CZShadow
04-24-2011, 10:13 PM
Well, after reading a lot this great forum, and having my pure lead, tin and antimony, I put hands to work. First I melted the lead and tin, around 5.5 pounds of total stuff. They both melted easily. Next step, antimony. As some of you guys said, the anti dissolved little by little, into the liquid lead-tin. Finally I got a few ingots of alloy 96-3-1 (just a little tin, which is really expensive).
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/183244db458d7d4001.jpg
I used candle wax for fluxing (when mixing the pure metals), and after I got the final alloy, some rice husk that I use for tumbling (which by the way, works pretty good). When scaling the final ingots, I noticed I had lost around 72 gr of stuff, that I guess is the dust and scrap I cannot use; well, 3% loss is not really bad.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/183244db458d876f6d.jpg
Then, I got 2 of my brand new molds, both Lee, a TL 401-175-SWC and a TL452-230-2R. I'm not using a melter, just a pot in the kitchen when the wife watches her soap-opera, and a Lee laddle. At first it was frustrating, since the melt got solid on the sprue plate and not into the mold, making incomplete and ugly boolits, I guess the sprue plate was not hot enough. But after a while, things got better. I started to drop complete boolits into the quenching water pot, nice!!
Finally, after making some 100 boolits, I stopped and poured the rest of the alloy into molds. I took the boolits out of the water pot, and... well, I'm not very happy.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/183244db458d9008d3.jpg
These are 3 of the best .45 boolits of the batch, I consider usable, only 14 out of fifty something units:
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/183244db4594f9708e.jpg
An these 3 the best of the .40 boolits; usable for me, only 6.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/183244db459502022f.jpg
Most of the .45 boolits look like this:
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/183244db4d88c63c97.jpg
And most of the .40 boolits look like this:
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/183244db459d91bc90.jpg
I even got a couple of this, but I know I didn't close the mold properly:
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/183244db459d99de76.jpg
Any ideas please? Temperature? Bad pouring? Not hot enough mold? I know it takes a while to master the laddle, so I'm thinking of getting a BP melter to ease the process, but any input will be really appreciated.
Regards,
Rod.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/183244db458d7d4001.jpg
I used candle wax for fluxing (when mixing the pure metals), and after I got the final alloy, some rice husk that I use for tumbling (which by the way, works pretty good). When scaling the final ingots, I noticed I had lost around 72 gr of stuff, that I guess is the dust and scrap I cannot use; well, 3% loss is not really bad.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/183244db458d876f6d.jpg
Then, I got 2 of my brand new molds, both Lee, a TL 401-175-SWC and a TL452-230-2R. I'm not using a melter, just a pot in the kitchen when the wife watches her soap-opera, and a Lee laddle. At first it was frustrating, since the melt got solid on the sprue plate and not into the mold, making incomplete and ugly boolits, I guess the sprue plate was not hot enough. But after a while, things got better. I started to drop complete boolits into the quenching water pot, nice!!
Finally, after making some 100 boolits, I stopped and poured the rest of the alloy into molds. I took the boolits out of the water pot, and... well, I'm not very happy.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/183244db458d9008d3.jpg
These are 3 of the best .45 boolits of the batch, I consider usable, only 14 out of fifty something units:
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/183244db4594f9708e.jpg
An these 3 the best of the .40 boolits; usable for me, only 6.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/183244db459502022f.jpg
Most of the .45 boolits look like this:
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/183244db4d88c63c97.jpg
And most of the .40 boolits look like this:
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/183244db459d91bc90.jpg
I even got a couple of this, but I know I didn't close the mold properly:
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/183244db459d99de76.jpg
Any ideas please? Temperature? Bad pouring? Not hot enough mold? I know it takes a while to master the laddle, so I'm thinking of getting a BP melter to ease the process, but any input will be really appreciated.
Regards,
Rod.