Lee bottom pour dripping

[sundog]

My Lee bottom pour lead pot is dripping. Ive tried moving the spout lever around and tried moving the rod that goes down to the spout and all to no avail. It still drips.
Im thinkin that the only thing left to do is run all the lead out of the pot and then try to clean the spout.
Anyone got any suggestions.

 

[Grizzled Roberts]

Sundog,
I had the same problem many years ago when a piece of slag got mashed into the spout and the whole furnice emptied out. My solution was to convert my Lee mould to a top feed and use a ladle. I first removed the leaver and plunger from the top, I then removed the bottom plate,
drilled the hole and tapped it. I then turned in a short screw to forever seal up the bottom hole.
Replace the bottom plate and dip out your lead.
While my lead is melting in the pot I prop up the ball mould so that the bottom rests on the top of the lee furnice. This heating of the mould
will produce unwrinkled balls after just a few castings. Pouring lead into a cold mould will take much longer. I also hold the mould over the top of the Lee furnice and I always pour in more lead than is needed to fill the mould. With the mould slighty tilted the excess lead will pour back into the pot. This excess lead will help to remove the air bubbles something the bottom feed can't do. If the furnice temp is the same, if you hold the mould the same each time, you will get a casting of uniform weight ball A much higher percentage than I ever got with the bottom feed.
My first Lee pot lasted about 18 years. I ordered another one and did these modifications before putting lead in the pot!
Some will consider my solution to be extreme, but this is how I solved this problem and what I have been doing for over 25 years.
:thumbsup:

 

[BrownBear]

That can happen with every other brand of bottom-pour furnace I've ever used. The fix is pretty easy, even if you have to do it a couple of times before it completely stops:

Bend one leg of a paperclip away from the body or put a 90 degree bend in any other small stiff wire. With the pot fully hot, carefully reach that wire up into the pour spout and wiggle it around to clean and dislodge any sludge. Might take a couple of treatments, but it should clean things well enough to stop the drip. Just be sure to keep yer fingers out of the way of the lead.

Coming at it from the other end, I've found it helps to scrape the inside of your pot real good once in a while to free up any buildup of crud. I scrape away from the pour hole and up the sides of the pot to help keep it way from the hole. I do it as a matter of course each time I start a new pot of lead comes up to temp, then go ahead and use the wire to clean the spout. Most of your impurities are going to float on new lead, but there always seems to be some stuff wandering around on the bottom of the pot. I prefer to get rid of it before I start casting, rather than in the middle of a run.

Just one of those facts of life, bothersome as it is.

 

[mazo kid]

My 10 pounder sometimes drips too, but I just tap the rod or give it a twist with a screwdriver and it stops....for a while at least. I would heat your pot up, drain the contents, then put some abrasive paste on the spout end of the rod and slowly spin it with an electric drill. This should give a better mating surface in the valve. Some guys put a weight on the end of the handle, even a pair if Vise-Grip pliers seems to work. Let us know how you fare.

 

[Tkendrick]

A lot of great ideas.

I must be lazy, I just let it drip.

I have a pan, usually the lid from a mason jar, and catch the drip. Once the little mountian of lead gets large enough, I just dump it back in the pot.

If it gets too bad, then the paper clip works good for me.

 

[paulvallandigham]

The villain is almost always slag, that gets down into the spout, and keeps the rod from stopping the hole completely. It has to come out.

You can poke at it from the bottom with a 90 degree angle scribe, or any other wire you can bend to let you get up into the spout and knock loose whatever is keeping the rod from seating properly, or simply drain the lead out, and clean both the rod, and the spout from top and bottom. I almost always found the slag on a top edge of the spout, half on and half in the hole. As much as we stir and flux the lead, Its a real PITA to try to figure out where that slag came from.

There should aways be a metal plate under the pot, and it helps to have a peanut Butter jar lid, or some other metal lid to catch the drips. They cool instantly because they are so small, so throwing them back in the pot doesn't involve much work. Just grab the lid with pliers, and dumps the drips into the pot.

 

I never could get good bullets from a bottom pour lead furnace. So I stuck with a ladle and have had very good luck that way. I own both bottom pour and ladle pour lead furnaces. And cast alloyed bullets and pure lead round ball using the ladle method with much success.
As for the dripping from the bottom pour spout I don't let it bother me, when the pile of lead gets too big I just take a pair of pliers and pull the lead pile away and reintroduce back to pot.

 

[cowpoke1955]

I use the paper clip. Been working great for the last 25 years :thumbsup: .

 

[jtmattison]

Im thinkin that the only thing left to do is run all the lead out of the pot and then try to clean the spout.
Anyone got any suggestions.

You answered your own question.

That's exactly what you need to do.

HD

 

[Gus]

Bend one leg of a paperclip away from the body or put a 90 degree bend in any other small stiff wire. With the pot fully hot, carefully reach that wire up into the pour spout and wiggle it around to clean and dislodge any sludge. Might take a couple of treatments, but it should clean things well enough to stop the drip. Just be sure to keep yer fingers out of the way of the lead.

Using the Lee Production Pot IV, that's exactly how I do it, 'cept with BFG's (big floppy gloves). Usually it only happens when I cast wheel weights or some other cruddy stuff. Only once in a great while do I have to empty the whole thing out and do a Sunday cleanin'. Once I flux it good (Marveloux) and my temp. is good (750-850) I get purdy round balls every time.

 

[arquebus]

I did the same modification to my 10lb Lee bottom pour as Grzrob did to his. I have since gone to a cast iron pot & ladle over propane.

 

[pa woods roamer]

Same here...tried putting a bolt in the spout, tried haveing it Welded shut,still dripped, gave up!!It has been Setting on a shelf now and am using a Lee melting Pot, top Dipper type, that I bought in the 70`s...still going strong!!!1

 

[Dances With Coyotes]

Though I haven't used one I've heard of guys taking a small pair of vise grips and locking them on the handle to give it just a little more weight.

 

[gmww]

I do the paper clip thing with welding gloves. Works great.