NOE and Lee Sprue opening jigs

[Rick Hodges]

I'm a gloved hand type.

[Oklahoma Rebel]

could someone take a pic of exactly how you hold the mold when you open it with a gloved hand? do you mean you hit the sprueplate with your palm, or grasp the mold block and push the plate with your thumb? I must sound dumb, but I cant really figure out exactly how you do it, using your palm to hit it doesn't sound fun at all

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

I don't 'grasp' the blocks...I just have my thumb on the sprue plate extension and my index finger on the other side of the blocks and slide the plate open by moving my thumb toward my finger.

[Walter Laich]

On my NOE mold I stole the handle from a Lee 6-gang sprue plate. Works fine

[Grmps]

NOE Sprue-opening-jig major upgrade all wood easy to make, can't mar the mold
I cut a groove in the base to
adjust the base length for your mold size.
next modification will be a piece of slotted angle iron attached to the bottom of the wood base so I can easily adjust depth according to mold size

[Walter Laich]

all these are great ideas.

Going to have to fab some and see what works best for me

[Oklahoma Rebel]

nice work!

[Grmps]

Easy modification for RCBS molds

[Grmps]

Modification for Lee 2 cavity molds, add a 1/2" piece of wood and cut a notch out where the sprue plate stop is.









seems I never get past the prototype stage , the prototypes work so why make another one?

[OS OK]

Yeah Grmps...those pesky sprue plates really take up your time, 'opening & closing' all that hammering. I just quit using the sprue plate all together.



It does make the cast a wee bit harder to seat though . . .

[Mac118]

Very intriguing. I like the jig idea and design using wood instead of the bolts. My hands are a little arthritic and tried the gloved hand but I found after a while my knuckles got a little sore. I think I'll make one of these for my NOE schuetzen stop-ring bullet mold. Thanks for posting the info.

[robg]

Must try that ,my hands are giving me grief if I cast too long these days .

[Grmps]

As they say, necessity is the mother of invention.
the jig is angled down and angled toward me to limit the amount of motion required to use it.

I also use the Garland 11001 Rawhide Mallet, Size-1 4 ounces

[KenH]

OK Grmps, that's getting just a bit too high tech for opening a sprue plate! (GOOD IDEA! I just might try that rather than the old wooden stick I've used for 40 yrs.

NOE Sprue-opening-jig major upgrade all wood easy to make, can't mar the mold
I cut a groove in the base to
adjust the base length for your mold size.
next modification will be a piece of slotted angle iron attached to the bottom of the wood base so I can easily adjust depth according to mold size