Smoke a lee mold?

[Vettepilot]

I'm betting this has been covered somewhere but I couldn't find it. If so I apologize.

I am a fairly new caster. I've watched a good number of videos on casting, and many say that smoking the mold is unnecessary. I use all Lee aluminum molds. One of the YouTube videographers in particular, Fortunecookie45LC, seems to be particularly against smoking the mold.

My simple question is why? Are there any negatives to smoking a mold?? If so, what are they?

So far, I have only cast using molds I smoked. The boolits have turned out fine. The boolits are not shiny however. They are not frosted, as in overheated; just rather dull instead of the shiny cast boolits I see in the vids. Is this due to me smoking the mold?

Thanks guys!
Vettepilot
Note: Apparently the only way to contact YouTubers directly to ask them questions is through Facebook, Instagram, etc., and I NEVER use those platforms! Dislike them intensely! So thanks again for any info on this...

[Targa]

From what I understand it can effect the diameter of what the mold is designed to cast, I could be and am probably wrong about that. I have 10 Lee molds and never have smoked any of them.

[Whole Bunches]

I was smoking my two Lee moulds prior to casting. I had not cast during the hot summer months. Your post got me to realize I forgot to smoke them when I started my cool month casting two months ago...I saw no difference! One hollowbase 45/70 and one 8mm. Thank you for your post.

[Cast_outlaw]

I cast a few to heat up the cavities, then smoke my lee molds with a butane lighter. seems to help mine to stop wrinkles and, drop out. haven’t noticed any negative Side affects. just my experience ymmv.

[Conditor22]

IF your mold cavities are 100% clean and have developed a "patina" smoking is rarely needed,

Lately, I've seen that just scrubbing with dawn and a toothbrush aren't quite enough and the use of acetone, brake, or carb cleaner is needed to get the cavities clean.

IF you need to smoke the mold use either a butane lighter or wood (kitchen match or ?) and only smoke the mold lightly IF it needs more than a light smoke there is something else wrong so go back to the cleaning stage again.

Poor release from the cavities isn't a smoking issue, usually, there is a bur left over from machining that will come off easily by rubbing the wood part of a carpenter pencil or other wood items lightly around the rim of the cavities.

[Martin Luber]

Check the Noe website on cleaning and casting tips. I take a cold mould and scrub it with a toothbrush and Dawn detergent, rinse, and put on a hotplate to get it up to 350 F.

You can also use brakleen n t before heating. Not sure that cold spray does it any good when hot but I have occasionally done that too.

That worked on a smoked Lee 32 that cast poorly.

[onelight]

When I have had problems getting them to drop and fill out well I have smoked them I have not seen anything bad from it but there are enough people here that get by without smoking a mold I know it's not the only way to do it.

[cowboy4evr]

I quit smoking my molds years ago . Regards Paul

[Bazoo]

I smoked a mould or two I start, didn't see any benefit or difference. When I stopped trying to use a micro dab of synthetic chainsaw oil to lube my moulds, and started using a carpenters pencil, things went much better. When I learned I could fill the mould cavities with lighter fluid while hot and it would boil in the cavities without flaming, I solved a lot of issues with contamination. I never wash my moulds. I dab the excess oil off and clean with lighter fluid cold, then hot if it seems I'm having any issue. Sometimes I just clean hot. I use mineral oil for rust prevention and it works fantastic, and doesn't cause issues with contamination.

[dkf]

I don't smoke any of my molds including Lees. If the bullets are sticking even with the right alloy temp I'll lap the cavities a little with some fine compound and some previously cast bullets. Lee molds are on the small side anyway so if lapping opens the cavities up half a thousandths so what.

[Tar Heel]

I have never smoked any of my aluminum molds. Not needed.

[Driver man]

Lee recommend smoking their molds.

[rintinglen]

This is one of those things that is so puzzling about casting: what works for some people doesn't work for others. Now I was firmly in the "no-smoking" camp, I had cast for 30 plus years without ever needing it and thought it was, at best, a harmless superstition. But then about 2003 I got a S&W 544 in 44-40 and bought a 2 cavity Lee 200 grain boolit mold that positively refused to cast decent boolits. They were wrinkly, they clung to the mold and were hard to get to drop and were a pain in the butt wwith a reject rate running 30%+. In desperation, I decided to try smoking, I used a wooden kitchen match and lightly smoked both sides of both cavities.

Voila, immediately I saw a big improvement, the wrinkles were greatly reduced and the boolits no longer clung so tenaciously to the mold. The reject rate fell to a more normal 5%+-. Most of the improvement was due to the ease of the boolits dropping from the mold. This allowed a more consistent casting pace and prevented the mold from cooling quite so much while dumping the boolits, which in turn reduced the rapidity of the lead freezing in the mold, allowing better fill out.

Now, do I promise that smoking a mold will have such a positive effect on your casting? No, but it is a trick that you should put in your arsenal for just in case. I have a great many other molds that never needed smoking, and I have cursed a previous owner while cleaning the thick layer of waxy soot from an ebay purchase. However, this one time, smoking did all its advocates claim. In this case, as in so many things, YMMV.

[MT Gianni]

I like to take an old lead pencil to a mold to remove any small burrs, and build up a small layer of graphite. The key to the equation is what diameter the mold casts with your alloy. If you are at spec or under, smoking it builds up too deep of a soot layer reducing diameter even further. If you're fat it works great. Let your mold tell you what it wants for your application.

[bangerjim]

I smoke VERY LIGHTLY!!!!!!!! them Al molds -------1st time only. Smoke buildup on the mold will not decrease the boolit diameter or weight! That's poppycock. Unless you REALLY cake the smoke on! With mine, I can still see the Al metal thru the ever so light coat.

Lee recommends it. Do what you want.............just keep it VERY light. There are more "boogeymen :dung_hits_fan: " out there than mold smoking to mess up your casting!

Have fun! :cbpour:

banger :guntootsmiley:

[45DUDE]

I smoke mine with a candle when needed.

[megasupermagnum]

I've never smoked any of my Lee molds, they always worked great clean. My one and only mold that was so cankerous about dropping was from NOE. Smoking the cavities did absolutely nothing at all. Complete waste of time. That mold simply runs in a very narrow window, likely due to many driving bands, and narrow but deep lube grooves. Temperature control is the only thing I have ever found that has an impact on how a bullet drops from the mold.

[GregLaROCHE]

I’ve never smoked any of my molds, that are mostly Lee’s. When first casting, I usually cull a dozen or so in the beginning. I’ve always thought it was heating the mold up and “getting into the groove”. Maybe without knowing it, I was sort of smoking the mold too. I can’t see any harm in doing so, whether you do it or not on brand new or already used molds. I did once have a new steel round ball mold from Pedersoli, that dropped a perfect round ball the second pour and still does.

[FLINTNFIRE]

Well you guys got me to give it a whirl was hard to light at first and really was hard getting a decent smoke , had a bitter taste and durned tongue feels burnt , was not the worst of it kids came out thought I was smoking pot ( not sure how to get the porcelain and water to burn )
anyway back to smoking that mold I am bound and determined to get it to draw good , now I know why we have to have those californicators warnings about cancer and reproductive harm on everything .

[ebb]

I smoked my mold one the first casting and saw no or very little improvement over casting without smoke. I watched a you tube and the guy used chalk mixed with alcohol and brushed the liquid into the mold, he said to cull the first 2 or 3 casts and then the excess would be gone and it would cast good from then on. I have no idea if this will work or not. I have retired from carpentry, and have lots of chalk from the chalk line tool and thought maybe a good way to use it up??

[Petander]

I do a few pre-heat cycles for all new molds to build some patina. Any material.

All mine are being kept totally clean.

https://i.postimg.cc/qMKqbp2H/IMG-20201230-154351.jpg

[JoeJames]

Got in a new Lee mold 2 or 3 months ago. What the heck I went ahead and read the instructions. It said to clean the cavities with q-tips and lighter fluid; so I did. Then lightly smoked them with a butane long stemmed lighter. Didn't hurt nothing. Been getting superb castings out of it - Lee 430 - 240 gr SWC mold.

[GregLaROCHE]

I just saw your comment about contacting youtubers. Normally you can leave a comment and they can respond to you. Fortunecookie45LC actually replied to me several times a few years ago. Best to ask a question on a recent video, that he’ll be sure to read sooner than later.

[Sig556r]

I smoke mine with a candle when needed.

Same here, seems better than plain lighter.

[Doubles Shooter]

I've never smoked a Lee mold either. 90% of the time the boolits just drop when I open it. Usually a tap with my hand on the handles will do the rest.
274258

[Bazoo]

What alloy you using doublesshooter? Very shiny bullets!

[Bazoo]

Lee recommend smoking their molds. They also recommend using alox bullet lube for lubing the sprue cutter. I tried that when I started too, I liked to never got that crap off my moulds.

[Vettepilot]

Well, I have molds that I didn't smoke that work well. Just the other day I was casting some Lee Key Drive slugs. If a mold IS likely to give you problems, it would likely be a complicated one like that, with the slotted core pin and all. But I didn't smoke this mold, and the slugs dropped easily and came out very shiny.

Mostly I was just curious as to why a very experienced caster, like FortuneCookie45LC on YouTube, would be against smoking the mold. I wondered if there are any negatives to doing so.

The other thing is I machined out an old Lee 9mm tumble lube mold to cast .501 boolits for my 50 Beowulf. I smoked that one before using, and it works great, but the bullets come out dull instead of shiny. Not frosted; just a dull grey instead of the normal shiny. Otherwise, they are perfect. Drop right out of the mold, are smooth, round, and the correct size and weight.

Vettepilot

[Vettepilot]

Well you guys got me to give it a whirl was hard to light at first and really was hard getting a decent smoke , had a bitter taste and durned tongue feels burnt , was not the worst of it kids came out thought I was smoking pot ( not sure how to get the porcelain and water to burn )
anyway back to smoking that mold I am bound and determined to get it to draw good , now I know why we have to have those californicators warnings about cancer and reproductive harm on everything .

Sounds like you are using the wrong rolling papers. It's harder to roll them without the sharp edges tearing the papers, but good papers do smoke better...

Vettepilot

[Doubles Shooter]

What alloy you using doublesshooter? Very shiny bullets!
25-1 pipe lead to tin.

[FLINTNFIRE]

Darn , I had better lay off smoking them for awhile , I have lightly smoked a mold NOE had the smoking them in there instructions when I bought some of there molds , whatever works for each person and if it works for them then great .

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

SNIP...

Mostly I was just curious as to why a very experienced caster, like FortuneCookie45LC on YouTube, would be against smoking the mold. I wondered if there are any negatives to doing so.

There has been some that mentioned Patina in this thread. You may see the patina or you may not, but it will develop on a clean mold after 3 or 4 casting sessions. The Patina acts as a mold release.

Smoke acts as a mold release. Smoke looses it's mold release effectiveness after a while, so you need to reapply it. Smoke will inhibit the formation of patina. That may be seen as a Negative by some...I think it is a negative, but not a major negative. I prefer a clean mold with patina, that I never need to smoke. If you don't mind putting smoke on a mold on a regular basis, then it is not a negative for you...Hence all the conflicting options on the matter.
That's my 2¢

[Petander]

I might smoke this mold if I was casting with cold lead in the wilderness on open fire, surrounded by wolves,polar bears and communists.

https://i.postimg.cc/wMBFSgdH/IMG-20210101-004101.jpg

Any modern CNC machined mold... they are so well made, we don't need to "fix" them.

[Petander]

SwedeNelson
02-18-2013, 11:13 AM
This is my take on smoking after four years of making Aluminum moulds.

When we cut a cavity it exposes new material.
Aluminum starts to oxidize the instant it is exposed to air.
This oxidization seems to be a real advantage to making bullets.
Heating and cooling it promotes this oxidization.

Most casters like to take a mould out of the box and cast with it.
Clean well with soap and water and start to cast.
This is great but your new mould that just came off the mill three days ago
hasn't had time to get that good coating of oxidization - that it needs.

To help kick start "oxidization" you need to heat and cool your mould.
This is were a very light coat of smoke from a BIC or propane lighter comes in.
And I mean a very light coat - something that just looks like a good sun tan.
To much and you sill the cavity from the air and stop the process.
The smoke takes the place of the oxidization until it has had time to form.

This only needs to been done for the first three or four times you use a new mould
After you have got a good coating of oxidization built up you will be well on your way

So smoke does have a place if you use it to your advantage
And it is not just used to cover up a "bad mould"
And I agree "A PROPERLY PREPARED MOLD does not need anything
applied in the way of release agents."

I'm sure I will be kicked in the pants for this but it is what I have seen
and it works 98% of the time.

Swede Nelson

I got this mold yesterday. Not aluminum, not perfect yet but okay, carefully cleaned up, then cast after some heat cycles:

https://i.postimg.cc/zv1pGKWz/IMG-20210101-011941-960.jpg

[rbuck351]

I have a bunch of molds, many that cast nicely without smoke an some that don't cast well until smoked. I'm not able to tell the difference in diameter with a good mic from a smoked or clean mold. I do whatever it takes to get the job done.

[GoldieMI]

I have a bunch of molds, many that cast nicely without smoke an some that don't cast well until smoked. I'm not able to tell the difference in diameter with a good mic from a smoked or clean mold. I do whatever it takes to get the job done.

same here, whatever the mold needs.

[kavemankel]

I have seen many lee molds smoked casting great looking projectiles, i have recently acquired several new old stock lee molds from a friend and am going to clean them as should be done and then try them without smoking as they have a nice shiny patina to the aluminum. it does not look newly machined as in new stock would show. We will see how they work.

[Vettepilot]

I got this mold yesterday. Not aluminum, not perfect yet but okay, carefully cleaned up, then cast after some heat cycles:

https://i.postimg.cc/zv1pGKWz/IMG-20210101-011941-960.jpg

This picture made me think of an interesting twist. That is the possible question of mold anodizing. Anodizing creates a layer of aluminum oxide. This layer of aluminum oxide is very porous when it is formed. The part is then dyed whatever color. The color sinks into the porous aluminum oxide layer. Then, the color is sealed in by either treating the part to an extended boiling water bath, and/or with a sealer. This closes the pores of this new aluminum oxide layer, capping off and sealing in the color dye. (Note that aluminum parts can also be anodized and not colored; just sealed after the anodization without dying the part.)

So if the patina spoken of, and/or a layer of natural oxidation is needed for good mold performance, would not anodizing the mold accomplish the same result?? Which begs the question, is there any evidence that anodized molds work better, or tend to work better right out of the box? Has mold anodization ever been tried?

This is a very interesting question, and I'm anxious to hear input on it.

VettePilot