Quick Mold lapping question

[Dimner]

Have a quick question about mold lapping. I've searched and read what seems like 100 threads on mold lapping and I completely understand the process.

In super brief:
Cast a half dozen
drill
screw
apply compound
lap
clean
lap
clean
etc until boolit spins freely
use new boolit and so on...


My question is about the cleaning. Everywhere I read it just says "clean the mold"

What does that entail? A full cleaning with break cleaner? Hot soap and water and toothbrush followed by a hair dryer? A quick wipe down of all the compound with just a shop rag? Something in-between? I will be using valve compound on iron molds.

Thanks gents.

[jcren]

I use soap and water and a tooth brush to clean before recasting to check progress.

[country gent]

Some of the cleaning process will be determined by the lapping compound used, Is it water or oil based? If oil based I would strat with accetone, turpentine, lauquer thinner, or even kerosene. Clean good with a stiff brush ( tooth brush works good) really scrubbing it good. then rub it over with a q-tip and solvent to pick up any stray grit from the surfaces. Clean the toothbrush very good or use a diffrent one and hot soap water scrubbing with dish soap and water. really work up a lather here. Rinse well in very hot water so it evaporates quickly. lube mould and cast

[Bent Ramrod]

Cast half a dozen.

Pick out the two best, drill, attach shank, roll in lapping compound.

Slowly turn lap while squeezing blocks together gently. A few turns and the blocks should seat approximately home.

Open blocks, clean lapping compound and lead slivers off faces, reposition lap, squeeze blocks lightly.

Turn lap, squeezing blocks gradually tighter as the lap turns more easily.

Open blocks, clean faces again, replace lap.

Close blocks fairly tightly, turn lap, squeeze tightly, turn lap maybe ten or twenty times. If the cavity is really trashed, this can be prolonged as you can't really damage the mould at that point. I've spun the lap slowly in a variable speed drill for maybe a half minute at a time to get bad marring down to manageable levels. But for a normal mould in good condition with "issues," I'd go slowly.

Remove lap, clean blocks, cast bullets, look for improvements in bullet dropping, shooting, or whatever improvement you wanted.

You will probably have to break in the mould again if it is an iron one before you get good castings again.

If you need more lapping, take the best two castings out of the batch of new ones and repeat.

I usually keep the extra for just in case; it only gets used if I drop or damage the first one.

Don't overdo the lapping, and get the blocks tightly together as soon as possible.