Hot plates WORK!!!! Had the best night casting

[kungfustyle]

So I bought a hot plate for my shot maker and decided to try it tonight to preheat my molds while the lead melted. Get ready to cast once the lead was up to 750 and low and behold second cast from my Lyman 4 cav mold and I had two keepers. Next cast, I had four keepers. I was up and running in two casts. Wow! I'll be using it from now on. What a great way to start off.

[Walks]

Welcome to one of those little tricks, that makes casting easier.
You also put the molds on the hot- plate to keep your molds hot. When you refill your casting pot and wait for the fresh lead to come up to temp.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

+1 on the Hotplate...the first time I used one, I knew I would always have a hotplate within arms reach of the casting pot.

Also, much like Walks said, it's handy to place a mold mid-session. I have had a couple troublesome 22 cal molds that were difficult to cast fast enough to keep hot enough, so I've found that I could cast 6 or 8 dumps, place the mold back on the hotplate for a couple minutes to bring it back up to temp, them cast another 6 or 8 dumps...and repeat

[lightman]

Yeah, they do work well. You can also preheat the lead that you add to the pot. In the past I put my mold on the cast iron lip of my old Lyman pot and accomplished the same thing. The stainless liner of my Promelt does not heat a mold as well.

[hc18flyer]

I found a sandwich size electric skillet at Goodwill for $3. I hacksawed a slot for the mold handle, works perfectly for warming up my molds. Go's up to 400 degrees.

[mold maker]

I cut one side out of a 4 11/16", deep electrical box w/ cover to make an oven for smaller molds with a preheater for lead ingots on top of a hot plate. The same can be done with a cut off #10 food can and an old saw blade to avoid hot spots. It drastically reduces rejects right from the start.
I wouldn't try to cast without either.

[LenH]

If you us your hot plate to preheat your ingots, I would suggest putting a $ store cake pan on the hot plate and put your ingots in the pan. Why you asked? I tried that
with mine and found a blob alloy on top of my bench. I had it turned up too high.

[OS OK]

You can get a thermometer for the BBQ at the local hardware box store for about $7....that'll tell you where the mould oven is. It is always up to casting temp. just as soon as the pot is ready.

[Buckdane]

Buy a cheap skil saw blade and lay on the electric hotplate burner. Even heat to sit the mould on. Build a little brace out of scrap wood to help hold the handle up on smaller molds. Works great and cheap.

[Smoke4320]

yes hotplates make your molds cast good bullets much quicker and if placed back on the hotplate while unplugging spout, refilling pot ect allows you to just pick back up casting good bullets almost immediately

[RogerDat]

The solid cast metal top hot plates avoid the need for saw blade. The can furnace idea worked well for me. I feel like the mold is more evenly heated. Will have to drill the holes in it for the hollow base pin of a couple molds and the thermometer too. That is a nice innovation.

I have a thermometer that came with my propane fish fryer burner for smelting. Doesn't go high enough for lead but for mold it should be good. I use it for the PC toaster oven to mark the dial with correct temperature for baking my PC bullets. I have gotten mold too hot to use until it cooled down a bit on the hot plate. Thermometer would allow me to dial that in to "best" spot for the burner.

BTW - the newer solid metal top hot plates run about $20 and are not ideal of melting lead, good for mold heaters but not so good for melting lead. They cycle too much. The older style spiral ring hot plates stay on at amount of power the dial (resistance) is set at. I think they do a better job on small batches of lead alloy making or melting small batches of scrap solder etc. Where the newer once go hot then cool, hot then cool, repeat. And the lead can cool too much for a good ingot pour at the cold part of that cycle.

[Mike W1]

Hotplate idea is one of the best tips I picked up on this forum. Right along side of PID units. Everything I use heatwise is PID controlled. One thing I learned with the assortment of TC's types of them is, UNLESS you're casting in a breeze there's really no advantage to having a "hut" on the hotplate. I've measured the temps on the molds and they get hot and stay hot just as well without them. I even insulated the "hut" I built. They're getting the heat from the bottom anyhow. My hotplate has the covered coils and I use a 1/4" aluminum disk on top and it measures uniformly across it's surface. I do use an adjustable rig to ensure the mold sits flat which I feel helps to transfer heat better but I've never measured things to check that out. Just seems reasonable to assume. Pictured a couple of the things I've used or tried.

[jsizemore]

I've got a digital meat thermometer from Wally World. It's got a thermocouple probe that fits through most of my mold's sprue holes. The probe wire is silicone insulated so you won't burn through it. The temp reading doesn't go high enough to use in your lead pot. Set your target temp and the alarm will let you know. I had to tweek the hotplate burner to get my new to me H&G 10 cavity 115 grain to 375degF. That's a small amount of lead trying to heat a big piece of iron. 2nd cast got mostly keepers and by the 6th it was casting right on all cavities. I doubt I would have gotten any keepers after half an hour trying to use pouring lead only to heat the mold. Next time I'll try 400degF with the monster.

[kevin c]

I use MP's aluminum eight cavity molds, which I find can use up a fair amount of the lead in my 18 # pot to get up to temp, especially aggravating when the cool down was due to the pause to refill the pot. The hot plate fixed that. It even helps with the shorter pause that I now have in used a feeder pot. My main problem now is getting enough amperage to may casting area (three elements cycling on at the same time trips the breaker).

[ghh3rd]

Do you usually keep the hot plate turned all of the way up when heating your molds?

[ben lurkin]

They are indeed great for heating your molds. I also place my ingots on there as well to preheat. No point in all that energy going to waste. In my 20# pot I just slowly add an ingot as the melt draws down and rotate cold ingots onto the hot plate. If you keep the pot full, you can cast almost continuously as long as you want.

[RP]

I use the PID in my pot and my hot plate just flip the switchs and when I come back everything is ready to go. Another of the great things I found on this site to help relieve me of my money.

[kungfustyle]

Do you usually keep the hot plate turned all of the way up when heating your molds?

No, I had it turned up to about half way seemed a good place to start. I kept checking it with my laser thermometer, the plate was about 500.
I'll have to try the ingot trick next time good idea.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Do you usually keep the hot plate turned all of the way up when heating your molds?

My older 1500W unit is adjustable from low-mid-hi
I have the knob adjusted half-way between low and mid.
If it is set any hotter, when I start casting, the mold is clearly over heated and takes some time to cool off.

I should add, that I use a modified coffeecan (for an oven effect) over the mold to hold in the heat.

[kungfustyle]

My older 1500W unit is adjustable from low-mid-hi
I have the knob adjusted half-way between low and mid.
If it is set any hotter, when I start casting, the mold is clearly over heated and takes some time to cool off.

I should add, that I use a modified coffeecan (for an oven effect) over the mold to hold in the heat.

I am going to have to use this idea.