lee 20# mold

[TES]

Has anyone made or considered making a 2 piece mold the would be a direct drop (one large ingot) in for a lee or other make of pot? I'm coming into a lot of lead and would like to see if there is any interest in this.

[dikman]

I'm wondering how practical it would be? It would only be of any use if you empty your pot each time, and most here seem to always leave lead in their pots when they've finished casting. Just a thought.

Maybe a half-size would work better?

[BK7saum]

Short answer is no. I like and use 5 lbers. They will fit in both the 10 and 20 lb dripomatics. Adding 5 or 10 lbs at a time is easy enough and easier to handle. I stack them 3 deep in rows of 4 in wooden boxes I made for that purpose. I still don't have a shop or permanent setup/location yet, so I find the boxes to be an okay solution. I've moved the stash a couple times in the last 3 years. 60lb boxes aren't bad and I move less items.

To each there own. I store bulk alloy in 5lbers and when I smelt/mix an alloy I then use a mix of 1 and 5 lb ingots. For my use, I don't have a need for a 20 or even a 10 lb ingot.

[Dusty Bannister]

If you are thinking of selling and shipping ingots, you might consider that larger ingots take a lot longer to cool enough to drop out of the mold. Smaller ingots cool quicker, and that would speed things up a lot without having to invest in more molds than necessary. You might consider a mold for an ingot of about 5" by 1.5" by 1/2 or 1". These would stack nicely in the USPS SFRB and still have a little room to reinforce the box for shipping. They would also fit in most pots. Depending upon final thickness, it would be about 1.5 to 3 pound ingots.

[bangerjim]

I like 1 pounders because I never let my 4-20 get below 1/2. I could not use anything that big, most will probably advise. I mix my alloys on the fly and 1# increiments are very handy.

Mabe 5# max.

banger

[TES]

that makes sense...5 lb mold to fit the pot....the reason I am asking is....I think I have the bid to clear an entire range of its lead and was wondering what would work from a shipping and end user shape for an ingot. My 3# rounds are a bit of a pain to squeeze into a pot and do not make contact with the sides of the pot making melt times longer.