In this video, I'm up to my fourth cast with each individual bullet mold. As to be expected, the first few bullets cast out of each individual mold were nothing to write home about.
This was followed up with repeated casts with each individual mold.
I have not been getting the repeatable crisp clean frosty surface definition that I was getting with my previous batch of 3D printed bullet molds.
I believe this is because of the added time it takes to first pull the alignment and hollow pointing pins out their place before I can extract the cast bullets. This is followed by having to reassemble the molds before the next cast.
I thought that by making repeat casts as quickly as I could out of each individual bullet mold I'd be able to raise the temperature of the molds themselves which in theory, should have helped increase the surface definition of the cast bullets.
It was difficult to get a good work flow going to facilitate the warming of the molds themselves. You'll see in the video when it gets past the midway point.
If I went to fast, I'd get the same kind of edge damage at the mouths of the mold cavity that I got with my previous batch of bullet molds. And, if I went to Slow, I'd get inconsistent definition in the bullet surfaces.
I was thinking of modeling some integral slots on each mold half so as to be able to use some standard bullet of mold handles to open and close the molds. I'm reluctant to do that just yet because this would mean that I'd have to re-incorporate some alignment divots onto the inside faces of my mold halves again.
If I do that I won't be able to flatten those inside faces to get a nice tight inside surface to surface mating. I may do that after I've ironed out the two latest bugs I've encountered.
On a bright note: as of this writing, solutions to the problems encountered in this casting session have been worked out.
With my next batch of 3D printed single cavity bullet molds I believe I will have fixed what needed fixing in terms of 3D print accuracy and the negative effects of casting too slow or too fast.
I'm hoping that with my next batch of 3D printed bullet molds it will be like the grand finale.
For the time being though, I have a couple more short video clips to edit for uploading.
Those additional video clips will be coming on the heels of this present video. I hope you can stick around a bit longer.
https://youtu.be/Wgoz__ncL3c
HollowPoint