Ok, first casting session.

[jdgabbard]

Ok. First casting session. After work I managed to break out the pot and mold. Was casting 158g Lee Tumble Lube SWCs. Several things I noticed from my first session.

1) Many of the bullets are wrinkled. Telling me that either the mold or the metal is too cold.

2) The melt is turning blue on me. Is this from the melt being to hot?

3) These WWs when cast weigh more then the advertised 158.

4) I am going to have to spend some more time figuring out the right temp and speed for casting with this equipment.

Just as a quick question. Anyone that has the small lee pot, what temp level do you usually leave your's on when it is a little cold. Yes I am casting outside, where it is in the 40s ATM.

[docone31]

First off, mold is too cold.
I have the 20lb pot, I run it at 8, or 9 depending on the flow that day.
The blue is hot lead. If they were wheel weight, some of the lead is on the surface. Either that or they were more lead than alloy. Might depend on how many stick on weights you had in your melt.

[runfiverun]

mold is definately cold if you are trying to cast in 40* weather.
the blue is from pure lead. which need a higher casting temp and the fact that they are heavy is telling me that you don't have much tin or antimony in them.
that or it is turning blue from the cold.
find a warmer spot,some tin and make sure you have that lee mold clean/real clean.
and get your mold up to temp then run it.

[jdgabbard]

No stick on weights. Only clip ons. I don't see how the mold could have been too cold. But I am sure it is. The sprue plate was definately getting a little to hot. As it was starting to smear a bit. But the boolits kept dropping wrinkled. I had the heat set on about 5 most of the time. Since when I turned it up to about 7 the boolits started dropping somewhat frosted. Another think I noticed was that the sprues were very "thin" Paper thin, I should say. No matter how much I gave them to drink it all just ran off the side of the mold where it ended up in big thick globs. That could be from using to large of a ladle though. I am using a big stainless soup ladle from the Dollar Store that I modified for casting.

[timkelley]

Give that mould another bath, try boiling it for a while in (dish) soapy water and shoot it off with some break cleaner or gun scrubber.

[mooman76]

I usually run my pot in the garage (not in the cold) at about 7.5 or closer to 8 for pure lead. Frost bullets won't hurt a thing. Some casters perfer them. You get better turn out of bullets. You're working in the cold and may have to run a little hotter because your mould will run cooler. Turn the heat up a little and try that for awhile. Then after you get a good run of bullets you can turn it down a little at a time until you are satisfied with the bullets you are turning out. I concer on the blue or purple tint. Your lead is probublt not pure but pretty close. Each WW manufacturer has different weights plus it would explain your heavier bullets. You are moulding for pistol bullets so they can be a little on the soft side and still work.

[Kuato]

Take a toothbrush & scrub the heck out of the cavities with dishsoap & hot water. Dry em out really good & smoke the daylights out of the mold. I had a 30 cal Lee mold that gave me all kinds of problems no matter what I did. Until I did the above. Now the slugs fall like rain & look great! As far as temp, its about in the 50s here & I got my small Lee pot set at 7 to 8. A lil tin wouldn't hurt your mix either from the sounds of it..

[jdgabbard]

Well, I gave it another run. This time I sped up the casting speed. Bullets turned out pretty good. However, this blue stuff on top is starting to concern me a bit. I turn the heat up and I get the blue stuff on top, sometimes has a bit of an orange to it. I turn the heat down to about 4.5 - 5 on the knob and it goes away. But then I get some grey scum like metal on top of the mold. Contamination?

[DLCTEX]

Sounds as if you may have some zinc in your alloy. If lumps appear on top as the melt comes up to temp, or cools down, skim them off. You can still cast good boolits with some zinc contamination, but will have to run hotter than normal. Did you buy the ingots, or melt down the WW yourself? DALE

[jdgabbard]

Melted down myself. I have been sorting through the weights as I went along though. The only ones that I have added that "could" be zinc are the ones that have "AW or AL" on them. And the ones that have a Powder Coat kind of coating on them.

I do get a grey scum on top of the melt. But I am wondering if it is not just the top of the melt getting a bit cold from the cold temp in the air. But I am noticing what I think is oxidation. Should I continue to scrape off, or just leave it on top and continue using the ladle? Out of Probably 10 pounds of WWs melted down so far I have probably 3-4 pounds of clips and this "scum" I am skimming off of the top. Mostly it is the scum.

[Gohon]

I'm getting the impression you're melting wheel weights in your pot and casting directly from that melt. Am I wrong?

[jdgabbard]

Yes, you would be correct. I do not have the ability to cast into ingots at the moment, as I live in an apartment and am using the Small Lee Pot. I am casting on the patio, which I am not even supposed to have a hot plate on. But they don't really seem to care too much about the pot. Atm, anyways. Later down the road. But right now its straight from the WWs to the pot, to the mold.

Off subject, but as for tin. Would stained glass solder work? I am assuming it is 50/50. Approx how much should I add to the pot to get good results?

[Wayne Smith]

First, guys, he's using a ladle, that means he's introducing air into his melt every time he pours.

Your grey on top is tin oxide floating on the melt. This needs to be mixed back in periodically with a touch of wax or other fluxing material. You will soon have a shiny surface back, until you dip for another boolit or two. I just push it aside until I can't avoid it and then flux.

Second, I concur that you probably have a lead rich alloy. That's what the blue/orange/purple coloring suggests. How much lead do you have in your pot? You want about 1-2% tin. Since you don't know what you are starting with, but you do know you have some tin, I'd put in no more than .5-1% tin added and see what happens. Precision is not necessary.

[Hardcast416taylor]

Howdy and welcome to the lead melting sickness crowd. Firstly, are you fluxing at all? I realise you are skimming off clips and floating dirt, but you need to flux to both remove more dirt and keep you ww blend blended. A piece of candle wax or a similar piece of parafin the size of an pencil eraser, and stirred in will produce both a mixing of the alloy and smoke from the melted wax. Either ignite the smoke at the pot with a LONG match or it will ignite itself and scare the bejesus out of you the first time. After the flame dies down you can skim off more dirt that the flux adhered itself to also the ww alloy is stirred back together. I flux about every 30 bullets. I run my 10 lb. bottom pour at about 7 or a little more if it`s cold in the barn. Don`t be afraid to ask questions, there are no stupid questions, only a desire to learn. :castmine:

[jdgabbard]

Yes I am fluxing. Depending on how dirty the pot is I have either used beeswax or ivory soap. I do so about every 20 boolits. I stir it in, and until just "now" I had been skimming off the "tin oxide" That may be why my boolits were weighing about 164gn instead of 158.

As for the tin issue, I guess I could throw in about what 70gn of tin for a 4lb pot? To bump it up a little.