totalloser
02-22-2014, 11:35 PM
Not original I have seen reference to this process before, and I explained this in another thread, but here's how I did mine:
Lay out 3/4" on center grid on 1x3 or 1x4 block, stack on another block and predrill two holes for screws and screw them together.
Drill the grid (on mill or drill table for flatness) for stainless roofing nails and then pop them back apart. Slip in a piece of aluminum flashing or pop can aluminum cut to the same or slightly smaller size and run the screws back in to sandwich the aluminum.
Tap in all the nails so that they punch though the aluminum, and then run a couple screws into the sides so that the heads are sticking out enough that a wire wheel can clean them up regularly.
Don't go smaller than 3/4" on center or the ES charge will likely not work properly. And for the noobies- you think your hot rod MSD ignition can make your hair stand up... well you have no idea. You will NOT touch the nails twice when they are energized. [smilie=1:
975039750497505
The pictures show a mildly refined version of my first try. The refinement is a button head screw run sideways between the flashing and block to energize flashing, and the elimination of flashing hanging out. The purpose of this modification was to provide a clip lead that is easily cleaned (bench grinder with wire wheel) which also cleans up the heads every two or three uses. The flashing became a pain to keep clean, the screw head is easy to clean up.
I have found a few things in this process I have not found mentioned before: First, I hate wearing gloves so I dust my fingers with PC from the booth (cat litter box bottom) before handling boolits. Second, I found that when I have a batch intransigent (usually cold) boolits that don't want to take a coat, I make a pass with the low pressure blow gun with the ES energized and then make another pass with the ES gun and the coating becomes *much* more consistent.
For a while I was not acetone washing, but did some basic math and realized it took less time to wash, then it did to fiddle with random problem boolits.
Make four if your time is valuable to you. Two per batch, and two out while baking. Otherwise you will be burning your fingers instead of letting them cool while loading up the next batch. Much less hassle to pop them off a cool block, plus you won't have a hot one fall into the PC on the block.
Larger calibers are quite easy to balance on the heads, but 9mm is problematic. Especially with RN 124gr and similar. Just too long on too small of a head, and the cut sprue usually sticks up just enough to make them unstable. So if you are considering getting into this and looking at molds, 9mm would be the one to get HP. .40 and .45 are easy to balance. 9mm is not. Or at least not for me.
This process can easily be used to make point up for HP, just run the nails all the way through. I am using HF yellow and HF red to make orange for cheep. Yellow is a pain by itself, but the red helps it bond pretty well, and this is all single pass. It takes about 5-8 minutes to prep and coat two fixtures, and I am baking 15 preheated or 20 not preheated at 400 based on the cheapo toaster setting, which appears to be more accurate than the oven thermometer I had hoped to use.
This gives me about 10 min of foot tapping, so I cast alongside the PC setup which doubles the overall efficiency of the process and eliminates foot tapping.
Lay out 3/4" on center grid on 1x3 or 1x4 block, stack on another block and predrill two holes for screws and screw them together.
Drill the grid (on mill or drill table for flatness) for stainless roofing nails and then pop them back apart. Slip in a piece of aluminum flashing or pop can aluminum cut to the same or slightly smaller size and run the screws back in to sandwich the aluminum.
Tap in all the nails so that they punch though the aluminum, and then run a couple screws into the sides so that the heads are sticking out enough that a wire wheel can clean them up regularly.
Don't go smaller than 3/4" on center or the ES charge will likely not work properly. And for the noobies- you think your hot rod MSD ignition can make your hair stand up... well you have no idea. You will NOT touch the nails twice when they are energized. [smilie=1:
975039750497505
The pictures show a mildly refined version of my first try. The refinement is a button head screw run sideways between the flashing and block to energize flashing, and the elimination of flashing hanging out. The purpose of this modification was to provide a clip lead that is easily cleaned (bench grinder with wire wheel) which also cleans up the heads every two or three uses. The flashing became a pain to keep clean, the screw head is easy to clean up.
I have found a few things in this process I have not found mentioned before: First, I hate wearing gloves so I dust my fingers with PC from the booth (cat litter box bottom) before handling boolits. Second, I found that when I have a batch intransigent (usually cold) boolits that don't want to take a coat, I make a pass with the low pressure blow gun with the ES energized and then make another pass with the ES gun and the coating becomes *much* more consistent.
For a while I was not acetone washing, but did some basic math and realized it took less time to wash, then it did to fiddle with random problem boolits.
Make four if your time is valuable to you. Two per batch, and two out while baking. Otherwise you will be burning your fingers instead of letting them cool while loading up the next batch. Much less hassle to pop them off a cool block, plus you won't have a hot one fall into the PC on the block.
Larger calibers are quite easy to balance on the heads, but 9mm is problematic. Especially with RN 124gr and similar. Just too long on too small of a head, and the cut sprue usually sticks up just enough to make them unstable. So if you are considering getting into this and looking at molds, 9mm would be the one to get HP. .40 and .45 are easy to balance. 9mm is not. Or at least not for me.
This process can easily be used to make point up for HP, just run the nails all the way through. I am using HF yellow and HF red to make orange for cheep. Yellow is a pain by itself, but the red helps it bond pretty well, and this is all single pass. It takes about 5-8 minutes to prep and coat two fixtures, and I am baking 15 preheated or 20 not preheated at 400 based on the cheapo toaster setting, which appears to be more accurate than the oven thermometer I had hoped to use.
This gives me about 10 min of foot tapping, so I cast alongside the PC setup which doubles the overall efficiency of the process and eliminates foot tapping.