Lube into the lube sizer

[Ben]

I make my own lube ( Ben's Red ). As a consequence, it must go into my two lube sizers as a liquid since I have no molds to mold a hollow stick.

I've tried different shapes with pans and always managed to pour liquid lube down the side of the lube sizer. The problem for me is the quantity of lube in the pan is far too great and it is easy for too much of the molten lube to come pouring out and over fill the lube sizer. Unfortunately I've done it far too often. Not a real big deal, but none the less, a mess to clean up.

I thought a good bit about an easier way to do this and I think that I may be onto something.

I stopped by my local Ace Hardware today and picked up some copper plumbing parts.

The parts that I've soldered together with my Map Gas torch will hold about 1/2 stick of bullet lube.

My idea is to put my pan on my low heat hot plate and slowly liquefy the lube. Warm the " new lube pourer " that I've made today with a heat gun. Dip the tool into the liquid lube and fill my lube sizers. Any lube that remains on the tool can be warmed with a heat gun and it will drip back into the lube pan.

No waste.

What do you think?

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Ben

[Char-Gar]

I use a Pyrex one quart measuring cup. It has a handle and pour spout and works very well. I use my beeswax and Vaseline mix and microwave it.

When using a microwave, be aware that greases melt at different temperatures. Glen Fryxell uses beeswax and high speed moly grease and dumped a load in his microwave when a Pyrex cup broke. I did the same when trying to use Glen's mix. To melt that stuff requires a temperature that will crack even Pyrex. So, all lubes are not the same.

[MT Gianni]

I keep mine in a plastic 2 cup container that chicken gravy mix came in. I microwave it on med power for a few minutes and pour slowly.

It is a nice looking tool and should serve you well.

[bmanis]

Nice tool. I think you should come try it on my lube sizer.

Brandon

[41 mag fan]

Hey Ben,
I got an invention I hope you can help me with, and get it lined out for me.
I need it to make passable $5, $10, and $20 bills.

Have any good ideas you can come up with?? :bigsmyl2:

[jcwit]

Could not all that work with copper plumbing fittings been but towards making lube molds using a 2 x 4, wooden dowel, and a piece of 1 inch plastic pipe?

[Casting Timmy]

Could you also cut most of the tip off a plastic funnel to make it even easier to pour it into your sizer? You might be able to just pour from your pot into the funnel to get it into your luber.

[Ben]

There is obviously MANY ways to do this. Mine is only 1 of the ways. I guess we all see a potential answer to a problem in slightly different ways.

[Dale53]

I use a Pyrodex cup that is just slightly oversize for the lube needed for one stick. I ALWAYS refill my sizer when I finish. I use a coffee cup warmer. I turn it on when I start to lube/size. It is low heat and takes a while to melt the lube. However, it takes less time than I need, so a cup full of molten lube is ready to pour when I am. The Pyrex cup's pouring spout makes quick work of filling a sizer with no spillage.

The beauty of the cup warmer is that the lube never overheats even if left on all day.

FWIW
Dale53

[Ben]

Good idea ! !

[jcwit]

I use a Pyrodex cup that is just slightly oversize for the lube needed for one stick. I ALWAYS refill my sizer when I finish. I use a coffee cup warmer. I turn it on when I start to lube/size. It is low heat and takes a while to melt the lube. However, it takes less time than I need, so a cup full of molten lube is ready to pour when I am. The Pyrex cup's pouring spout makes quick work of filling a sizer with no spillage.

The beauty of the cup warmer is that the lube never overheats even if left on all day.

FWIW
Dale53

I like this idea, how bout a little more info as to the make of the warmer and how big ect.

Thanks.

[41 mag fan]

There is obviously MANY ways to do this. Mine is only 1 of the ways. I guess we all see a potential answer to a problem in slightly different ways.


I woke up this morning, with that lube pourer you made on my mind.
A little background on my thoughts, I guess how I woke up thinknig about it....

A week ago yesterday, I was at the range trying out some loads, using Bens Red,
Was done and getting ready to leave and I noticed an older gent standing behind me.
Got to talking to him, and he had bought a Savage 223, had never shot it, didn't know how to load the mag, scope wasn't set up, no rest to shoot off of.

So anyways I stayed and let him use my rest, got thru the introductions, and started helping him get his rifle set up. Noticed he had alot of trouble loading the mag, after I showed him how, and when I got the scope sighted in, just him holding the rifle on the rest was almost impossible.

So long story short, he told me had Parkinson disease, and it looked like he was due for more meds, cause the shaking was getting worse.

But for someone like this gent, that I give him credit, likes guns and like to shoot, but is really hampered by Parkinsons, that lube pourer would be perfect for if they liked to reload.

The use of a nifty little pourer like that is manageable for someone with some type of complication that might pose a problem, when using something like a pyrex measuring cup.

So , with that thought......
Good job Ben!
You made an instrument, that could really be a major help to someone who has difficulty pouring or holding steady enough to pour.

Plus I use a pyrex measuring cup, that little pourer would be perfect to repour when it starts to solidify and get the void in the center.

[Ben]

If I tried to melt bullet lube in the kitchen with my wife's microwave , all #### would break loose.

I've got no choice but to use my current method.

Ben

[btroj]

I have an old saucepan I have my lube in. I hear it on the stove till melted then use a metal funnel to fill the sizer.
I have never tried the microwave, probably best that's stay away from it.

That is a neat idea Ben. Makes it much easier especially when making large batches of lube in that tall of a container. Sometimes we need to find an idea that fits our specific needs.

[MikeS]

I'm another one that uses a one cup sized pyrex measuring cup. When I mixed up my lube I poured it into the muffin pan I was originally going to use for lead ingots, but didn't because it's got a teflon coating, so it became my lube ingot making pan. So I take a couple of the muffins of lube, and melt them in the measuring cup in the microwave oven (I do this at night while my mother is sleeping!), then pour as much lube as will fit into my sizer into it, then just let the rest harden in the measuring cup. It's dedicated to this purpose, so there's no reason to take the lube out of the cup.

I've found that pouring in melted lube into the sizers works better for me than using solid sticks, when I used to use sticks, either a stick wouldn't be enough to fill the sizer, or it wouldn't fully fit in the sizer leaving me with a small cut off piece of lube, etc. And by pouring it in hot, I never get air trapped in the lube as has happened to me a couple of times in my Lyman 45. Now all my lube gets melted to go into the sizers, even sticks!

[DukeInFlorida]

I use a one quart mason jar, and melt the lube in the microwave. 8 minutes on HIGH, and it's all melted. I just pour directly into the lubricizer. The only time I ever missed was the time I melted the mason jar full (chock full!) of lube. Should have poured some off into some other container.

Hasn't happened since.

Here's my take on your soldered tool:

If it works for the way that you like to do it, it's a wonderful thing.

[41 mag fan]

I just use the hot plate to heat my pyrex cup up. put it on med/low.
But there still is that void right around the rod in the center. Something like the pourer ben made, I could pour small amounts in and not overfill, like I did last weekend.

[Reload3006]

at first I thought well I wish I had seen that before I started making my lube stick molds. But then I got to thinking hey that would be great to fill the molds with so I am going to make myself one Thanks for the Idea.

[41 mag fan]

at first I thought well I wish I had seen that before I started making my lube stick molds. But then I got to thinking hey that would be great to fill the molds with so I am going to make myself one Thanks for the Idea.


Thats a good idea. I've been toying with making my own stick molds.

[Ben]

Reload3006 :

so I am going to make myself one Thanks for the Idea.

Pretty simply to make , took about 15 minutes. Should easily last me the rest of my life. Enjoy ! !

Ben

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

I use a one quart mason jar, and melt the lube in the microwave. 8 minutes on HIGH, and it's all melted. I just pour directly into the lubricizer. The only time I ever missed was the time I melted the mason jar full (chock full!) of lube. Should have poured some off into some other container. Hasn't happened since.


I mix up my Lube outside on a camp stove.
then I fill used glass jars "half full" for storage, same reason as Duke !!!
I use small recycled glass jars, no larger than a Pint sized Mason jar.
Olive jars and mason jars with chipped lip and such...

I melt them double boiler style in a pot of water, on the kitchen stove or
the Wood stove if that's fired up. Then easily pour into the lubesizer.
Jon

[Dale53]

I have had my coffee cup warmer for several years. Mine is a Dazey Corp, Model CW-10. I use a one cup Pyrex measuring cup.

Here is a picture of mine (do NOT pay these kinds of prices for a coffee warmer):

http://compare.ebay.com/like/110787720057

I believe Dazey is out of business.

Amazon has this:
http://www.amazon.com/Mr-Coffee-MWBLK-Mug-Warmer/dp/B000CO89T8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323015479&sr=8-1

DISCLAIMER:
Mine works perfectly with Emmert's Home Mix lube (50% beeswax, 40% Crisco, and 10% Canola Oil as well as modified Emmert's (replace 5% of the Canola oil with Lanolin) and also NRA 50/50 Beeswax. Since I have discovered Lars White label Carnauba Red I only use my home made lube for black powder cartridge rifles and pistols). My coffee warmer is 25 watts. I cannot guarantee that a particular warmer gets warm enough for YOUR lube.

By the way, I bought mine at a kitchen specialty store at the mall. Try Bed, Bath, and Beyond or any other specialty shop. I understand the Best Buy has a coffee warmer. Some will NOT get warm enough (we are not to be trusted with HOT coffee, you know...)

I find this method has worked extremely well for me. However, the idea is not original to me. I got it from Spence Wolfe's book on the Trapdoor Springfield.

A GUARANTEED method is to buy a small hotplate, put a small sauce pan with a couple inches of water inside and sit your Pyrex cup inside (in effect, making a double boiler). That will melt any common lube without fail without overheating it. However, you WILL have to watch it...

Dale53

[Char-Gar]

If I tried to melt bullet lube in the kitchen with my wife's microwave , all #### would break loose.

I've got no choice but to use my current method.

Ben

I have an old microwave in the shop.

[Newtire]

I bought a mini loaf pan at a yard sale and just pour it out of there after heating it up by putting a corner into the melt and using vise grips to hold the little pan. It pours in a small stream enough to where I never spill any.

[JerryW]

Most of my shooting is with breech seated single shot guns using as cast pan lubed bullets. For the others that need a little sizing I do that in a empty luber die then pan lube. No mess. JerryW

[220swiftfn]

Hmmm.... Maybe I DO have a use for that old coffee pot..........


Dan

[fishnbob]

A GUARANTEED method is to buy a small hotplate, put a small sauce pan with a couple inches of water inside and sit your Pyrex cup inside (in effect, making a double boiler). That will melt any common lube without fail without overheating it. However, you WILL have to watch it...

Dale53

Maybe I need to try this method. I tried melting CR in a sauce pan on a hot plate and then pouring it into a pyrex meas. cup and it set up before I could get it into the luber. Some of it ran under the pour lip and down the side of the luber. The threaded shaft in the luber is soooooo in the way! That carnuba red will flash set in a heartbeat.:???:

[sqlbullet]

I fashioned a stick lube mold in about 10 minutes from 1" copper pipe, a long bolt and a washer I had laying around. Nice thing about putting them in the mold is you don't have to heat anything when you are ready to reload. Just pop one in.

[mstrausbough]

I melt my lube in a potpourri heater. takes about 30 mins to get liquid. then just pour it into rubber backing pans with the bullets standing up. let it cool over night and push them out with pencil. Saw it on Youtube and just copied method.

[fishnbob]

I fashioned a stick lube mold in about 10 minutes from 1" copper pipe, a long bolt and a washer I had laying around. Nice thing about putting them in the mold is you don't have to heat anything when you are ready to reload. Just pop one in.

Do you have trouble getting them out? I made stick molds from PVC pipe and it didn't come out easy at all. Even when I sprayed lubricant in them. I even boiled all the residue out and lubricated them and then I noticed that where I picked the pipes out of boiling water with pliers, I must have squished the pipe a little and then they were a real B---h to get out. I ordered some lube from WL while I rethink my process.

[Recluse]

Pretty simply to make , took about 15 minutes. Should easily last me the rest of my life. Enjoy ! !

Ben

It took YOU about 15 minutes to make. For me, it would pretty much be an all-day job:

• Browse around the shop seeing what scrap I have, then getting distracted when I find a tool I thought I'd lost.

• Clean up lost tool and marvel at how good life is.

• Discover that I don't have enough scrap to make my lube-pourer. Check for extra solder.

• While rummaging for the solder, I find a mold I had misplaced. Very tempted to fire up the lead furnace and cast a few boolits just to reacquaint myself with the AWOL mold.

• Resist firing up the lead furnace, but decide I don't want to use any of my solder that I use to sweeten the lead alloy with for something as mundane as a lube-pouring tool. This calls for a trip to the hardware store.

• Stop for a late breakfast/early lunch on the way to the hardware store.

• At the hardware store, I realize I forgot my list of items I needed to buy. Head back home for the list.

• Back home, I can't find the list. Back out to the shop I go.

• While rummaging for the list, which was underneath the AWOL mold, my late breakfast/early lunch is about done digesting and giving me the nature-is-calling rumbling.

• While taking care of business, I'm thumbing through an old gun magazine. It's a nice day to shoot and making a lube-pouring tool is an indoor task. Supposed to be cold as hell tomorrow, so naturally I better shoot today.

• Upstairs rummaging through the gun safe, I can't decide which guns I want to take to the range. I ask my wife for advice and she says, "I thought you were going to the hardware store this morning to make that lube-pouring dommaflochie?" Wives never understand.

• I pick out my guns, then head back out to the shop to my ammo cabinet for some cartridges. While out there, I get to looking at my Lyman 45s and my stash of lube. Do I shoot or do I make the lube pouring device? I figure I'll shoot while it's still light outside (barely) then make the lube-pouring device that evening.

• I go to grab some ammo and find that I forgot to reload some of my .38 Special wadcutters, which I really wanted to shoot. That means I'll have to reload some right quick. Imagine that!

• Halfway through reloading the wadcutters, I keep looking at the lube grooves on those boolits and the lube-pour tool keeps nagging at me. I decide to be the responsible man I am and make the lube-pour tool.

• Off to the hardware store I go.

• At the hardware store, I quite naturally find a few other things I definitely need, including a new soldering iron. The other three in the shop are okay, but this one I just found is the cat's meow--and it's on sale. In the shopping buggy it goes.

• I pass down the cleaning aisle and grab another couple of cans of JPW. Can't have enough, even though my wife says I have enough to wax, buff and re-wax our high school's gymnasium floor twice. What the hell does she know?

• Sun has already set by the time I get home, and that tells my inner-clock that it's time to eat. Burgers sound good, so I head to a burger joint that just, by coincidence, happens to share a parking lot with Bass Pro Shops. It must be fate!

• Since I'm already this close to Bass Pro Shops. . .

• I get home and my wife has the Monday Night Football game on the big screen. The theatre surround sound is cranked and I can hear everything from the crunching thuds of the players colliding to the silicone jiggling around inside the cheerleader's boobies. Maybe I'll just sit down and watch the first half. . .

• Discipline takes over and I stride determinedly out to my shop, all six bulging bags from the hardware store in hand. Inside the shop, I turn on the TV, put on the MNF game and begin unloading the sacks and organizing my shopping trip booty.

• I'm now getting ready to make the lube-pouring tool, but dang it, the game is now in the Two-Minute Warning and score is tied. Who can concentrate on soldering and cutting with this kind of drama? Safety first, you know.

• Game over. My team lost and I'm in no mood to cut or solder anything except for our coach's gonads for coaching such a pathetic game. Shut down the shop and drag myself into the house.

• As I crawl into bed with my wife, she says, "So, what's on your agenda for tomorrow?" I tell her, "There's this tool I need to make. . ."

:coffee:

[Ben]

Recluse:

That's classic.

I'm still laughing, as I can see myself doing the same.....................

Ben

[41 mag fan]

And I thought I had problems!!