MikeS
05-14-2011, 11:01 AM
Hi All.
Up until now I've been casting using a ladle, and a Lyman 10# Big Dipper pot. After casting some boolits from a 4 cavity mould I decided that I needed something bigger than 10# to keep up with mould, and also decided to try a bottom pour pot. I bought a Lee 4-20 pot from Midway. Once I got it, I mixed up some Lyman #2 alloy, and decided that being that the pot was a Lee, I would cast my first boolits with it using a Lee mould.
I put the mould, a 452-230-2R (one of the first moulds I had bought) on my hotplate, turned on the pot, and sat down waiting for the lead to melt. Usually with my Lyman pot it takes about a half an hour for the lead to be all melted, ready to be fluxed, but with the new Lee pot, it was ready to go in about 15 minutes! This really surprised me, as the Lyman pot uses an 850 watt heater to heat 10# but the Lee only has a 700 watt heater to melt 20#. I'm not sure if this is just because the Lee pot is brand new, and the Lyman is a few months old, or if the crud that has accumulated on the Lyman pot (I stupidly did some smelting in it a while back) is acting like an insulator, or what?
Once I was ready to cast, I couldn't believe how well the mould cast! That particular mould has always had a fairly high number of rejects (I find that I have much more rejects from Lee moulds than from any others), but using the bottom pour pot with a preheated mould, and I had very few rejects! Before I knew it I had cast 150 boolits! I would say that I cast them in the same amount of time that I would cast half as many using a ladle!
One thing I really liked was I was able to cast while sitting down. Actually I had to sit down to be able to see the pour spout. This worked great for me, as I have a bad back, and standing for any length of time gets real painful real quick.
I have a digital thermometer that I got off eBay for $25.00 that's rated up to 750 degrees continuos, and 1300 intermittent, and I usually put it in the pot to check the temp, then take it out, as I had no way of mounting it so the wire going from the probe to the meter itself wouldn't get burned, but with the new pot I decided to try and mount the probe so it can stay in the pot the whole time, and I ended up using some thin wire (this is like the wire in twist ties, but without any paper or plastic on it) and I wired it to the part that connects to the pour valve, and that worked really nice. One thing that surprised me was how low I had to set the Lee pot. To get the lead to 650 degrees I had thought I would have to set the pot to somewhere in the middle of the scale, but it ended up being only on the '3' setting. Earlier in the evening I had it set on like 5 or 6 or so, and the boolits took a long time to cool (I air cool), which made me want to mount the thermometer, and when I cast at 650 they cooled off much quicker, and cast really nicely, nice shiny boolits! Of course I can't do everything right, and when I was done casting for the evening, I left the pot a little less than half full, and turned it off. When it had cooled down I remembered that I didn't remove the thermometer, and now the probe is stuck in the cold lead! Oh well, the probe is hardwired into the meter, so I had to leave the whole thing outside, but it is sealed, and water/oil resistant (it's sealed with an O ring), so it shouldn't hurt it leaving it outside.
Up until now I've been casting using a ladle, and a Lyman 10# Big Dipper pot. After casting some boolits from a 4 cavity mould I decided that I needed something bigger than 10# to keep up with mould, and also decided to try a bottom pour pot. I bought a Lee 4-20 pot from Midway. Once I got it, I mixed up some Lyman #2 alloy, and decided that being that the pot was a Lee, I would cast my first boolits with it using a Lee mould.
I put the mould, a 452-230-2R (one of the first moulds I had bought) on my hotplate, turned on the pot, and sat down waiting for the lead to melt. Usually with my Lyman pot it takes about a half an hour for the lead to be all melted, ready to be fluxed, but with the new Lee pot, it was ready to go in about 15 minutes! This really surprised me, as the Lyman pot uses an 850 watt heater to heat 10# but the Lee only has a 700 watt heater to melt 20#. I'm not sure if this is just because the Lee pot is brand new, and the Lyman is a few months old, or if the crud that has accumulated on the Lyman pot (I stupidly did some smelting in it a while back) is acting like an insulator, or what?
Once I was ready to cast, I couldn't believe how well the mould cast! That particular mould has always had a fairly high number of rejects (I find that I have much more rejects from Lee moulds than from any others), but using the bottom pour pot with a preheated mould, and I had very few rejects! Before I knew it I had cast 150 boolits! I would say that I cast them in the same amount of time that I would cast half as many using a ladle!
One thing I really liked was I was able to cast while sitting down. Actually I had to sit down to be able to see the pour spout. This worked great for me, as I have a bad back, and standing for any length of time gets real painful real quick.
I have a digital thermometer that I got off eBay for $25.00 that's rated up to 750 degrees continuos, and 1300 intermittent, and I usually put it in the pot to check the temp, then take it out, as I had no way of mounting it so the wire going from the probe to the meter itself wouldn't get burned, but with the new pot I decided to try and mount the probe so it can stay in the pot the whole time, and I ended up using some thin wire (this is like the wire in twist ties, but without any paper or plastic on it) and I wired it to the part that connects to the pour valve, and that worked really nice. One thing that surprised me was how low I had to set the Lee pot. To get the lead to 650 degrees I had thought I would have to set the pot to somewhere in the middle of the scale, but it ended up being only on the '3' setting. Earlier in the evening I had it set on like 5 or 6 or so, and the boolits took a long time to cool (I air cool), which made me want to mount the thermometer, and when I cast at 650 they cooled off much quicker, and cast really nicely, nice shiny boolits! Of course I can't do everything right, and when I was done casting for the evening, I left the pot a little less than half full, and turned it off. When it had cooled down I remembered that I didn't remove the thermometer, and now the probe is stuck in the cold lead! Oh well, the probe is hardwired into the meter, so I had to leave the whole thing outside, but it is sealed, and water/oil resistant (it's sealed with an O ring), so it shouldn't hurt it leaving it outside.