Casting questions

[BubbaJon]

Woo-hoo - got my lyman 429244 mold and handles in so I threw a few today. Dang those 250 gr boolits suck up a lot of lead!
After about 5 throws the boolits stopped getting wrinkly but they didn't look very defined so I bumped the heat up a tad to around 700F.
They got to where they looked ok but the weirdest thing - they dropped shiny and then turned frosty as they cooled. Actually looked like that pattern on a tin roof.
I waited until they cooled and lo and behold wiping with a cloth makes 'em shiny again. This concerns me because now I suspect something is precipitating out.
I cleaned the molds thoroughly before using with alcohol using q-tips and a cloth. I then smoked the molds with a lighter like I did my 9mm mold.
When I heated up the pot I rested the mold upside down in top of the pot so the sprue cutter would also be up to temp - I'd heard that a cold sprue plate could cause issues with the bottom of the boolit.
I noticed several small voids and a couple the bottoms looked slightly distorted.
So here's my questions:

Can anyone explain what happened from my description and the photos?
Are these boolits ok?
What causes the small voids and dings? Is there a best way to drop the boolits?
What would cause the base to be distorted? Since these are gas checked does it matter?

Thanks guys! Also - opinions and pointers on the cast boolits is appreciated!

These photos are hi-resolution so if you click them you can see great gory details.

As dropped and cooling - check out that "frosting"
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Sitting up purty - note warp in base of #1, #6 and the ding in #4 bases
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Wiped with a rag
Note dings along cast line in #3 - is this from releasing?
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[runfiverun]

notive the drive bands rounding over as they start to frost...
if my mehanite molds start to get near that hot, they see a damp rag and cooler alloy temps.

[44man]

Frost and bad fill is a mold too hot. You will also get under size boolits.
I set my Lee pot at 750 but never dropped the thermometer in. I cast a nice easy pace to keep the mold right.
You might be in a huge rush when you cast.
I don't think pot temps are that important except for pure lead when it needs heat. The pace of casting and some relaxing can keep the mold right. I will not make as many boolits as most but I have almost none to toss back. I cast a pile last week and found one with a little wrinkle.
With time you can adjust mold and boolit quality without even thinking, it will get to be a feel and that can't be taught over the net.

[BubbaJon]

I'm not sure what you guys are seeing - the driving bands are sharp - not rounded.
Now they look that way in the "frosted" pics but as I said this appears to be something on the outside that wipes off.
I'll repeat something - The boolits came out shiny and frosted as they lay there on the towel. They did not frost in the mold and this was only two casts AFTER the initial batch of wrinkly boolits. Hard to believe a steel mold would get too hot that quick.

[44man]

I'm not sure what you guys are seeing - the driving bands are sharp - not rounded.
Now they look that way in the "frosted" pics but as I said this appears to be something on the outside that wipes off.
I'll repeat something - The boolits came out shiny and frosted as they lay there on the towel. They did not frost in the mold and this was only two casts AFTER the initial batch of wrinkly boolits. Hard to believe a steel mold would get too hot that quick.
If it is NOT heat frost, you have zinc contamination. Makes a boolit look like rain gutters and no fill out.
Bring your lead to no more then 600* and remove the oatmeal from the surface without fluxing.
When you smelt WW's, keep the temps at 600* and remove all that does not melt.

[BubbaJon]

If it is NOT heat frost, you have zinc contamination. Makes a boolit look like rain gutters and no fill out.
Bring your lead to no more then 600* and remove the oatmeal from the surface without fluxing.
When you smelt WW's, keep the temps at 600* and remove all that does not melt.
Aha!!! That makes perfect sense! The mix I made was from 25 lbs of range lead melted into ingots, 30 lbs of melted stick on weights (pure lead I suspect), 30 lbs of actual honest-to-gawd wheel weights and then I used 20 lbs of linotype to bring the whole mess up to about "wheel weight standard" of 12 BHN. I used the cast spreadsheet that floats around to do my cipherin'. ;)
Anyway - in spite of handsorting the weights it's very possible that zinc snuck in there somehow - I appreciate you telling me how to get rid of it. The pot is heating as I type.

[DLCTEX]

Looks like heat frosting to me. If it were zinc frost it would not wipe off. Mould is is a little too hot, but the boolits are very shootable. Tumble lubers like a little frosting to help hold lube, but excessive frosting can shrink drive bands and bases.

[44man]

The last batch of stick on's I melted separate were mostly zinc. I tossed the whole batch.

[BubbaJon]

I got the pot to 600 and danged if I didn't get a couple tablespoons of frosty oatmeal looking stuff off the top.
I cast a few boolits but apparently 600 is way too low - they weren't filling. But at least I had no frosty coated boolits!
I bagged it until I can get free later to run it up to the 700F I normally cast at.

[runfiverun]

your 700ish area is fine,i'm usually at 675 after a few casts even with aluminum molds.
the MOLD temperature is what rules the roost.
i am a loaf along guy too,i use a 10 count on my lee 2 cavity 45/70 mold and a 6 count on my accurate 2 cavity mold and.
it's a continuos smooth motion to fill ,count,break,dump the boolits, fill.
monotonous and boring, same thing over and over, the little click of the clock.
the only mold i have that keeps me hopping is my steel 2 cav 223 mold it's a 2 count to open and dump.

[tomme boy]

The next time you get that frosty oatmeal looking stuff in your pot, take a spoon and smash it up against the side of the pot. Then scrape as much of the grey dust out as you can. Flux it, light the flux on fire, and stir. Skim off whatever is floating.

[44man]

your 700ish area is fine,i'm usually at 675 after a few casts even with aluminum molds.
the MOLD temperature is what rules the roost.
i am a loaf along guy too,i use a 10 count on my lee 2 cavity 45/70 mold and a 6 count on my accurate 2 cavity mold and.
it's a continuos smooth motion to fill ,count,break,dump the boolits, fill.
monotonous and boring, same thing over and over, the little click of the clock.
the only mold i have that keeps me hopping is my steel 2 cav 223 mold it's a 2 count to open and dump.
That makes me older and slower then you! :mrgreen::mrgreen:[smilie=1:

[WHITETAIL]

Yes, zink can make bad things happen.:brokenima

[hot44ball]

Ok, hey, what is that "oatmeal"?

[MBTcustom]

The next time you get that frosty oatmeal looking stuff in your pot, take a spoon and smash it up against the side of the pot. Then scrape as much of the grey dust out as you can. Flux it, light the flux on fire, and stir. Skim off whatever is floating.

I agree. I don't think you have zinc. I think you have a mold that is way too hot. When adding linotype, you get a lot of tin and antimony trying to mix in there. You need only to flux the pot with wood chips and stir with a wooden stick to return the oatmeal to the mix.
I was dealing with the oatmeal last year, and I too thought I had zinc. Well, instead of throwing it out, I decided to have it tested to see what was in there. It turned out, that the oatmeal stuff was lead, tin and antimony, but it was very hard to get a read on it. You test one spot and it would be high in antimony, the next would be high in tin, etc. ie. it was not mixed up well. You are in the process of throwing away valuable metal if you are skimming off that stuff.
Its almost like making pancakes, or cake mix. You through in all your ingredients, and go to stirring it all up, but you end up with a bunch of lumps of unmixed flour floating on top. If you skim that off, then its the same as if you had shorted the original recipe on flour.
The wood chips will turn it back into the melt.
What you show in your pictures looks like plain old mold too hot syndrome. Not zinc.

[BubbaJon]

Thanks guys - the thing I am not getting tho is that this is literally after only a dozen throws. I can't wrap my head around that massive chunk of steel getting that hot that quick. I have a Lee 9mm aluminum mold that is ready after about 6 throws and have never gotten anything like this and I throw it pretty fast. Frosty boolits yes, crusty no.
I'm in the process of deep cleaning the mold again on the off chance that something is on the surface and this time I will not smoke the mold on the off chance the soot is causing problems. Then I'll see what happens.

[slim1836]

Smoking the mold will cause the boolits to fall undersized. Try to stay away from that. Properly cleaning your mold will produce much better results. All of the above suggestions are good ones. Try eliminating issues one at a time and have patience.

Welcome to the site,

Slim

[BubbaJon]

Hi guys - I thought it was time to update this thread. I received so much good advice and I'm grateful for the expertise laid out for me. I learned to live with the frosty look - it's just some kind of oxide that wipes off and there is no in between - if it's shiny the corners are rounded (too cold), when they start frosting everything looks great.
Now - to the mix. It *was* zinc - and a few other things like some aluminum. I took the advice to raise my pot temp slowly to 600F. I fluxed three times sawdust, beeswax, ground charcoal. After each flux-n-stir I took everything off the top that looked like oatmeal. I know there was lead that went out but I also know it wasn't fit to cast with. It ended up "costing" me about 5 lbs.
The boolits cast now look much better and size properly - they were dropping at .428 and the mold should drop at .430.
I work at a major university so ambled over to the mechanical engineering department and rustled up a semi-retired professor who shoots. We put the cast and the dross on a scanning electron microscope with x-ray probe to analyze the content. My mix comes out to lead 96%, tin 1%, Antimony 3%. The dross had high concentrations of zinc and some aluminum. It also had some arsenic which is too bad it didn't stay since that helps with heat quenching.
Here's the photo of the analysis - thanks again for all the great tips!

64582

[BubbaJon]

Smoking the mold will cause the boolits to fall undersized. Try to stay away from that. Properly cleaning your mold will produce much better results. All of the above suggestions are good ones. Try eliminating issues one at a time and have patience.
Welcome to the site,
Slim
BTW - you were right on that. A lot of the surface flaws was some extraordinarily stubborn **** in the mold.
I took my dremel with a brass brush and finally got it all out. Quite the chore and makes me wonder what the devil Lyman had on that thing.