Restoring Old Iron Mold Info Sought

[12glocks]

First post and first a little personal history.

My father passed down to me a number of molds since he said he will never use them again. There is a mix of old Lyman's, one pretty pristine Ideal, a couple old brass molds and some Lee's. Along with the deal I also got a Lee 10 pound bottom pour pot, and ingot mold , a Lyman 450 and some other stuff (oh yea a ladle too).

A long time high volume shooter/reloader in the Bullseye, IDPA/ISPA and clays arena, I am just now delving into casting. It took 7 tries to find a place still parting with WW's but I have found some sources now. I have smelted a couple of 5 gallon pals of lead so far refining my technique as I go. I have also tried casting from some of the molds specifically a Lee 405 45/70, a Lee 9mm, and a rusty old Lyman 220ish grain 45 ACP mold. From what I can tell molds all have there own personality and technique and it is not as easy as it looks. Surprisingly the rusty old Lyman cast great bullets (I was worried the vent lines would not work). FWIW, from what I can tell Lee Single cavity molds get hot real quick and the bullets (oops boolits) will frost quickly, the Lee 6 bangers seem pretty nice, and the Lyman was just nice.

I guess I'll get to my point now. I want to restore the old Lyman molds to there most serviceable condition. I am going to buy a Lyman mold new (probably a 457122) so I can get the factory instructions as to maintenance. I guess I have to oil them after using them, then degrease and lube the sprue plate next time I use them again? But how to return them to pretty condition?

I attached 2 pictures of some of the molds in question. Thanks in advance for any advice. And it's a real nice forum running here.

[Edubya]

Welcome to the forum.
You've got some mighty nice moulds there. I don't think they are in as bad of condition as your post identified them. You might want to do a search for "rust removal", there have been several posts here that addressed this in the last couple of months. I'll see if I can find them too.
EW

[Edubya]

I bought a gallon of this product called Evapo-Rust from Brownells or Midway I'm not sure. It's unreal in what it does. I had some old molds that were full of rust that were given to me and I didn't have much faith in them ever being any good again. After about a 2 1/2 hr soak they came out looking like the day they were made!! You can even get the stuff on your hands and you still have them. I went to my tool box and using the same qt that I soaked the mold in cleaned up several old pliers. The old rust will settle and you can re-use it again. I think it says you can use it until it turns black. I'm still on my first qt so that gal. will last quite a while. If you try it and don't like it I will buy the remaining from you and I don't have a bit of money in the company. That's how good I feel about passing this on.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=60312 The 6th post is the one that I was thinking about.
EW

[454PB]

Welcome to the forum!

Through the years, I've acquired some moulds that were in worse shape than yours, and all I did was use some degreaser, a tooth brush, and fine steel wool to clean them up. In my opinion, the less you have to do, the better. It is easy to damage a mould trying to make it "purdy". If it casts well, I don't really care what it looks like. The right hand mould in the right picture looks like it's been coated with some kind of mould prep. I'd try to scrub that out, I don't have much use for mould prep or smoking of the cavities. I've tried it, and found that it is usually a cover-up for a problem that can be addressed by degreasing, vent cleaning and/or sprue cutter problems.

I live in a relatively dry climate, and leave boolits in the mould for storage. If you live in a wet climate, you'll have to oil your steel moulds for storage, and degrease them for use.

Congratulations on your gift!

[dominicfortune00]

Ballistol works really well also.
I soaked a rusty 9mm Largo mold in it and it came out looking like new.

[beagle]

Don't worry about external rust. Concentrate on the cavities if there's rust there. Remove it gently with a old fashioned pencil if light, a brass brush if moderate and lap them gently with fine valve grinding compound if heavy. Then cast the **** out of them. Lightly preserve the outside with preservative oil while still warm after use and before storage.

On the second casting, as soon as the mould get's to casting temp, it will smoke and the rust will start popping off. Repeat the oiling after use and it will all eventually be all removed.

Sorry, but I'm just not into these chemical rust removers and this has always worked for me./beagle

[canebreaker]

They look great to me. I use a large pencil, 1st grade or carpenters, either one. Color the top of the mold and bottom of the sprue plate then blow off dust. Color in the vents, heavily, then take the bore brush for that cal. and clean out. Color again and blow out. As long as your getting vents to hold lube, you should be good to go.
Screwdrivers are the worse to pry out whatever your molding, boolits or sinkers. One scratch and your product has a line, over fill, from the gap. Alum. molds being the worst for that.
If my product sticks, I use a pair of side cutters to remove it. Trying my best not to touch the mold face.

[Bret4207]

I don;t know where you'd find them anymore, but typewriter erasers had a mild abrasive mixed in that would clean light rust off metal. I don;t worry about it too much though. I have an ancient B+M 45 cal SC. The cavity is rusted and pitted lightly. It casts a lousy looking boolit, but it drops at .454+ and seems to shoot fine.

[12glocks]

Thank you everyone for the responses and the welcome. I guess they are not as far gone as I worried.

I think I will try beagles method first and see how that works. I don't have to order anything and I can try it this weekend.

Truthfully all the cavities look good, it was the vent lines I was worried about. Plus I want them to be around a long time.

There is some strange romance about casting with a mold that is older than I am (44) that I can't really articulate but suspect many of you appreciate.:drinks:

[anachronism]

You can buy new sprue plate & screw kits from most major mail-order houses, like Midway or Grafs. Lyman calls the "mold rebuild kits" (catchy name), and they're really inexpensive.

[shooting on a shoestring]

FWIW after casting, I spray my Lyman moulds with Marvel Mystery oil after they cool enough not to smoke. I don't worry about getting it off, I just start casting with them oily, they dry out quickly and don't give me any problems. The Lees I just let be.

[theperfessor]

Pretty much all good advice here. Just don't use Naval Jelly or anything similar because it will take the rest of the blue off along with the rust - they're both forms of iron oxide. Iron molds will get their own patina with use anyway.

[imashooter2]

Electrolytic rust removal is really a terrific thing for molds. It removes only the rust and it can't harm the base metal at all.

http://www3.telus.net/public/aschoepp/electrolyticrust.html

A quick and easy set up I have used several times:

http://home.comcast.net/~imashooter2/pictures/ERR-out.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~imashooter2/pictures/ERR-in.jpg

The trickle charger shown works over 24 - 48 hours on heavily rusted items, faster on light rust. A 10 amp charger does the same heavily rusted stuff overnight. The higher the amperage on the charger the faster it works, but the wires will need to be larger and the solution boils off so needs to be watched. Use a big enough container.