DIY mold release?

[HDS]

Been thinking about mold release agents, would be interesting to try and see if they make any difference. I understand most of them are simply graphite powder dissolved in isopropyl alcohol.

That makes me wonder if you could make your own stuff, I dunno where to get isopropyl alcohol but denatured alcohol is everywhere to be bought and I got a tube of fine powdered graphite I use to lubricate the powder measures. So the idea I got now is what if I just mix these two and put it in a spray bottle, sounds like it should work, will degrease the mold while leaving the graphite coating, but I've just given this 5 minutes of thinking so far.


P.S. I know lots of people say mold release is useless and all that but I am in an experimenting mood and I want to see how effective or useless it can be for myself.

[Boyscout]

Isopropyl Alcohol is Rubbing Alcohol.

[btroj]

Denatured alcohol will work just fine. The graphite doesn't dissolve in the alcohol, it forms a suspension, little bits of graphite suspended in the alcohol. Shake it well enforce applying.

I would make a small bottle of a really thin mix and try applying it with a q-tip. By thin I mean little graphite to lots of alcohol. It is easy to add more.

Personally, I would keep it out of the cavities. It had the potential, if applied too heavily, to give under sized bullets. I would use it on the sprue plate and alignment areas.

[HDS]

I mostly want to experiment with it just I can see what effect it might have on things like diameter and such. So it's going in the cavities at least a few times, I wonder if it can build up over time or not...

[WRideout]

Isopropyl Alcohol is Rubbing Alcohol.
It's true, but the stuff you buy in the drustore is Isopropyl diluted with water. Denatured alcohol is 100% ethanol mixed with enough methanol (wood alcohol) to make it poisonous and non-drinkable.

Wayne

[Freightman]

I have a can that is 20+ years old and amost full, it makes the boolts smaller, polish the mold and the boolits fall out with no hitting. Plus it makes the mold look nasty.

[engineer401]

It's true, but the stuff you buy in the drustore is Isopropyl diluted with water. Denatured alcohol is 100% ethanol mixed with enough methanol (wood alcohol) to make it poisonous and non-drinkable.

Wayne

Methanol is corrosive to some metals particularly aluminum. I'd stay away from it.

[Elkins45]

There are some graphite lubes in spray cans that seem like they would essentially duplicate the mold release spray sold by Midway and others. I think the can I have was made by the Liquid Wrench company. Probably cheaper than making your own.

[fatnhappy]

get a can of this and don't bother trying to reinvent the wheel (http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/CRC-Dry-Graphite-Lube-4JB39?Pid=search)

It will leave only a very thin uniform graphite coat to your mould. I have a cramer HP mould from Mihec that is beautifully cut, but the boolits would hang up on the HP pins. A quick spritz with this made all the difference in the world.

As alluded to by others, a release agent is no pancea for a burr ridden poorly finished mould. Other redress is warranted in such instances.

http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h152/lhsjfk3t/006-1.jpg

[runfiverun]

be careful with the stuff i have been slowly working on getting a mold release agent out of an old nei mold.
it was making the noses too small.
dunno who put it in there but.... grrr.

[HDS]

I don't really have any troubles with my molds except the pins from time to time. This is mostly to satisfy curiosity. I did not know that the graphite could stick very hard though, not just a matter of a toothbrush and solvent?

[KYCaster]

The best release agent is a properly prepped, clean mold.

If you insist on using some kind of graphite release, a lead carpenter's pencil is the best way to apply it.

Rub vigorously until the pencil conforms to all the nooks and crannys then remove the excess with a dry nylon brush and compressed air.

Jerry

[JIMinPHX]

It's true, but the stuff you buy in the drustore is Isopropyl diluted with water. Denatured alcohol is 100% ethanol mixed with enough methanol (wood alcohol) to make it poisonous and non-drinkable.

Wayne

Drug stores around me carry both 70% & 91% rubbing ( isopropyl ) alcohol.

Denatured alcohol is made by starting with ethyl alcohol & adding something else to it to make it unfit to drink. Sometimes methanol is added. Sometimes acetone is added. Sometimes other chemicals are used.

100% alcohol is not at all common. I have only seen alcohol over 91% in a laboratory. It degrades rapidly when exposed to the moisture in the air.

When I used to work in a place that made chemical extracts (often using alcohol as the extraction solvent), I was always told that getting alcohol of any type stronger than 90% by natural distillation was about as easy as looping a helicopter.

[Elkins45]

I read something in an organic chemistry text that said 95% was about the best that could be done under lab conditions. For those rare applications where they need pure ethanol they dry the 95% stuff by mixing it with some compound that dries the solution by forming insoluible hydrates. I think it was magnesium sulfate, but that was 25 years ago so I could be misremembering.

[RetAFSF]

I use "Pam Cooking Spray-Orginal" only after cleaning my molds. I do try smoking the molds before using anything type of release.

[gofastman]

Molyfilm makes a damn fine mold release agent.
http://www.kanolabs.com/indLub.html

[HDS]

Smoking using a match was the first of my tests, my 6 cavity aluminum mold is the test subject.

Smoking the mold didn't to my eyes make any real difference from a clean mould, main thing seems to be to make it and keep it hot enough.

[nekshot]

Long time ago I had a mold that was sticky. I got ticked off and brushed it with Kroil and got the lead as hot as pot would make it and after about ten pours it released boolits like magic. So all my new molds and any others I get that seem sticky I get the mold as hot as I can and if that does'nt work I brushem with kroil and pour hot. All of my molds release boolits with barely a bump on handle after this treatment. I stay away from anything that might change dimensions in mold.
nekshot