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It was pretty cool out in my boat shed the other night but I bet I poured 100 1/16 double barb jig heads to get 50 decent ones to make barbs. I use a 10 pound pot on about 6-7. The spout will stop up quite often. I get a good steady flow before trying my pour. I have a good Do-It mold. Any ideas?
Crank up the HEAT and get that mold SMOKING HOT
Fatman posted up a solution for that problem awhile back. You might do a search on it. Otherwise PM him and he will tell you what to do. To me it sounds like you need to make the lead hotter. Crank up the heat!! There was something else that he was doing to with his Lee Pot to get it to pour better. I just cant tell you what it was. Don't Remember. That is the only advice I can tell you.
Redman
Hey
first are you fluxing your lead???? get some candle wax a put a piece about the size of your pinkie finger nail in the pot. Don't freak it will usually flare up in flame by itself. Have a long dowel rod ready and stir it in all in. If you have to do it several times. You'll get a lot of junk come up on top of the lead, skim it off, it's junk in your lead. Just the fact that you keep clogging up means you have some dirty lead. This will help clean it out.
Are you using tire weight lead or pure??? If tire weight add some pure and re-flux. I have an old bass jig with the barb cut off and made into an L shape. Wear heavy gloves and put a pan under the spout - using pliers shove it up the pour spout and pull it out. Get a long piece of spinner making wire and feed it down through the lead lift the handle on your pot and push it out the bottom helps clear the spout.
Some will dis-agree with the next I don't leave lead in the pot. I clean it out after every pouring session - leave the pot on, drain it, pull the metal pour rod and scrape the sides down knocking the slag off. put the wire down the spout and leave it in there. Let the pot cool off totally - then I take steel wool and run it around inside the pot. Tip the pot over and push the jig wire up the spout and clear it out tap the pot upside down and knock anything inside out.
If using tire weights sort them by hand anything with a Z, ZA or ZN get rid of it!!!! It's zinc and will contaminate your lead.
Try all this and see if it helps.
Fatman
Great tips fatman that will fix bandit right up,dirty lead is a serious problem i always clean my lead no matter how clean it looks before it goes in my pot i use a fish cooker and a torch to heat it up clean all the crud off the top flux it a time or two and pour it in a muffin pan i can pour thousands with very few mistakes when i get my lead clean.
great tips fatman and bugman
if it was'nt for you guys and several like you, us noobs would be lost
again I thank you all
We always clean our lead, then pour 1lb ingots. Usually requires little to no skimming later, except maybe if it's collected a lot of dust in the shop after being poured into ingots. We also use a plumbers torch to keep constant heat on the mold and make sure it is HOT HOT HOT before we pour. Can't be too hot in my opinion. Hot molds make pretty heads. I agree with the candle wax tip as well. I also smoke the inside of my molds as well. Candle soot on the inside and the jigs just slip out, no sticking.
I've started fluxing with some dry corn cob grit that I have on hand. Right now I'm doing it in my 10 lb pot as I'm not set up to make ingots yet. I did put my mold upside down on top of my pot once while the corn cob grit was smoking and the next pour seemed to work perfectly. Thanks for the tips. Going to get a fish cooker I found yesterday with a cast iron pot and some dowel rods or paint stirrers.
My guess is that the dowel pulls the wax deeper into the lead? I've always used a giant screwdriver for durability, guess I'll have to give it a try. A Coleman stove and cast iron pot work well for cleaning the lead and it's lots cheaper than the tanks of propane. I pour the sides of the mold full of lead to heat em up, what comes off looks like a printed hershey bar and goes right back in the pot. I always pour a few without hooks first to make sure the mold is hot enough to start pouring. My lead is mixed pure/wheel weights and I run the pot on 9, and half full when done. Ingots work the best and you can take a sharpie and write on them what their composition is, 50/50, pure, w/w, or whatever. Fatman has researched this more than me, this is just some input.
Shortgrub - no problem glad to help, that's why we're all here.
Slabbandit - I don't miss on more than 4-5 pours out of 100's. I'm going to defer to more knowledgeable on this one but there was a post on some of the guys using a mold release spray in their molds.
Not only for info for me but others as well - to you guys that have used it, would this spray help with lead flow inside the mold as well as helping the jigs come out????
Post up some more tips all!!!!!!!!!