, just replace 4 nozzles. To use with other brand moulds would depend on what the cavity spacing is, Lee is on 15mm centers.

[OS OK]

I like that idea of the six nozzle setup....you could spring load each bolt and I'll bet they'd all seal. You'd need some weight in the apparatus but it looks to already have it with that heavy bar mount.
You might be limited with your hand tools but I see some pretty nice welding there in those seams.

Thanks for sharing your project with us.

charlie

A round stock bar within a close fitting pipe sleeve could be drilled to resemble a 6 gang ball valve above those nozels...you'd have flow control by the amount that you opened it and each nozel would have the same pressure on them...I like riddles like this, figuring out things that haven't been done before...great job.

[Wreck-n-Crew]

Mayne its me but are the holes in the nozzles real small? Hard to tell with these older eyes.

[414gates]

Mayne its me but are the holes in the nozzles real small? Hard to tell with these older eyes.

1.2mm diameter is roughly 0.05 inches .

[414gates]

..you could spring load each bolt and I'll bet they'd all seal.

Great idea. High carbon springs operate at a maximum temperature of 1/3rd the melting point of lead, beyond which they lose their springiness.

It'll need springs rated for operation at 600 degrees C / 1100 degrees F.

You'd need some weight in the apparatus but it looks to already have it with that heavy bar mount.

The bar is in the molten lead, and steel floats, so the bigger that bar the more weight it needs outside the melt on the arm to hold it down, or it'll try float.

[RogerDat]

Maybe a finer thread on the nozzle valves would make that 6 valve setup work. But I think your groove passage approach should work just as well once you get the flow for heat ratio worked out. And simpler (one valve) is better than more complex 6 valve for reliability I would think.

Loved the pictures, waaay better than the pictures in Ikea manual!