Care, Cleaning, and Intermediate Storage of Moulds

[Land_Owner]

I am relatively "new" to casting (about a year in), have purchased some older, used moulds, have tried my hand at casting, and find it extremely satisfying and cost effective.  I am confronted with multiple variables at once with very little experience, some bad, which goes immediately to Lessons Learned (LL).  I have a few LL's on other-than LBT moulds but am poised to invest in your better but more expensive moulds going forward.  I have been exposed to LBT moulds by working with experienced casters who have them and find your moulds by far exceed expectations.  However, it has been "good", in a perverse sort of way, to learn lessons on the less expensive moulds and to take forward all good habits in hope to keep the more expensive and more accurate moulds pristine.

What I find now is tiny accumulations of lead in the air release grooves.  I am concerned that steel wool, wire brush, nail, or other similar "hard item", which might be used to scrape these deposits will harm and abuse the mould's internal surface(s).  That would be catastrophic to accuracy.  What do you use?  Is this a product of my own making, i.e. contaminants in the lead alloy?

Also, some of the moulds, steel in particular, gather an "aluminum foil-like" patina on them that is troublesome to remove or explain.  Is this due to poor QC in the alloy, i.e. zinc or other deleterious contaminants?

What is recommended for mould surface preservation between casting sessions?

Once I get beyond these initial stutter steps in casting, to a position of "likely to succeed" rather than "well, I ruined another good mould today", and finding what my guns tolerate well, I will purchase the truly elegant bullets moulds made by LBT.  Money, as always, is an object.  But excellent quality, by far, outweighs the low- and mid-priced "training wheels".

My alloy is 50#'s of non-alloy lead plus 50#'s of wheel weights including clips and (probably) a few zinc pieces that the initial "WW cleaning" didn't catch prior to smelting.  This 100#'s (minus clips) is subsequently made into 2.5# (+/-) air cooled ingots that are subsequently rendered into air-cooled bullets.

Thank you for the consideration of your response.


[LATE NOTE:  I did locate, on this forum, the LBT Mould Care Instructions, which I downloaded and copied for my reading pleasure.]

[Veral]

  When using LBT molds I recommend that they only be kept good and dry during storage.  Where ever LBT mold lube has smeared they are invencable to moisture, but ideally most of the cavities will be clean, and when clean, they are suseptable to moisture causing corrosion.  Just keep them in a real dry place.  In furnace ducks is excellent  during the heating season and all summer if you have a built in refrigeration system.  If the area doesn't cause rust problems on your guns it will be fine for molds.

  About contamination on mold surfaces.  Getting them too hot is what causes lead to solder to them in places you don't want.  Waiting till the sprue is chilled enough that it doesn't smear at all will solve the overheating mold problem and also dramaticallly improve bullet quality compared to knocking them out so fast that the sprue plate smears with lead and drags it across the top of the mold blocks.
  As for removing lead in the vent grooves, get some hard lead pencils,   Art supplies have them.  Go for the hardest.  Sharpen as needed and scrub the lead out of the slots with these.  They will not scratch or remove metal from any mold. 

  If you have a lead buildup on the flat surfaces, lay a piece of 220 gr wet or dry abrasive paper on a piece of 1/4 inch or thicker plate glass, and rub the flat mold faces on it till you ae down to the mold metal.  Do the vent line cleanup after wiping the surfaces flat.  Do the smeared sprueplate the same way, but on them lap until the whole surface is flat, as they are often warped after extensive use, espcially with very hot alloy.

  00 steel wool will clean up most contaminents without damaging the mold if you don't work the sharp cavity edges any more than necessary, as doing so will round them and cause the bullets to develop a seam line, which isn't detrimental  if it's about the same on both sides, as the sizer will smooth it down and bullets will not be unbalanced by it.
  If you get zinc in your alloy you'll know it in about two weeks after casting.  The bullets will crumble if you put pressure on them.    Be sure to pick the unmelted wheel weights out of your alloy as soon as most of them are melted and you should be OK on this point, as zinc melts at a lot higher temperature than lead.  (I'll try to write a little piece on alloy problems soon as possible.)

  I rather like your comment about low priced molds, calling them "training wheels"  Ever watch a kid trying to learn to ride a bike with training wheels and never learning how to balance because he just lets the bike lean over on the wheels?   They are a seriously bad way to learn,.  Double ditto for cheap molds.  If you don't have good molds you are more likely to just give up and never try casting again.   As one gun writer told me many years ago.  Lee has got more people to start casting than all other mold makers combined, and also got more than all other mold makers, to give up casting forever! 

 That comment rang my bell, as I started with a Lee mold, which was a total dissipointment.  But I tried several others with slightly better results,  in which case my dismal results were party due to poor bullet design and not being able to sellect a good design, but also from total ignorance.       But my extensive experiance in the metal working field and 25 years of trouble shooting and fixing  precision metal working machinery, helped me find the missing information.  When i got things going pretty good, I started LEAD BULLET TECHNOLOGY.      So, you are on the right track.  Study all you can and ask if you have any unanswered questions.   

[Land_Owner]

I'm older and sat on the fence for a year prior to jumping into the casting hobby.  I read, and read some more, asked questions, received some very good advice, in particular motivation and encouragement, then gathered my courage and jumped in.  I was serious from the get go then.  So "training wheels" it is and messing stuff up while my Learning Curve is high doesn't deter me as it might others. 

It would be a sad day to ruin an expensive mould because of some proceedure attempted ineptly from which there is no return.  So being forewarned and having some moulds by which to garner experience that neither break the heart nor the bank if they are inadvertently ruined is the intermediate plan. 

Of course, success garners success.  "Training wheel" moulds that morph into favorite loads doesn't mean "and no others".  I like LBT moulds very much.  Your designs are well thought out as advertised.  LBT moulds cast very well.  LBT cast bullet mould lines are sharp and crisp.  I am planning on the purchase of several as soon as I determine which ones.  I like the Keith-style very much.
 
I will look forward to your casting alloy post.