Ogajiga

cadman, nope, still not painting. Your paint jobs are impressive but unpainted seems to work for me. Tried the 1/4 wobble jigs today, & they served their intended function well with less bottom snagging at slower speeds than chunkier heads.

Yes, reduced size inlet gates found on smaller size jig heads especially Pro round head molds indeed require the greater melt drop speed and controlled stream size best served by a bottom pour melter. Small jig heads are best poured with the softest(purest) lead possible, perhaps with 3-5% tin added if available for toughness and corrosion resistance. Too hard lead alloys may cause incomplete mold cavity fill out.

A bottom pour pot might be a better choice than a ladle melter for pouring small jig heads especially 1/16 and lighter. If just pouring for personal use, I'd suggest Do-it RHB series round head TAPERED barb collar molds. Smaller gate Do-it Pro series round head molds are tougher to pour, as are older spike barb collars. I have extra Pro molds, but wouldn't recommend them for beginners.

IMO a good choice oversize hook for a minimal modification fit would be a Gamakatsu 604 4/0 - lines up in cavity very well & just a slight enlargement of eye+leg slot & shank channel would seat the hook. Would probably require hook preheating for full collar fill, tho that might not be necessary for a trimmed collar tie head.

Here's a Cabela's Wobble Jig I just made. Kick nose slightly bent down collar trimmed 1/4 oz. undersize #2 salt water Sickle minimal rabbit zonker tie. This jig designed for skating over shallow HI reefs, its about the best production mold head I've seen for drop wobble potential. Haven't tried it yet.

A wobble drop might be better served with a spoon type lure. Even with a properly designed head, the dressings on a jig would tend to create resistance to side to side action on a drop. It might be possible to jerk jig-gle some wobble into a drop with proper technique.

If the hook snaps at the elbow, a shank bend with pliers on the hook portion inside the head often works for me. Depending on the mold, maybe bending to 45* might be enuf to fit. I don't like to heat either.

For optimum wobble drop I would go with wide, thin, & flat bottom.

In my experience "babbitt" differs greatly in alloy metals composition, and one's use of it can be assisted by knowing the type. Usually, there is a maker's mark and type# on foundry bars, tho as a finished bearing one can only guess. Here's a link to a chart of a few common babbitt types. http://www.babbittrepair.com/types_of_babbitt.htm Generally speaking, IMO, casting with straight tin babbitt is a waste of valuable alloying metals since 5% tin is sufficient to improve pourability and corrosion resistance and 5% antimony adds considerable hardness alloyed with lead. Not sure what role copper has in casting metal alloy composition, anyone?

I've been pouring full time for a dozen years and can suggest that even at the best of times a home hand casting bizness will be marginally self supporting with maybe a bit left over for an annual modest vacation expense. Notice I said "self" as I doubt if one can support a family or maintain regular chunk payments like a mortgage. There are off season slow periods with only a trickle of sales and times that require exhausting all day & most of the evening effort to keep up. Ultimately, profitability is more dependent on marketing connections than work ethic.

If you qualify, Hareline Dubbin offers commercial tier & dealer accounts for a large selection of wholesale fly tying supplies some of which may be useful for jigs. $10 small order fee for less than $50.

I've ported & polished a few inlet gates and it does facilitate melt flow and thus assists cavity fill out, but there might be a larger sprue breakoff scar. I've not tried yet, but would heat gunning multiple hooks set into a mold enable a successful full set pour?

I agree with "cadman" that the hooks need to be pre-heated and the mold cracked. A heat gun or even a candle flame might work as a heat source, and the castings might need to be poured one at a time.

"Fatman", many jiggers prefer EC 570 hooks because they can be bent out of snags, then straightened and re-used. But, I prefer hooks with better bend out resistance - you never know what will bite a crappie jig.

'smalljaw", were the Sickle hooks repairable? I toss bend outs, but off center eyes & points can usually twist into proper alignment with pliers. Tedious, but I like the way Sickles stick & hold. It does appear some of the newer BP(black pearl) finish EC jig hooks are an upgrade quality from the "classics", wondering if their Aberdeen hooks were improved as well.

Great list of 90* jig hooks, but wanted to add that in my experience Gamakatsu 60x and Daiichi 466x are generally heavier wire with shorter legs than standard Aberdeen and might not interchange with EC 570 in certain sizes. Has anyone noticed an improvement in Eagle Claw 570 jig hooks recently? "MadManz" you may not be particular at this time but I would suggest that hook brands vary in quality. I used to choose the cheapest possible until I found out that often "you get what you pay for". On the other hand one can judge that expensive hooks simply aren't worth their prices.

Quote: "Tin is not very malleable and would not work well for sinkers such as split shot." This is true for tin alloys (like 97-3 solders) since other metals added noticeably hardens tin. PURE tin makes malleable split shot similar to soft lead - Dinsmore in particular makes EZ to close & open tin split shot. I too have experienced the tendency of tin & its alloys to void around inserts including hooks. Heavy wire hooks often require pre-heating, & while heating small light hooks isn't always necessary, they will often cast a bit loose in tin jig heads especially no collar types.

Heres the original post thread. http://www.tackleunderground.com/community/topic/16835-wheel-weight-melt-sludge/page__st__-20__p__4__hl__sludge__fromsearch__1entry4

Most of the technical details about metals casting are provided by our premier resident metalurgist, "sagacious". To my memory, the subject of unpredictable alloy melt temps is unaddressed so I'm in the same boat not understanding why but helps to know.

Altho this had been discussed, I think a "sticky" would be of value especially to beginning lead casters. I recently found out the hard way how zinc contamination can mess up a melt, and since then noticed that every batch of wheel weights, without exception, had a few "zincers" mixed in. With "sagacious" help, the problem was identified and keeping WW melt temps as low as possible and postponing melt fluxing till after steel clips and non-lead floaters were skimmed out seems to have avoided zinc issues. To repeat "sagacious" observation, a primary symptom of a zinc contaminated melt would be an "aggressively forming" floating sludge that requires continual skimming and won't respond to fluxing. Pouring quality might be negatively affected. The zinc WWs are difficult to sight distinguish from lead ones, and will generally float on top of a melt with the steel WWs & clips until the melt temp rises sufficient to melt them. The amount of lead containing sludge waste that evolves from zinc contamination is alone enuf to take measures to avoid. Reposting pic of zinc WWs & skimmed sludge.

Casting alloy melting points don't seem to be predictably proportional to the melting points of their separate metals. For example an alloy of 58% Bismuth(520*F) and 42% tin(450*F) is 281*F.

George, as others have posted, remember that stick on wheel weights are soft and could be separated from the hard clip ons. Kinda messy, but the sticky weights can be soaked in paint thinner until the adhesive melts enuf to remove the foul smoking plastic tape. I'm getting 5-10# of soft stick ons per bucket of wheel weights. The recent topic posting about zinc contamination has IMO essential information about wheel weight processing. Mods, how about making the zinc topic a sticky?

I've heard about tin rot when cold, but never experienced it. Pure tin is soft so I add a little bismuth to tin to strengthen some castings, but other metals alloyed with tin seem to negatively affect pourability. Unless one prefers lightest possible weight, bismuth might be a better lead substitute choice. Pure bismuth PROS: melting point 520*= powder paintable, 85% lead weight, non-toxic. Pure bismuth CONS: brittle spike barb collars are fragile, cost $13-$15 per lb. Tin can be alloyed with bismuth in any amount, generally the pros & cons will be proportionate to amount added. Adding tin PROs: toughness, shinier finish, improved pourability. Adding tin CONS: lowered weight, reduced melting points hazardous for powder painting. Altho bismuth(Bi) & tin(Sn) can probably be alloyed & cast in any proportion, I presently mostly use alloys Bi5 Sn95, Bi58 Sn42, Bi67 Sn33, Bi87.5 Sn12.5. I might try alloying 1% bismuth into my pure tin castings to mitigate tin rot.

I would suggest opening a public forum topic to invite the participation of other members experienced in lead free metals casting. First step for anyone interested tho is to decide if they are willing to pay the prices of lead free metals.

The shot lead I used once from diving weight pouches was hard lead and had a lot of oxide dross waste. $1.29 a lb. for scrap is kinda expensive - used tire shop wheel weights is a more economical source of hard lead. edit: the demand for wheel weights being high in my area, I offered $10 more than the $30 going rate if the shop guys would call me when they had a full bucket. A 5 gal bucket yields about 100 lb. of useable lead which comes out to $.40 a lb. tho it does take some time and proper equipment to process the WW into ingots.