H&G 503-429 4 cavity

[tomme boy]

I picked up one of these today for a really good price. ? for people that have one of these. What size do they normally drop at? I hoping for 0.430" plus.

[HARRYMPOPE]

I ordered mine in 1987 from HG and asked them to cut it to cast .430 in Linotype.( i had 2000# of it then)its cast right at .430 in 50-50 WW and lino mix.

George

[tomme boy]

I was looking this over today, and it seems that there is a little rust in the cavities. It is not too bad. What does everyone do to remove rust from the cavities when this happens?

[wv109323]

I would first try a bore cleaner to see if that would clean it ,in the event that it is not rust and just some type of crude. I would try steel wool if the bore cleaner didn't get it. I would use 0000 with a piece of wooden dowel and make sure you don't remove metal. go easy with the steel wool.

[MtGun44]

Comet and a toothbrush, but dry well and oil afterwards.

Bill

[captaint]

NO "green" pads or wire brushes - first... Second, what Bill said. Do that. Mike

[tomme boy]

Well I tried it with AJAK. I think it is the same thing. I scrubbed for about 1/2 hr. It cleaned up a little. Then I took a 50cal plastic brush and ran that in each cavity with the cleaner. I think the rust is just a little too deep to clean up without lapping.

I heated up the pot and preheated the mold. It work great. Just shake it, and they all fall out. One of the cavities is a little out of round. It measures about 0.428" in one spot right before the parting line. Otherwise they are all dropping at0.4295-0.430" This is with 4 to 1 range lead to lino.

What they look like is if you ran the mold too hot. I'm going to lube them with some TAC1 and then tumble lube them an try them out.

[rintinglen]

You'll probably be very happy with the results. I have a badly pitted 358-156 4 cavity that casts bad looking boolits that shoot just fine.
Mild surface rust is of no major concern, but if you really want to clean it up, go to an auto parts store and buy and use a Product called EVAPO-RUST. Mike S. in Fla. spoke highly of it and I gave it a try on a rusted up file. Stuff works great, but it will remove bluing as well.

[GLL]

Now that you have done the basic cleaning go ahead and cast a few !
Here are some bullets from an old rusty Cramer #4. They are pitted and not pretty but do shoot very well !

Jerry

http://www.fototime.com/B4003D0F1A92EE9/medium800.jpg

[mtgrs737]

Carefully clean the cavities with a toothbrush and some Comet, then heat it up and cast some boolets with it and mark on the base which cavity they came out of. Then drill a small hole half way into in the boolit base as close to the center as you can eyeball it. Insert a small 5-40 tap or other such small size tap in the hole and twist it in tight. Make a paste of comet and water or toothpaste and water and coat the cavity and boolet with a thin coat. Put the shank of the tap in a variable speed reveresing drill chuck and insert the boolet in the cavity it was cast in. Hold the handles loosley and very slowly turn the boolit in the cavity for 20 to 30 turns increasing the pressure on the handles slowly so as not to cause the boolit to stall. Now reverse the drill direction and do the same number of turns. Open the mold and remove the boolit and clean the cavity out to have a good look. It the rust is still there and the boolit looks good recoat it and insert it back in for another couple of spin cycles. Keep repeating this until you have removed the rust. All the moulds that I have lapped this way drop their boolits out with little effort due to polishing the surfaces. You can even enlarge a mould cavity by repeating this process many times. Be sure to rotate the boolet both ways as it produces a more even and round cavity. I once left a new Lyman 429421 four cavity mould sit too long and it lightly surface rusted in the cavities, I was relly upset with myself but the fix improved the mould so much I am now very happy with it as it drops it's boolits promptly when the mould is opened. Good luck!

[MikeS]

The BEST way to get rid of rust on a mould is with a product called Evapo-rust. It's sold in some auto parts stores, and Harbor Freight also sells it. It's a rust remover that along with doing it's job very well, is a very safe product, no foul odors, and is water soluble. Just soak the mould blocks in the stuff for a couple of hours, or overnight if needed, there's no need to worry about it hurting the blocks by being in the solution too long. When you take the blocks out, rinse them in water, dry them, then oil immediately as they will rust quickly as the evapo-rust gets rid of all traces of oil. The oil I prefer to use on my iron moulds is called Fluid Film, it comes in a spray can, and is based on lanolin, so it's not petro based.