Lee bottom pour pot

[Captainkirk]

Yes, and a lot of the new wheel weights are non-lead alloy and stick-on. Hard to get them separated good from bad and the stick on adhesive will play hell with your melting pot and moulds and contaminate the lead.
Pay the piper and stick with a known source of good lead. You'll still come out miles ahead in the long run.

[Hawg]

Don't melt the stick ons in your casting pot. I use a lot of them.

[StrawHat]

Lee products get bashed on a lot of fora.  I like them for what they are, a good entry level product that has a lot of potential.

Lee molds are pretty good kits for the price.  Anytime I get a new one, I cast a couple of bullets and use them to polish the cavities.  I also go over the vent lines with a scribe to deepen them.  I use a fine cut file and make ONE pass over the top inside edge of each mold half to provide adequate venting for base fill out.  I also flatten the bottom of the sprue plate where it contacts the mold.  I sharpen the holes in the sprue plate before I flatten it.  Often, the screw holding the sprue plate will loosen so I fit a lock screw to hold it in place.

Sound like a bit of work but start to finish, about 30 minutes or less.  Once done, I rarely have had a problem with a Lee mold. 

If I were looking for a new casting pot, I would give this one some serious consideration.

http://leeprecision.com/pro-4-20lb.html

Kevin

[mazo kid]

When starting a melt, I turn the heat all the way up. After the lead is molten, I start to cast; when I get good bullets/balls (4-5 casts usually) I turn the control down to about 7. Depends on the size of the mold and the maker.

[Hawg]

I cleaned up one of mine and got a lot of crud out of it. Now it doesn't leak at all but when I make a pour it just drips. Back to the drawing board.

[ssb73q]

Hi, my new Lee 0.457" RB mold arrived yesterday. While all the advertising photos show the vertical and horizontal bar alignment method, this mold uses the cone method. In the past I have had lots of problems with the bar alignment version of Lee molds. There is always a pronounced large seam on the projectiles with the bar molds, the cone method produces better projectiles.

Cast 500 balls this morning and other than the first 2 cast, they all are excellent. Now that I have been using the bottom pour pot more and more, I am noticing that there is significant thick buildup of oxides on the internal pot chamber. Simple wax fluxing doesn't seem to break up that grunge like with my dipper pot. It requires manual scrubbing the walls with a ladle or old spoon. Besides raising concerns for pot leakage, the buildup of oxide must act as a thermal insulator that could mess with heat regulation.

All in all though, the bottom pour pot has really increased my casting productivity compared to the ladle system.

Regards,
Richard

[ssb73q]

Hi, this morning I went to finish casting 0.457" balls for the next shooting season. I got through another 300 or so and then the bottom pour valve began to clog to the point of producing poor quality balls. I also noticed that there was a lot of oxide debris in the pot that fluxing wouldn't clear up. I decided to dump the rest of the lead into an aluminum pie pan. Since the valve was clogged, I had to invert the lead pot. Now I'm faced with disassemble of the pot to clean it and open the valve.

Things didn't go so well in never never land today. 

Regards,
Richard

[ssb73q]

Hi, I took apart the Lee bottom pour pot to clean it out. Opening up the pour valve was a royal PITA, but I now have it cleaned. I think it would be useful in the future to empty the pot and pass a wire through the valve when empty. I ordered a Lee Ingot Mold to allow emptying the pot. That will leave the unused lead in easy to handle ingots compared to a large glob that then needs to be cut up for further loading back in the pot when again casting. I think that part of my problems was allowing the lead to get too hot where it creates a lot of lead oxide on the pot walls and in the valve. I will try casting at a lower temperature in the future.

I never needed to go through all this crap when using a ladle pot.

Do you empty your bottom pour pot when finished casting?

Regards,
Richard

[mike116]

Richard,   I have only fired up my new Lee melting pot a couple times.  I cast 100 .380 rb the other day.   I noticed a lot build up on top of the pot too.  My valve also started running poorly after about 25 or 30 pours.  I bent a large paper clip into a "J" shape that I cleared the spout and valve with.   It worked well and I didn't need to stop pouring and empty the pot to clean the valve. 
I agree with the too hot leaves more oxide build up in the pot.   I poured just a few .452 bullets a couple days later and used a lower temperature.   It seemed to help.   
I am sort of winging it here since I am new at this and don't have a lot of time too mess around with it right now.

[Captainkirk]

That's why I still use a ladle.
Just sayin'...

[AR. Hillbilly]

I recently got a 10lb Lee bottom pour on a trade.  The guy said the valve doesn’t work and he just uses a ladle.
O have buckets full of clip on wheel weights.
I also have a few buckets of shiny new looking fishing weights.
I know nothing about the lead quality of these.
I have separated the wheel weights between hard and soft.
I don’t have a mold yet but that’s next.
I bought the lead for a blacksmith project.
Do I need to find better lead for 454 round balls?

[Hawg]

Clip on wheel weights are way too hard. Stick on weights will work but more and more wheel weights are made out of zinc. Fishing weights are mostly pure lead but are slowly being replaced by other metals. A good rule of thumb is if you can easily scratch it with a thumbnail it's soft enough.

[ssb73q]

Hi AR, you can fix the valve. Remove the screws holding the valve lever. Heat up the pot and pour out any lead in the pot. With the pot hot use needle-nose pliers to remove the valve and clean out the valve opening. Assemble in reverse order and you are good to go. In use, if you find the valve closing up, use a small nail and pliers to open the valve. Slight lead dripping is typical with a bottom pour pot. Just rotate the valve rod slightly until dripping stops.

Regards,
Richard   

[Captainkirk]

Free lead is nice, but both Rotometals and Midway have pure lead ingots that have little, if any impurities and make fluxing a breeze. If it were me, I'd begin casting with the good stuff and save the freebies for emergency or "drought" situations.

[DragoonRick]

On bottom pour Lee pots it’s good to once in a while to take the plunger out . Use some very fine (2000 or finer) to polish the tip and valve hole.