Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Something I ran across while casting bullets for the Steyr

Yes, the wax helped a bit. And I remembered this, and wanted to get it down before I forgot it. Again.

Lee molds are made of aluminum, and generally work quite well. Aluminum being the conductor it is, they tend to be a bit temperature-sensitive: if it's cold out, it can be hard to keep them up to heat.

When I started casting these, did all the usual stuff and still had a problem: the damn things wouldn't fill out, every one had wrinkles. Turned up the heat a touch(wrinkles usually from things not being quite hot enough), fluxed the alloy, no good. I was getting both frustrated and ticked off, and finally decided it had to be the temperature. I use a Lee bottom-pour casting furnace that works well, and the highest I'd ever had to turn it before was about 7.5 on the thermostat. And that was on a chilly day(do the casting in the garage). That was where I was at now, on a hot day- the sweat pouring off me not helping my mood- that should have been plenty. But since it didn't, I turned it up to 9 and let it sit a while. After I was sure the whole pot was up to heat, ran a couple of pours to heat the mold back up and after that, Shazam! Perfect bullets, time after time.

All I can figure is between the weight and length of the bullet, the mold just wasn't heating enough at the lower temp. In any case, the higher setting made it work.

Now, I'm off for more naproxyn and bed.

No comments: