sprue plate and mold Lubrication

Getting really close to casting my first boolits. My Lee 45 230gr mold arived yesterday. The instructions say:

"Lubricate your mold. Very lightly touch bullet lubricant to the sprue bushing, 'V' ribs and locating cross pin. Use Lee Bullet Lube #90007. Do not use Liquid Alox as it will bake onto surface and prevent proper closure. WARNING: Do not start casting bullets until your mold has been lubricated"

OK, having no source of Lee Bullet Lube #90007 nearby, what can I buy at Ace Hardware that will do the job?

My advice is to ignore the Lee instructions. The lube recommended by Lee is a beeswax/Alox blend that will make a sticky, burnt mess on your mould, no matter how sparingly you use it.

To get the best results, you WILL need to lubricate your mould or the sprue plate will start to gall and tear up the top of the blocks, and the blocks won't close correctly after a while without a thin film of lube.

Go to the hardware store and get a 2-oz bottle of two-cycle premix oil, any flavor except outboard. Clean your mould, especially the cavities, with HOT water, at toothbrush, and detergent to remove the machining oil from the pores in the cavities, as any slight trace of oil will cause wrinkles and voids in your boolits. Next, take your clean, dry mould, close it up, and dip a corner of it in the molten lead for about 30 seconds. Swing the sprue plate open and dip the tip of it in the alloy for about ten seconds.

Now that the mould is somewhat preheated, take a Q-tip and dip it in the oil so that about 1/8" of the tip turns blue-green. This is plenty. Open the sprue plate and rub the soaked Q-tip over the underside of the hot metal until it's all shiny, then swap ends to the dry end of the Q-tip and wipe it off. Do the same thing to the ribs and cross pins, being careful NOT to get any on the flat faces of the blocks where it can migrate into the cavities. Dip the tip again and apply some around the head of the sprue plate pivot screw, letting it wick into the bushing and wave washer. Preheat your mould again and start casting. When you start to get good boolit base fillout, recoat the underside of the sprue plate again, and you can even do the tops of the blocks of a hot mould as long as the cavities have boolits in them to keep the oil from wicking down in the holes.

I've tried to emphasize how LITTLE it takes, and how using even a hint too much oil can cause casting problems. It is difficult to describe, but if you can see any shine from the oil, you used too much, wipe off the excess with a clean Q-tip.

And don't use fake Q-tips, get the brand-name ones, as the knock-offs will get you burned due to the weak sticks folding up.

I usually do this at the beginning of a session, and again at the end when I'm done to prepare the mould for storage. A new mould may take several applications in a casting session until it gets "broken in".

Hope this helps,

Gear

Synthetic 2 cycle oil. Use very sparingly with a Q-tip, use the other end of the Q-tip to wipe off excess. DO NOT get it into the cavities or use enough that it could migrate into the cavites. Put it on the alignment pins, under side of sprue plate and sprue hinge bolt. Very little goes a long way.

Rick

First, read the Leementing sticky, it's loaded with much information and will allow your Lee mould to be more productive and less troublesome.

Second, Bullplate, available from member Bullshop, is arguably the best mould lube. Synthetic two-cycle engine oil works well, too.

Third, if your mould is not clean or hot enough, expect wrinkled boolits.

Fourth, after implementing all of the above, ignore the Lee instructions.

Last, but not least, read the stickies and spend as much time as possible doing research in the Archive.

Edit to add: Gear and Cbrick type faster than I do.

I love this place. I can't believe how incredibly helpful everyone here is.

Thank you.

Keep that used q-tip by where you cast. It can be used over and over without adding more lube. Yep, it takes that little to do the job. I will use that same one for as long as it holds together. With the small amount of oil it holds I don't even bother to wipe off the film.

Keep it where it belongs, and keep output of the cavities. That is how you get the mould to run like a champ and get good fallout too.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by dbarnhart

Getting really close to casting my first boolits. My Lee 45 230gr mold arived yesterday. The instructions say:

"Lubricate your mold. Very lightly touch bullet lubricant to the sprue bushing, 'V' ribs and locating cross pin. Use Lee Bullet Lube #90007. Do not use Liquid Alox as it will bake onto surface and prevent proper closure. WARNING: Do not start casting bullets until your mold has been lubricated"

OK, having no source of Lee Bullet Lube #90007 nearby, what can I buy at Ace Hardware that will do the job?

---

Hi you have already got some good hints. The big disadvantage with oils or commercial bullet lubes is the potential danger of contaminating the cavities which will result in poor quality bullets. Hence the well meant hint to use sparingly and wipe off any excess before casting. With bullet lubes this is not so easy to detect, but when your mould gets up to working temperature ( around 200°C) the bullet lube will definitely melt and will creep and possibly contaminate the cavities. In my view a better way is to use bar soap or sodium stearate as used in Felix's bullet lube recipe. The melting point is somewhat above 250°C. Here in Germany we can buy plain soap bars without all the cosmetic ingredients often found in the personal care type soaps. The product is basically mixed soaps from plant oils ( coconut) and animal fats but does contain some glycerin as a by-product from the soap manufacturing process. This type of soap is best used as a mould lubricant in the following manner.
1) clean your mould thoroughly and degrease with organic solvent like paint thinner or mineral spirits.
2) warm your mould on a hot plate or on the edge of the melting pot for about 10-15 mins until really warm. Saliva should sizzle when brought into contact with mould surface.
3) now open the mould blocks and rub the soap bar lightly over the locating pins on the inside mould faces and the top side of mould blocks especially the area around the sprue bolt hole. If the soap bar is too large just cut a wedge off this will give nice sharp edges which will allow a more precise application of the soap.
4) now start to cast and if your mould is still fairly hot you should get good visual bullets within 20-30 cycles. If you persistently get poor fill out then probably some soap has contaminated the cavity. The only way to correct this is to let the mould cool and degrease once more before repeating steps 2 and 3.
5) if you plan to go for prolonged casting sessions over 2 hrs. you will find it helps if you re-apply soap to the locating pins and top mould face after 1-2 hrs. Depends to some degree on casting method and casting temperature. The top mould face can be best done after cutting the sprue, but prior to ejecting the bullets from the cavities.

Best regards and happy New Year to everyone.

Adrian, Germany.

Excellent tip, Adrian! Natural, plain Lye soap is available at most "Hippie" stores here in the States, it should be similar.

Gear

Checkout the mould lube instructions I posted in the Lube forum. I originally had problems getting the image to show, but they're fixed now. Here's the link to it:

http://www.castboolits.gunloads.com/...d.php?t=137982

I am sure glad to see so many abandoning the old practice of using various kinds of 'wax' to lubricate bullet moulds. It may have been useful when casting by a campfire in the middle of nowhere, but makes no sense in any situation where actual 'lubricants' are available.

CM

Couple questions on the post above. 1. Why not 2 cycle oil for outboards? 2. Why synthetic, other than a lot more expensive?

Synth burns cleaner in the engine, so when you put it on a hot sprue plate, it doesn't make any crud.
Outboard? I'm 100% sure amsoil marine 2 cyl oil will work.

Outboards are water cooled....the assumption is the oil won't stand up to the same beat as an oil designed for air cooled 2 strokes.

I use Stihl Ultra...in my saws and on my sprue plates.

I remove all the screws in a mold and coat the threads with a anti-seize compound that contains copper or nickle, the stuff you can buy at an auto parts for coating spark plug threads. It is good for 1800F+ degrees, but don't over do it on the sprue screws as it has some oil in it. As far a lubrication or providing a non stick surface, I have found nothing better than graphite, either in the form of pencil lead or spray on graphite.

Quote:

---

what can I buy at Ace Hardware that will do the job?

---

Go to the super market and buy canning paraffin. It lubes and leaves no reside.
After casting hundreds of pounds of bullets - every mold I own (256) has been lubed with paraffin

I too prefer to colour in with a soft lead pencil the sprue plate and top of the mould block too
Don’t migrate to the cavity.
Easy peasy.
Re apply or use a harder pencil to rub off build up if you get too ambitious and get smearies.

Try the pencil lead in the cavities. It lets the bullets drop out as well as smoothing out the cavity surface and in turn the surface of the casting, especially if you have any second or third hand molds that the cavities are a little rough. As you say the nice thing about this method is if you don't like it then it just washes away.

I've had good results with ATF and a Q Tip....

a smear of synthetic gear oil on an old sock.

All of my molds are NOE and Lee 6 cavity. Noe includes lube when you get them, follow the instructions. For the Lee I remove the pivot bolt and check bottom of plate for burrs that will scratch the top of the mold, the edge that slides across the mold is the problem area. Using 400 grit paper and oil break the edges and then lay the paper on a flat surface and de-burr the pour holes. After removing all oil I lightly coat the bottom with Frankfurt Arsenal mold release. Put cotton balls into the cavities and lightly coat the top with the FA mold release. Any excess mold release will wear off quickly in use. When reassembling I put a small dab of copper anti-seize under the pivot point. I use Stihl synthetic 2 cycle oil to lightly lube the alignment pins, the hold down bushing, and the pivot for the sprue cutter lever. Go easy on the amounts used and wipe off any excess. On the Lee molds this has solved the galling problem under the pivot and the scratches on the top of the mold.

STIHL 0781 313 8002 High Performance Ultra 2 Cycle Engine Oil, works best for me

Anti-seize on the sprue pivot and alignment pins, a quick dab and wife on the surface of the mold, blow out the mold with brake cleaner and use. Boolits drop free by themselves and the anti-seize lasts forever.