used and abused!!

[xd45forever]

Bought a old ideal mold at a flea market not in a caliber i can use but i just wanted it to experiment with.this mold was the poster child for what not to do to a mold it was rusty both inside and out and it looked like someone had used a metal object to open the sprue! The top edges were peaned over so bad the sprue wouldnt lay flat on the mold and the sprue was bent and twisted! Now I'm no machinist but I'm very mechanically inclined and i know some on here will cringe at what i did to this mold to make it serviceable! First i soaked it in kroil to loosen the rust an lead then i disassembled it then took a file to take the burrs off the top edges being carefull not to disturb the top machined surface next i layed the sprue plate on a oak board and tapped it fairly straight with a hammer then took a flat file and redneck milled it flat untill i couldn't see light between the srue plate and mold block finally a light lapping of the cavities, final cleaning and testing and it works just fine and makes a pretty nice boolit! It appears you can get away with more than you think as long as you use your head!

[TXGunNut]

Sounds good, now all you need is a gun to fire those boolits in and some dies to load your ammo into the cases you also need to buy. It's quite likely you'll need a powder you don't presently have on the shelf. Aren't you glad you didn't pay full price for a new mould? :kidding:
How about some pics of your handiwork? What's the mould #?

[Artful]

Excellent Save, more than once a project starts with a single object. I have purchased a set of dies and then had to get everything else to go with 'em.

[flyingmonkey35]

Where your before and after photos[emoji204]

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Yeah, I'd surely cringe at most anyone who'd take a file to a boolit mold, BUT...hey, it's your mold, and it sounds like you were successful. So it really doesn't matter what I think. (also some have cringed at a few of my hamfisted attempts to fix stuff lol)


and like others posted here, I'd love to see some photos of the mold and boolits.
Good luck.

[bhn22]

I've filed on moulds before. It's not a really big deal if you know what you're doing and are careful. Nothing pleases me more than to resurrect an apparent lost cause.

Nice save!

[xd45forever]

ll try to get some pics up for ya but while im pretty handy with a wrench im a bit ham fisted with a computer! LOl ill ask the better half to help

[country gent]

Its surprising what you can accomplish with patience and fore thought. In skilled hands a file is a precisson tool. I have some very fine 8" swiss pattern single cuts here that are finer than some stones and do very good at finishing work. Removing burrs dings and mushroomed surfaces is appropriate for a file, as is flattening a surface or recutting an edge. Sometimes the hand tools can be quicker and easier than the machine set-up is. I have fixed alot of mould for friends and individuals ( now called friends I hope) on this site also. dings can normally be wroked out with a small smooth faced punch and light hammer. Rust can be removed with several solvents and or broze brushes, If pitted a light lapping with polishing compound will fix. Sprue plates can be draw filed and lapped to a flat surface. vent lines can be recut with a scribe and square. If really bad a vew thousands of the mould faces and then lapping back to size does wonders. If you have the patience and want theres not much that cant be fixed.

[bedbugbilly]

As they say . . . "never judge a book by its cover". LOL I've seen a lot of used/abused molds that can be brought back to life and cast a pretty decent boolit. I have an old Winchester mold for the 38 S & W Sol. (38 Spl.) that was "rode hard and put away wet". A little TLC and it was put back to life again - cavities aren't pristine but it casts a decent boolit and its nice to cast in it and load them with a Ideal tong.

Congrats on your saving the old mold - sounds like you need to get a new gun to go with it! I have quite a few Ideal/Lyan molds . . . I love the Ideal stamped molds. Put an old Ideal set of blocks next to a new set of Lymans . . . IMYO there is no comparison . . . I'll take the Ideal set every time

[ohland]

rusty both inside and out

Evapo-Rust will take the rust out of the cavities. After the first casting session it should start to re-blue, or aquire browning...

If the cavity is pitted, Evapo-Rust will clean out the pits. You might end up lapping the cavities, but at least they are clean...