Lyman Mag 20 Lead pot

[Lead Head]

I am not happy with my Lyman Mag 20 lead pot. It takes forever to get up to heat and then it only gets up to 800 degrees using a Lyman thermometer. The dial suggests it would go to 1000 degrees. Turned up to maximum, it only goes to 800 after several hours.
 
Not that I want to run much more than 800 with some molds, it just bothers me that it can't make maximum and the nozzle drips most of the time and it taks forever to get up to heat.
 
Any suggestions?

[sharps4590]

Give it long enough and the thermostat will burn out.  Instead of replacing it bypass it and plug and unplug the furnace as necessitated by your thermometer.  You'll  be able to get your melt plenty hot.  It's what I did after I got tired of replacing t-stats

[Lloyd Smale]

800 degrees should be hot enough for ANY casting. I thought i read somewhere where you could take the thermostat out and adjust a stop on it to get it hotter but dont hold me to it. Just about all of my casting is between 650 and 700 degrees so i personaly wouldnt worry about it. It also wouldnt take rocket science to put a bypass circuit with a switch around your thermostat. My guess though is if you want to run your pot that hot your heating elements arent going to last long. I had two lyman 20lb pots and mine seemed to have an appetitite for heating elements as it was.

[sharps4590]

Lloyd, I wonder how your pots and mine compare in age and if that could make a difference in them?  I've never had an element problem in the over 20 years I've owned and used my furnace.   But, that furnace of mine eats t-stats like candy.  As I mentioned in my post I simply stopped replacing them.

[Lloyd Smale]

My two lymans each went through an element and one had the thermostat replaced once and one twice. Keep in mind my pots are used probably 3 times a week and those pots were probably 15 years old. that said i bought two rcbs pots to replace them about 5 years ago and both have ran perfectly. there about a 100 bucks more but when i bought them i figured in the long run it would pay off as lyman charges about 125 bucks to rebuild one and rcbs would no doubt do it for free. The rcbs pots seem a bit better at keeping temps steady too.

[sharps4590]

With no words of exclamation....your pots see one heck of a lot more use than mine!!!!!  I did assume that to be true anyway.  For about 5 years I don't believe I turned my pot on.  I was captured in the throes of fishing with vintage bamboo fly rods laced with silk line.  I still haven't escaped the dark side of the benign addiction but have shaken it enough that I share some time with my first passion, collecting and shooting old rifles, and right now old German rifles.
 
I like Lyman but it has always seemed to me that RCBS had the better equipment, molds, furnaces, of the two.  I'm old enough I expect I'll either install a switch on the furnace, I have been an electrician for 35 years, or keep plugging and unplugging the darn thing until one of us dies.

[Lloyd Smale]

being that your an electrician it would be pretty easy to put a digital controler on one. Guys on the cast bullet fourm do it and say it is much better at controling temps without big swings up and down.