newbie needing help

[woody wacker]

Hey guys I am just getting started in this pas time. I have a hot pot 2 and lil mac midget molds. I have three cavities and quite often I will have no lead on the hook or very little. Some times all three will be perfect sometimes I only get 1. Is this normal or am I missing something here any help would be great thank you in advance.

[Cray]

Could be mold is cold, could be lead is not hot enough, could be holding mold to far from spigot. Are you using pure soft lead or wheel weight lead? My first suggestion since you are just getting started is practice pouring your mold with out any hooks until you get comfortable doing it. Are your hooks the right style and size for mold?

[arkansasbowhunter]

What cray said. I been there when I started. Fluxed my lead and that helped a lot and I prewarm my mold too.

[STUMP HUNTER]

Cary is dead on right, you just need to get all the pieces to come together right. Another thing is to make sure you have the pot set between 8 to 9 once the lead has melted,.

[ifish]

Lil Mac's are notorious for not pouring right. Everyone I have owned I vented to get the gas pressure down. Of course practice holding the mold at different angels will help. You might try it without the hooks. Some people like using ladles but you can't inject the mold. Most important is being careful. Lots of ways to get hurt with hot lead. I have a few scars and that lead is stupid hot!

[Bobo Greybeard]

Everything that Cray and Ifish said is dead on. I would be wearing gloves the first few times that you are playing with your new hobby. It is extremely easy to get burned doing this. I have scars all over my hands from splash burns. Once you get comfortable pouring, you can take the gloves off if you like. I pour thousands of heads a week and I still get a good burn every couple of days. It comes with the territory. I would just be extremely careful starting out. Also do not keep ANY type of beverage near that lead pot. If you happen to spill it and it hits that molten lead. You now have 3rd and 4th degree burns from a lead explosion.

I hope I have not scared you off with all of the warnings. I absolutely love pouring jig heads and creating new ones. It is a very rewarding hobby and it does pay for its self after a little while. Especially if you have been buying your heads at Bass Pro where they are like 4.29 for a dozen or so of them.

Keep pouring and if you have any questions feel free to ask on here or you can PM me or give me a call.


Stay safe,


Bobo

[arkansasbowhunter]

Good stuff guys, listen as they helped me get started. I still wear gloves. I never knew about water and lead explosion and really don't want to find out lol.

[skeetbum]

If you haven't read up on the water/moisture and lead danger, you need to spend some time reading the past posts about that. On a scale of 1 to 100 it's over 99 in importance. This is serious stuff.
What I didn't see mentioned in the responses was the way the lead enters the gate, or mouth of the mold. Some molds are picky about the lead going directly onto the mold before they will behave, I have 2 that are that way. The lead hitting the funnel before entering the mold sometimes changes things so try hitting the hole straight on and that together with the other things already posted you should find out what is causing your headaches. Keep us posted as we all learn from things like this......Skeet.

[bugman]

All great advice...there is a big learning curve when it comes to pouring clean jigheads working with lead can be very aggrevating when you first start out because it is so finicky and hard to get the hang of the right temps,how each mold pours etc etc etc but with patience you will find ways to make it work.I have sent out 15,000 plus this week alone and I still have my moments just hang it there and one day soon you will "get it"

[woody wacker]

Thank you guys so much. Fortunately I am a fireman by trade so i was pre educated on hot lead + moisture= a really bad day lol. my pot doesn't have a temp knob it just plugs in and heats up I feel like I maybe should have got a better unit. I have to tip the whole pot and turn it over to pour the lead. After pouring more last night it appears that it's an issue wit my accuracy in pouring lol. I'm going to try heating the mold up a bit. It acts like if it hits the funnel that my lead is cooling and not allowing it to free flow down and in my best pours were after I had a tail build up on my spout then I could get it to go right down in the mold.and not so much in the funnel. I apprecite all of the advice, this site has the best group of guys and gals in the world on it.