GCD

+1 I do the same thing. Sometimes I'll let them soak overnight if the paint is being stubborn.

+1 Your jigs are too hot and your paint is too thick DGTC. Try heating your jigs to 325*F in a toaster oven and dip them in the paint. The paint will stick to the jig but won't flash (melt) and you can very easily clean all the paint from around the eye. Then put the painted jig in a 350*F oven and the paint will flash and you can just cure it for 20 min. I use 2 toaster ovens for painting my jigs, one set at 325* and the other set to 350*. I load 40 jigs in the 325 oven and take them out one at a time and paint and clean them them put it in the 350 oven to flash and cure. This is what one of my 325* jigs looks like after dipping in the powder... note the open eye.

The melting point for tungsten is 6192*F, you cannot pour them like a regular jig. Tungsten jigs are made 2 ways. The most common is to mix tungsten powder with glue and mold it, this will not give you as nearly dense/heavy of a jig as pure tungsten. The second way they're made is by a process called sintering. Tungsten powder is mixed with alloy metals with lower melting points, then pressed into a mold and heated under pressure. This process is very expensive and is where the better tungsten products come from. The hooks aren't molded into the sintered jigs, the head is drilled and the hook is soldered in. Your better tungsten jigs won't have a hook eye, they'll have a hole drilled through the top of the head and out the bottom. The line is pushed through the hole and tied to the jig hook.. There are places on the web to buy unpainted tungsten heads for about $2.50 each, but most of these are the glue and powder heads.

Is 9 1/2 high enough??? I use a hardball mix from rotometals that requires a very high heat because of the 4% antimony in the mix and don't have leaking problems when I keep the plunger plumb.

Your pot is leaking because your plunger is slightly out of plumb, leaning slightly to the left or right at the top. Use a screwdriver in the slot at the top of your plunger to slightly turn and straighten your plunger to the plumb position. Your owners manual will tell you to never hit your plunger to stop a leak... but it doesn't tell you about why it leaks.

The clogging is from dirty lead, flux your lead to clean it. Use a metal tool with a wooden handle (I use a garden trowl) to scrape the sides and bottom of your pot while fluxing and skim all the junk off the top. Clean your spout with a piece of wire, I use an old jig with the barb mashed down and the hook straightened then bent at about a 90* angle. The dripping pots are due to the plunger being out of plumb (straight up and down vertical), use a screw driver in the slot at the top of your plungers to slightly turn and straighten your plunger to the vertical plumb position. This works for me at any temperature setting. Hope this helps.

You sound like a vinyl paint kinda guy that needs a little more ventilation in his paint room. I don't sell my jigs, I make them for myself and to give to friends. But it's nice to know that if I accidently smack one on the side of the boat or get in the rocks they won't chip.

Does anyone else test the strength of painted jigs? I test mine by holding a 1/8 oz. jig as high as I can over my head (about 7') then then drop it on the concrete garage floor, if the cure is good the paint won't chip and the will be a little flat spot on the nose of the ballhead jig. I don't test every jig, but every couple of batches or so I'll test one just to make sure.

No, I'm using Pro-tec and some from TJ's and Chuck and Debs... it's all supposed to be Pro-Tec, but I don't think the stuff from TJ's and Chuck and Debs really is.

I use my toaster oven with an internal thermometer to heat my jigs before dipping, I usually heat 20 at a time... but could heat 60 easily. I heat to 325*F before dipping and then I put them in a second oven at 350* to flash and cure. You could use 1 oven and just heat and dip at 350*, but that's a little too hot for some colors. This is my heating and curing setup. I find it much easier to heat the jigs 20 at a time than 1 at a time. These are the cheapest toaster ovens you can buy at $18 each and the thermometers are $4 each. I use the needle nose pliers for handling the hot jigs.

Yes, same time and temp for a regular over... 350*F for 20-25 minutes. Preheat your oven before you put the jigs in. You may want to put a piece of aluminum foil on the bottom of the oven incase you have any drips. You'll find that your jigs will be much more durable after curing too.

Ok, it had been a while since I'd painted with this color so I went down to the garage this morning and did a few jigs to see if I could replicate your problem... and was successful. I found that on the initial flash of the paint, it is rough... but after curing the jigs in the toaster oven for 20 min. at 350*, they came out smooth and shiny. Cure your jigs and the problem will be solved.

Yes, it is the flake in the paint that feels rough. A second coat will smooth it out a little better, and it'll be real slick with a third coat.

Again!... the hook eye is easily cleaned as soon as it's removed from the powder, clean the whole "eye" and not just the hole!!!

Was it all of the cavities that were coming out incomplete? Or just certain ones? I've noticed that if I pour on a cold and/or windy day, the cavities on the ends will be incomplete more times than not. I know this is from the mold cooling inbetween removing jigs and loading hooks for the next pour. When this happens, I just leave the hooks out of the end pours... but still pour the cavities to keep the mold hot. It takes a little longer to pour a batch of jigs this way, but they all come out real nice.

If the powder is filling your jig hook eye when you dip, you're jig is too hot when you dip it. This is what your jig should look like when it comes out of the powder. A nice even coat with the eye open. I heat my jigs in a toaster oven at 325*F before dipping, and dip directly into the jar. The paint doesn't really "flash" so cleaning the eye is very easy before I return the jig to the oven to flash and cure. I clean the whole eye (inside and out) for a very clean looking jig! I've found that fluid beds are messy, a waste of paint, and really unneccessary.

This works great! I stacked 3 #8 washers under the plate on each screw yesterday, and it gives me about 3/16" clearance for air circulation. I poured some jigs, and instead of having to crank the heat all the way up to 10... I was able to pour at 8.5 with the desired results. Thanks for the idea Mark!

That's a good idea too!

Why not use a smaller 1/16 drill bit and make a mesh panel on the back? You'll have to drill more holes, but it will keep out dust and debris better... and you won't have to worry about somebody sticking something through the holes (a kid). If your lead has a high antimony content, you'll have to turn the heat up higher. I use a "hardball" ballistic grade lead with 6% antimony and have to turn my Lee pot all the way up to get a good pour, if I use pure lead I can get away with a #6 or 7 setting.

I would think that this would be "shot blast" shot from resurfacing concrete floors. If I bought it to cast with, I would melt it down in a secondary pot and flux/clean it real good before putting it in my primary pot!