Leaderboard

No, the 3d printed part is the mold for the mold. The lead is poured into Smooth-ON Mold Max 60. Mind you you could possibly do pewter in some resin 3d prints, one resin I have can handle 400f. think of the printed part as a split master and mold box in one

Mark, The way I was always taught to harden steel was to get the item (hook in this case) red hot. Then, quench (dip) in oil or water. Oil is a better choice in my opinion. However, this isn't as easy as it looks. There's hardening and tempering. In order to get the correct hardness you should really know what kind of steel you have. Because if you harden it too much it will get brittle and crack. There's a lot of science to this and I'm not an expert. The other question is what do you do to the attached blade as you try to harden the hook? I would like to see some more responses to this as I would like to learn as well.

Because I’m using 1/2 cup beakers the plastic stays 285-300 degrees until I’m finished; about an hour. I love it. The lid really helps so it’s on as much as possible, such as when de molding. I heat the top of the sand/clay with heat gun and it’s cuts universal heat-up time considerably.

The down side is the short duty cycle, according to the internet somewhere around 25 castings, but for personal use and prototyping that is OK. I was really please that I did not damage the mold master I can always print another but it's nice to get more than one use out of parts.

Ok I need to head into Edmonton on my days off for another big bucket of mold max 30 anyway so I think I will test out a small amount of mold max 60 for a lead mold kinda went crazy in the last 2 weeks and have a handful of prototype jerk baits to mold so might as well try a lead mold well I am at it

Got my first casting of the prototype and it seems to have worked, I do need to test. Just a hair over 1/4oz looking to also have 3/8 and 1/2. The bait is a 6" do-it shad it's serous pike candy. The bottom picture is the mold of the mold.

Welcome to TU. That mold takes a FG-30 weedguard in all the cavities. There is a lot in pouring. Make sure the mold is hot, do some test pours without hooks to see if you get good pours. Once all is hot put the hook in and start pouring. There are a lot of things in pouring jigs. I would start reading the threads here as there is a lot of info on tips and tricks. I would also strongly suggest reading the pinned thread at the top of this forum regarding safety in pouring lead. If you have any questions post them here and someone will help you out. Stay safe and Happy Pouring.