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jballs918
07-03-2006, 11:36 PM
well guys today was a good day i ended up scoring a new weilder from a friend of mine. so now i need to get a mesk and some sticks. my first project will be a new ingot mold any ideas for one

MT Gianni
07-04-2006, 04:55 PM
Get some 1 1/2"-2" angle iron and cut it to a length that you can store easily. I think Bruce B cut his to fit 50 cal. ammo boxes. Point the "V" up and weld 5 or 6 together on a peice of flat iron. In an ideal set up you can have the flat iron so that it seals off the cut ends of the angle as you have welded them with 1" or so in between them,then invert them and do the other side. You should end up with something like VVVVVV with the ends capped and if the flat iron is tall enough to have an inch or two under the V's for air space, great.
What brand of welder did you get? Buzz box or gasoline or diesel powered. Gianni

jballs918
07-04-2006, 05:06 PM
i got a stick ark welder i talked to blueknight last night and got some good info from him

grumpy one
07-04-2006, 07:34 PM
Get some 1 1/2"-2" angle iron and cut it to a length that you can store easily. I think Bruce B cut his to fit 50 cal. ammo boxes. Point the "V" up and weld 5 or 6 together on a peice of flat iron. In an ideal set up you can have the flat iron so that it seals off the cut ends of the angle as you have welded them with 1" or so in between them,then invert them and do the other side. You should end up with something like VVVVVV with the ends capped and if the flat iron is tall enough to have an inch or two under the V's for air space, great.
What brand of welder did you get? Buzz box or gasoline or diesel powered. Gianni

What draught angle do you use at the flat ends of the ingots? In other words, at what angle do you cut the ends of the angle iron before welding flat steel plates across all of the joined-together pieces of angle? Depending on the lead alloy you're smelting I'd expect you'd need some draught, especially when you consider the rough surface of the steel end plates, if you're going to be able to make ingots of alloys with very little contraction (such as foundry type for instance).

Seems like it might become difficult to weld the end-plates on if the draft angle is large (say 30 degrees or more). You have to reach up inside to weld them to the angle iron from underneath. If you weld from the top it's easy but you get ugly ingots due to the weld bead being part of what you're moulding from.

A key factor in choosing the size of the angle iron, is the size of your casting pot. If you have a little ten pound Lee bottom-pour, your ingots can only be about an inch or so deep, or they won't fit into the pot. The ingot length matters too if you like to run your pot with a lid on, to reduce oxidation and heat losses.

I need some ingot moulds myself right now, and it suits me to have somebody else solve the problems so I can get it right first time.

454PB
07-04-2006, 10:38 PM
Here's a link to a picture I posted showing my home made smelter and ingot mold. This particular ingot mold is only two pieces of angle iron, but you can add as many as you deem manageable. I prefer numerous small ingot molds to a big one that is hard to handle.

http://www.castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=7542

Dale53
07-05-2006, 01:19 AM
Here is an ingot mould that I had made. It casts five lb ingots:

1784


I liked it so much that I had another made by a welder friend. It has a small amount of "draft" at the end plates so that the ingots come out easily. These are made from 2" angle iron. Five lb ingots work just fine in an RCBS pot. You will need to size your ingots for your pot.

Dale53

grumpy one
07-05-2006, 01:47 AM
That's neat, Dale. I think I'll use a little more draught on the ends because I use a lot of foundry type which hardly shrinks at all, and I'll have a try at doing the welding from underneath in case I want to put my ingots in a beauty contest. I'll do some calculations on the right size and length of angle iron to try to end up with one pound ingots, to suit my little Lee bottom pour pot. Using angle iron for the ends is a great idea - makes it easy to carry the mould, and to flip the ingots out. Looks like your triangular ingots should stack nicely, with alternate layers right way up and upside down.

It is very helpful to have somebody else do these things first, so the problems have already been solved.

powderburnerr
07-05-2006, 10:41 AM
I cut a 5 degree angle on mine and the ingots do not stick that way . mine are 10.5 in long and 1.5 in angle . square ends stick for me...............Dean

slughammer
07-05-2006, 05:07 PM
A lot of times you can get free angle by picking up old bed frames. I made a few and I think that more small ingots is better. The latest one I made would do (10) 5" ingots. Angle doesn't matter a whole bunch as long as there is some and its consistent. I use a cut off saw and put a spacer under one end to create the angle.

Dale53
07-05-2006, 06:38 PM
I have many ingot moulds that I have accumulated over the years. Most of them are the one lb types made by RCBS, Lyman, and Saeco. I also have recently purchased a Lee ingot mould as it does two one lb and two half-pound ingots. That coupled with my two "home made" five pound ingots give me a great choice when I am alloying.

I make up relatively large amounts of clean metal in three different alloys:
1 - tin (as it comes in extruded bars
2- Pure lead for alloying with tin for the BPCR's and Schuetzen rifles (I bought this
from a commercial bullet maker and is in the form of short cylinders {extruded
wire that is cut to length before swaging .357 bullets }
3- WW in my various ingots sizes

I don't alloy large amounts of a particular alloy as I load for a lot of different uses. It is better for me to alloy a specific pot full (I have two RCBS 22 lb pots) just before I start. I have a kitchen scales sitting next to my casting station. I weigh out the lead and or WW's on that scale. I put that in my pot and after melted I just "melt off" the correct amount of tin for that particular batch of alloy. I have a small, inexpensive, but accurate postal scale to weight the tin in fractions of an ounce. It is easy, fast, and accurate.

I typically only cast one pot full at a time and keep those bullets segregated and properly labeled in small plastic refrigerator containers (available from the various Dollar Stores for little money. They come with lids and after the bullets are sized and lubed keep dust from the bullets.

Dale53