Originally Posted by WRideout
JB Weld does come in Extreme Heat which is good to 1000F but I tried it and it didn’t stick at all even after cleaning it well. I cleaned a second time with alcohol but I haven’t checked to see if it stuck. It’s in the basement but something tells me it’s not gonna work. The bushing idea I think is the best method.
You might have to sand it a bit to give it some "tooth" for the epoxy to grab onto. Does not have to be rough, just take the shine off of it.
Wondering if you counter sunk the area 3/16" to a 1/4" then filled with the jb weld if that would give enough bond area and thickness. I didnt think the .003 would be enough thickness to get a good repair. Most epoxies need a .010 bond line to get a good repair. Ive worked with way lock epoxy ( an industrial epoxy for installing turcite onto machine members to rebuild) it has a .010 grit in it to maintain the bond thickness.
The above would give more bond area ( sides added in) thickness for the material. and if done right a mechanical lock for the material. You would need to reach in to the bottom corner with a sharp scribe and work in a groove around it .015 deep and wide. This would form a mechanical lock that would hold on its own
If you have a counter sink (82*) you might try counter sinking the hole to where the outside of the countersink is just shy (.010-.015) shy of the 2 edges. this would also give more area and depth to the epoxy, but not the option of the mechanical lock. Get a good rough finish, here chatter would be good. Or lightly dimple ( like stippling) with a prick punch.
Last edited by country gent; 11-09-2024 at 10:35 PM.
Going the counter sunk method you want to have 5-6 coats of wax on the screw threads as they will be cast into the epoxy also. make sure they can be released.
Ang go high on the epoxy and not low, you can carefully file off what you need. I like the countersunk/epoxy solution. Can you tell I am all about cheap? I kind of have no choice so I have learned to do without and make the best of what I have to work with.
Just tap the back corner of the sprue plate (where it go bent) down a couple thousandths till it seats gthe area where you marked. The plate will sit flat and your problem will be solved.
There is no wear on the mold top if you can still see the anodizing all around the pivot.
Most glues and epoxies have to have a certain minimum bond thickness to be effective. Thats where a lot mess up when glueing or filling they push most of the glue or epoxy out with to heavy clamping forces.
Having used steel bed and JB weld to fill holes in vises and machine tables I have found that a small drill point wont hold but drill it 1/8"-3/16" deeper and it does do to more thickness and bond area. Stippling the area also increases the bond area and mechanical lock area, when using stippling the small burr kicked up should be left.
To aid on flat surfaces set parts in a good vise or flat solid table use a plate coated with release agent ( in this case the the actual sprue plate)The a 10-15 lb weight to seat it down and compress the fill in place. This or light clamping will compress the filler making it denser while not pushing it out.
Let cure to full hardness. On some epoxies there is a working time a cure time and a full cure time. Normally the longer cure times give the strogest bonds and strength. As an example The way lock I used was 1 hour working time, 24 hours cure and 72 hours full strength cure. between the cure and full strength it was still shrinking and getting stronger.
Do an accurate countersink at least .030 deep, then use a hardened steel washer. Don't waste time with epoxy.
Spell check doesn't work in Chrome, so if something is spelled wrong, it's just a typo that I missed.
I cast about 300 boolits last night and just as I figured the JB Weld did not last long. Maybe 10 cast and most came off. I managed to adjust the screw to where the plate just sat flat on the mold but was very loose. It was a PIA to use it like that with the plate swinging free all over. Doable but a pain. The bushing is gonna be the next route. I’ve reached out to a tool and die friend who has access to the machine shop where I worked to see if he can do it and if not I will attempt it myself with my own drill press.
You have my number if you need it, use it.
Yes I do. Thanks so much. Appreciate it.
You could just sand down the top of the blocks using a piece of heavy glass, starting out with 80 grit wet/dry sandpaper and light oil, I've used ATF or Ed's Red with perfect satisfaction. remove everything from the top of the mould and clamp both blocks together and sand in a figure "8" pattern, cleaning the blocks every so often, and replacing the sandpaper as needed. It would take some time, but look at all the time you have in it so far. Once you get almost all of the gouges removed from the blocks you'll want to switch to a finer grade of sandpaper and then another until you get a fine finish. Clean the blocks really well before reassembly, you'll want to remove all traces of oil. Easier yet would be to find a local small machine shop that would mill the top block faces for you and be done with it. Keep the value of the mould in mind when you make your decision, I think they're still around $125.00 new, plus shipping.
This is an option that I considered even though I really don’t like the idea of reducing the weight of the finished cast boolit even at a minimum. As far as the price to replace the mold it would cost me considerably more than $125! With the CDN dollar what it is to convert to USD and shipping and customs/ brokerage charges the mold cost me over $340 to my door back a couple years ago when I purchased it.
Having said that, I took the mold to my tool and die friend from my old workplace tonight and he said when he gets time at work he will explore some options to fix it. He did ask me about machining down the whole top flat. It would probably be easiest for sure. Thinking about it for a few hours now that I may tell him to just go ahead and machine it.
I know your worried about loosing weight by milling the top of the mold block. If we consider the diameter of the bullet base is flat and the diameter is .360" than each thousandth you remove would be .291843686 grain if you cast with pure lead. If you had to remove a whooping .005" from the top of the mold block each bullet would weigh 1.4591843 grain less. I bought a used Accurate aluminum mold that had been whooped and went the sandpaper route to resurface. It's tedious as can be. Made sure the alignment pins were fully engaged and used a C-clamp to hold them together and did much like 20:1. Only difference was I swapped ends every 10 strokes so I didn't end up with uneven cut. Checked often with some good dial calipers and straight edge for light gap. You can see very faintly the old gouges and can't feel a dip at all. No light shows either. 2 cycle oil on the top of the blocks and bottom of the sprue plate. A little copper antiseize on all threads and a tiny bit under that sprue plate pivot point and life is good. It's easily my most used mold for 9mm. None of the guns notice a little over a grain loss in bullet weight. Hope this helps with your decision. Good Luck.
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