Dang it

[JohnFM]

OK, I got a nice old Lyman 454190AX a while back.
Thing drops beautiful 250 grainers.
BUT, the pour hole on the sprue plate next to the hinge holds a little disk of lead that I have to poke out.
I've cleaned that thing a half dozen times, but there must be some microscopic roughness in there holding things.
How about spinning a toothpick with some 5X steel wool on it in there?
Anybody figure that might work to let the sprues drop clean?

[powderburnerr]

run the mould a little cooler , will help some ,wait a second or two longer to cut the sprue, and you can also polish the bottom of the plate on fine sand paper and a piece of glass.

[JohnFM]

I polished it off already with my glass plate and 600X paper.
A kitchen match was about the right size and I spun some steel wool on there for a bit.
I'm about to go back out and fire things up again to see if it works a little better.
Yeah, giving a bit longer to knock the plate back might help too.
I only have 5 molds and this is the only one gives me a problem and it's been doing it on 80-90% of the pours.

[JohnFM]

Scrubbing out the holes in the plate made a lot of difference. Things went much better with a sprue bit hanging in the hole only once in a while.
My back's done in for the day, so I made up some more Lyman #2 alloy and I'll be ready for tomorrow.

[rockrat]

I had the sprue hanging in the hole on one of my moulds. Turns out that the hole wasn't drilled deep enough and the angled hole was parallel for about .030" and the sprue wouldn't release

[JohnFM]

You know that could be what I'm dealing with here.
This is the only mold I have with the fill holes in the plate not drilled all the way in to a knife edge on top of the blocks.
I'm not sure how much material is left, but it looks like an easy 50 thou or so.
I could put that plate in the drill press and take out some more material.

[runfiverun]

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?180898-Sprue-Sticking

good thing I save stuff, this should show you what you need.

[JohnFM]

Yup. I probably would have just kept fighting it but for Rockrat's mentioning what he ran into.

[JohnFM]

One more bit about the "hanging" sprues.
I got a whole rack of counter sinks, but I used one like the one that was in the photos, I like them because they leave a good polished cut.
After I went into the plate to get a knife edge I got out the glass and paper and polished off the back side in case I had any burr.
That mold is a dream now, when the sprue plate is knocked back, the sprue is gone. Sweet. :mrgreen:

[runfiverun]

excellent.
I have found an hours worth of fixing and teching out a problem saves about 40 years worth of aggravation.

[Gtek]

I hit most of my new to me's just to check. Then I take crocus cloth and tear a square patch and center on hole and push that down with countersink in press for super polish and nice soft radius on top edge. Just have to plate when done to confirm no/clean roll through on bottom. And it makes knife edges on mine. Gtek