PDA

View Full Version : I met one of the guys who makes the Moulds for Lee



brimic
08-18-2005, 08:57 AM
I heard it through the grapevine that the father of my wife's friend (the lady who lives next door to me) works for Lee. He also does repair work on my wife's car so the otehr day when he came over to pick up her car that needed some engine work, I struck up a conversation with him.

It turns out that he's one of two guys that makes the tooling for and cuts the moulds for Lee.He said he has to wear a jeweler's loupe to see and cut the fine details on the cutting tool, and when the moulds are made, the aluminum block is put on a bridgeport mill, all the cavities are cut one by one, then the other half of the mould is cut the same way.
He also repairs moulds that are sent back by customers for repairs. From what he told me, the biggest problem is with people not lubing the moulds properly where the moulds get scratched up under the sprue plate and that it was absolutely necessary to lube the surface with a little bit of stick lube.

He's an avid shooter and reloader, but he doesn't do any bullet casting other than for testing moulds at his workplace. Next time I talk to him, probably later this week, I'll give him the url to this website, he might be interested in it.

Willbird
08-18-2005, 09:09 AM
Well that is sure an interesting way to make them....it also seems like it must be very hard to get a quality job done that way.

Looking at the last group buy 6 cavity I have the burrs on the tops of the block, as well as the pattern to the machined finish indicate that the surface was machined in a lathe, the burrs are rolled in towards the mating surfaces BUT the location of the burr changes when you get to the middle, it transfers to the OTHER block just like you had faced the blocks on a lathe with them mated together, and the pattern of tool marks is centered on one of the 6 cavities too.

Bill

Willbird
08-19-2005, 01:23 PM
I had a phone conferance with MROliver77 today and while that was going on I looked one of my 434-250 molds over in good light, The burr formation on the cavities could support the method of mfg. your neighbor related.

I would have to say the tops of the blocks where the sprue plate rides are faced flat in a lathe, some folks say they purposely have a dish on them to provide venting and that would most easily be provided by facing in a cnc lathe.......the tool marks are centered on a cavity and the radius increases as you get further from the cavity.

Being a machinest/toolmaker by trade it is always fun to reverse enginner the mfg. process from the evidance left on the part in tool marks.

Bill

brimic
08-19-2005, 07:26 PM
I would have to say the tops of the blocks where the sprue plate rides are faced flat in a lathe,


I don't know a whole lot about machining myself. I think he did mention that when he repairs grooved moulds, as in moulds that have been scratched up under the sprue plate, that he faces them off with a lathe, if the damage isn't too deep. Its probably likely that they are made that way too. From what I gathered, it sounded like he used a mill to cut the cavities.