Lee double banger sprue plate removal

[Doble Troble]

Anyone have tips for loosening the phillips head screw? I'm about ready to take an impact driver to it.

The sprue plate doesn't sit flush on top of the blocks and I get variable length bullets as a result. It looks like one block side may be a bit taller than the other.

I'll need to remove the sprue plate before I'll be able to fix it.

[DLCTEX]

I had one I took the vise grips to. The threads stripped out of the block, so I drilled it deeper and tapped it for a longer screw. Dale

[xr650]

Did you try with the mold hot? It seems to work better for me.

[454PB]

I've removed them before. It takes a perfectly fit screw driver. Put the mould in a vice, push down HARD and turn. If it slips and mars the screw head, more drastic measures like vice grips would be required.

[chuebner]

Get the mold hot as though you were to begin casting. Put a drop of Kroil at the edge of the screw and use a good fitting screwdriver, it'll loosen up just fine.

Charlie

[JIMinPHX]

+1 on the vice grips, but plan on buying a new screw if you do that.

[Dye]

Anyone have tips for loosening the phillips head screw? I'm about ready to take an impact driver to it.

The sprue plate doesn't sit flush on top of the blocks and I get variable length bullets as a result. It looks like one block side may be a bit taller than the other.

I'll need to remove the sprue plate before I'll be able to fix it.

Doble Troble
First get a good phillips driver that fits the screw head. Clamp the mould in a soft jaw vice and take a soldering gun and heat the screw a couple minutes and try to remove it . If it don't break loose heat it some more and it will break loose. When you install it put a drop of red lock-tight in the hole and it will stay.

Be Carefull Dye

[Doble Troble]

Thanks very much everyone. I dropped a bit of Kroil on it and came back later and put it in the vise using the handle ends to keep it level, then took a propane torch and heated up the screw for a few seconds and took my best fitting phillips driver and with half a grunt it broke loose.

I put 150 grit sand paper over a flat stone and worked away until score marks were even over the surface. Then 250, 400 and I checked-out the plate itself which turned-out to be as flat as Eastern North Carolina where I'm from now.

I've got it back together again but won't get a chance to try it out until later this wkend.

Thanks again all, you rock.

[Buckshot]

I've got it back together again but won't get a chance to try it out until later this wkend.

Thanks again all, you rock.

...........If you're very lucky it might stay. My money is that it won't and will eventually work loose. Once that happens you're screwed, heh, heh :-) If you noticed, it was a self tapping screw and these are not intended to be removed and replaced.

If it does get loose, just D&T for a 10-24 or 10-32 sockethead or buttonhead screw. Put a wave washer on the new screw. Also D&T in from the side of the blocks into the new threads of the new screw and install a 6-32 setscrew to keep the new sprueplate screw from backing out.

................Buckshot

[sundog]

Vice grips to get the offending screw loose. I suspect from having done more than a few, once it is moved even a little a set screw will be required. I generally use the same screw and washer. I think my supply of set screws are 8-32. If one of them should fail, I can go to a #10 easy enough.

http://home.windstream.net/corkyconnell/mould_pics/Mould_Pics.html

[DLCTEX]

For the locking screw (the one from the side that is added) I like to drop a small piece of brass in before the screw goes in to keep from marring the threads of the sprueplate screw. DALE