Lead casting take 2

[izzyjoe]

you've got to watch out for condesation, like if you're lead was in a warm house, and then brought outside in the cold. but if you will put the lead in the pot before the lead has melted you'r ok. cause the water will dry up. i was pourin' some .50 rb's the other day, and i was dropping two about every 7 second's, cause i count in my head. you just need to get in a rythem, and learn what work's for you. i may be wrong,but i don't mind if the rb's have some wrinkles on them,they still shoot pretty good. folk's have casting over campfire's for year's, and i bet they shot pretty much what came out of them mold. and by the way i'm gona have to send my new.50 rb mold back to lee, it's droping some weird rb's!

 

[Bill Hall]

I wonder if it's possible to give us a close-up pic of some of your bad balls and bullets. That would help diagnose the problem.

But I will say most of the problems with malformed balls and bullets are caused by lead temp being too low. In fact, there really isn't such a thing as the lead being too hot. Yes, if you have less than pure lead, it can cause frosting, but that frosting doesn't hurt a thing, nothing as bad as wrinkled or incomplete balls due to lead temp being too low. When I cast, the temp is up enough to produce a swirly purple color on the surface of the balls. I have cast when the lead was glowing red, just to see what happened. Still made great balls.

Without seeing the bad balls, I'm thinking you need to get that lead temp up. Or just decrease your time in between pours. Hotter lead is the great "fixer" of casting problems.

And as Idaho Ron mentioned, you don't need to worry about splashing a little water on the molten lead. Nothing bad will happen. So it would help to get your bucket of water and towel closer to your pot, so you could speed things up. When I was a plumber, I would cool down the lead pot, so I could put it back on the truck, by dumping water (slowly mind you) right on top of the melted lead. Made lots of steam and bubbles, but no explosion. It's only when water gets under the molten lead that causes a problem. A HUGE PROBLEM!

Good luck. Bill

 

[Greenjoytj]

In my post above I forgot to mention that the continous over pour technique solved my biggest problem with cast balls, that is light weight balls. I was casting with pure lead and measuring the ball diameter with 10 thou capable micrometer.
Doing the math to find the volume of these spheres and calculating what they should weigh, I was getting too may balls that weighed several grains less than their theroetical weight.
So I cut some of these light balls in half with cable shears and found why the balls were light, each one had a void the size of a grain of rice (or smaller) between the center of the ball and the sprur top. I have since learned the this void is not an air bubble but a vaccum void hole formed by the lead when it cools and shrinks.

 

[50cal.cliff]

The first time I was droping them onto a towel but they were putting small scorch marks on my towel and I wasn't so keen on that. Someone else mentioned they droped their rounds into water with a towel on the bottom so I figured that was a good idea as it wouldn't scorch my towel and they would be cool enough to touch as soon as I was finished casting.
If it is pure lead then how much of a temper can it really take?
Maybe some one with some metalurgy skills can pipe in?

See now you have an "old towel" that you can use over and over again! :idunno: :rotf:

Along the lines of the water in a pot of hot lead. When I went into service back in the 70's I went through a utilities workers course where they taught masonry, carpentry, electrical, heating and cooling and plumbing.

The instructor was schooling us in the fine art of leading a cast iron pipe, (there I dated myself). He told us about water in a hot lead pot. He said he had a young lad, that had came through the course the year before. The instructor was telling the class about the water in the hot pot, when the boy decided to see if it was true!

He spat into the lead pot! This is the result and he points up to a heavy gauge metal duct work directly above the hot pot! It looked like it had been shot with buck shot along with someone pounding the end of a baseball bat into it.

The young man's face and upper torso was not much better. They got him to a hospital but he died shortly there after from the burns and damage the flying hot lead had done!

That always made an impression on me as I am one of those who sweats from my head and sometimes I don't even have to be extremely hot to get started.


I never stand directly over a lead pot. That made and impression on me and I never had the need to spat at the pot to see if it were true!

 

[Rifleman1776]

Others have said same thing but I'll repeat for emphasis.
That 12 foot away thing is a big cause of your problems. Mould is cooling between pours. Your lead isn't hot enough to start with.
A pure (old) cotton towel is just fine. Keep it right next to your pot. Forget the water drop thing.
Develop a rythm for your pouring. I don't cant the mould when I pour but I see nothing wrong with doing so.
The cavities and wrinkles definitely are signs of lead not hot enough.
Get rid of the 12 foot walk. You need a faster time between pours.
Methinks you are still over thinking the process.

 

[cynthialee]

OK.
My next try at casting won't be until Sunday or Monday next week. More houseguests on the way, they get here soon.
I love summer and my friends, but this has been a very busy summer and I am not getting in near the time I want for my new hobby.

 

[ohio ramrod]

I "drop" my cast balls onto a WET folded towel right beside the pouring pot. The wet towel prevents scorch marks and the folding gives it a cushion effect. When pouring into a mold with a cut off built in I over pour, and my molds with out a cut off are modified so that I can place them right up onto the bottom pouring spout of the pot for a count of five before removing. This eliminates the void in my balls or mini's. :idunno: :idunno:

 

[mooman76]

I use an old towel folded over. Who cares about scorch marks It's an old towel and after using it for lead you don't want to use it for anything else. When I water drop and I don't often I set the bucket on a chair behind me so I have to turn around but still close enough to the pot to keep the speed up. No real reason to water drop pure lead unless you real just want to. Some disadvantages to doing it. Can't see you bullets right off so if you are messing something up you won't see it right off. I like to put rejects back it the pot right off while they are hot. It keeps the pot level up and I don't have to add lead as often and you can't do that with wet bullets. If a drop of water does splash up on the mould, the mould is so hot it will vaporize instantly so you don't have to worry about that.

 

[cynthialee]

If a drop of water does splash up on the mould, the mould is so hot it will vaporize instantly so you don't have to worry about that.

The entire time I did the casting I had the water splash my mold one time and it vaporized it in a half a second. I waited a minute before I brought my mold back up to temp and started casting again.
I will try the foil on a towel next go around.

 

[mooman76]

Some people take a old towel or piece of blanket and cut a slit in it and put over the water bucket to prevent splashes.

 

[cynthialee]

Some people take a old towel or piece of blanket and cut a slit in it and put over the water bucket to prevent splashes.

That is one of those simple but obvious answers that make me go 'duh, why didn't I think of that'.

 

[Idaho Ron]

It should vaporize. But if it doesn't you have the makings of a wreck in your hands, water under hot lead is where the tinsel ferry shows up. Why risk it if it is of no value? Ron