LimpNoodle

http://www.wtp-inc.com/home/ Sorry for not including the link. I sometimes forget that not everyone is as engrossed with this hobby as I seem to be.

Better yet. Get rid of the cigarettes. You'll still be exposed to lead spincasting. Your pot is not your problem. Your problem is not washing your hands before you stick a death nail in your mouth. I dearly love a good cigar. But I NEVER smoke a cigar when I'm working with lead.

WTP should be able to provide those for you.

It's a Tekcast 160 gas. Holds right around 100 lbs of lead at least. Opening has to be 12" across. We use muffin tins for our lead. Cheap and easy.

Right now my work shop measures 30' x 60' with a tall roof. It has a 14' roll up door. There are no lights yet since there's no power. I have my Ram 2500 and 24' Sportsman Masters 247 in there. Next year I hope to frame in a 42' x 8' man cave. Going to put in 8' ceiling in the cave. Put work 2' deep work benches on the outside wall where the windows are and put storage on the inside wall. Build in the workbenches and I'll have enough room for all my reloading equipment and tackle crafting stuff. I've got three progressive reloading presses, a single stage and a PW 375 shotshell reloader. RCBS Pro-melt pot, close to 100 molds, painting stuff, tying vise along with all the other "stuff". Going to use every bit of that 42' of workbench.

My Twistech is mounted to a piece of 1" x 4" across the 4" end. Then I clamp the piece of wood to the table. Once I get the new bench built I'll have holes drilled in the bench so I can bolt the piece of wood to the bench.

If I,m casting on a plastic surface I use a large aluminum cookie sheet with a piece of 1/8" plywood under it. I use the cookie sheet no matter what surface I'm casting on. Never rest a hot mold on a plastic table either. Plastic is REALLY hard to clean off the mold. That drip is one of the reasons I upgraded to a Pro Melt. Right now if you shop around you can get the Pro Melt for just over $300 after rebate. Actual temperature control, holds 20 lbs of lead. More clearance under the pot. Has a mold guide, can pour a LOT more lead than a Lee. I could go on but I won't.

If you have wire that already has a loop on one end then you need to put all the parts on the wire and make bottom loop and put the hook on. If you have straight wire shafts then make the first loop and make it the bottom loop with the hook. Then put the parts on and do the top loop. I much prefer to build my spinners from the bottom up as I can make a much more compact spinner that way.

Frankford Arsenal Clean Cast. Uses 1/8th teaspoon for 10 lbs of lead.

I can smelt 200 lbs of scrap lead in about an hour. I use a propane cooker with a dutch oven. Fill the dutch oven with scrap and keep adding scrap as it melts. Oven holds right at 100 lbs of lead. Once the oven is pretty full I flux it with the FA flux. Skim and then use my Rowell ladle to fill the muffin pan. Using the Rowell ladle keeps anything I missed during the skim out of my lead muffins.

I'm close to Dallas Texas. I helped a buddy with a 55 gallon barrel of wheel weights he got for $0.25 a pound. We ended up with 175 lbs of lead and 3/4 of a barrel of scrap. He figured that that lead ran him $2.50 a pound. I turned him on to my source and he's very happy now.

I pay $0.70 a pound for pure scrap lead. My time is better spent playing Diablo III than sorting through wheel weights for a 30% yield of lead.

The EC630/635 will fit in there but again they don't come in black nickel. The VMC barbarian jig hooks should fit with some "adjustment" of the mold. I had some samples of the barbarian hooks and used them in a 630/635 mold. I had to shave down the pin that fits in the eye.

I've got a Twistech and used both the Hagen's and the Boggs. Can't stand the Boggs. The Hagen's is usable. I guess it really depends on what size wire you're going to work with. Since I have no need for anything larger than .041 the Twistech works perfect. I can build about 45-50 spinners an hour on my Twistech. The Hagen's takes more steps to make a loop and doesn't seem to make quite as tight of loops. As stated the Bogg's limits you to a length of just under 6" if I remember correctly,. I'd really like to try the Worth Professional model but $900 is a bit rich. Another options that could work is the Du Bro Ez-Twist Pro barrel wrap tool. I'd really like the chance to sit down with one and use if for an hour. If it makes loops, and it appears that it does that just fine, then it would be awesome for making spinners that require large diameter wire.

Two people and multiple molds really speeds up the process. One person to load stuff into the molds and the other person runs the machine and empties the molds. I've seen close to 1000 slab spoons come out of the machine in a afternoon. 500 jigs in about an hour is possible.

With proper mold pressure you won't have any flash. That's assuming you have a good flat mold that's indexed correctly. You can make the gates smaller when spin casting. Once you get the hang of things you'll find there's very little clean up to do on most items. If you're dipping you'll cover most of it up. If you're using a electrostatic gun then your paint is much thinner and you'll need to do a bit more prep. Mold size depends on what you're casting. Small jigs and stuff under 1 ounce a 9" will work just fine. The exception would be if you're casting something like egg sinkers that have a insert. You need room for that. Only real reason to use a 20" would be if you were making something like lead head A rigs with long wires.

Nope. Smallest part of the product needs to be furthest from the sprue. If you are careful building your molds there's very little cleanup to be done. Also be aware that when spincasting you want harder lead than one would use pouring.

On a 9" mold you're limited to about 12-14 ounces of total product. Use Teflon wire/rod to form the holes in your egg sinkers.

Mold cost varies depending on size. 9" media for a mold is about $25. MAKE YOUR OWN MOLDS if at all possible. You'll need a vulcanizer to do so. But when you consider that many people charge $200-$300 to make a mold it pays off pretty quickly. There's about 1 hours worth of work to make a mold. What size sinkers are you casting? Molds last a long time. I've only worked on a front load machine. But we also used a lot of 15" and 20" molds. I can't imagine using a top load with molds that size.

For jigs,slabs and lure bodies I just use powder paint.

There is a kit for plating lead. As I recall it starts at $600 before shipping and is quite toxic.

You could foil them. No paint is going to equal chrome. I've used a couple that look good....till you put the necessary top coat on them. Chrome is not a color. It's a metallic finish.

As Yo Al said Contenti has Teflon wire in some very small diameters. I use the 1/16th or .0625 when I paint worm weights for use as lure bodies.

eBay always has spin casting machines available. Vulcanizers are a bit harder to find but come up at least once a month. What size you looking for?

Hooks that big I'd use a bench vise.