So the next step after casting boolits is to apply lube to them. There are several ways to do this. I decided to try pan lubing them.
Supposedly that’s as simple as it sounds. You put the boolits in a pan and add some lube. Let’s see how that worked out for me.
Here are 100 boolits in a round cake pan. 50 of each type that I cast the other day.
Do not use your wife’s good cake pan for this. I bought a cheap one at the store for about $2.50.
The next step is to melt the lube. With most lubes you don’t want to burn it, so I improvised a double boiler with an old aluminium pan and a sauce pan.
Again, don’t use your wife’s good cookware.
I then used a turkey baster to transfer some of the lube to the cake pan. I put in enough lube to cover the lube grooves on both styles of boolits.
I don’t really have a photo of this part.
Next I put the pan in the oven set to 250 for 15-20 minutes. This lets the boolits and the lube reach the same temperature and allows the lube to remelt and flow to an even layer.
Here is the pan after removing it from the oven.
I set that aside to cool over night.
The next day I had to remove the boolits from the lube. I decided to make a lube cutter. My boolits are around .455″ in diameter (give or take) so I went to the hobby shop and bought a .500″ OD brass tube. The ID of the tube is .478″, so I figured it would make a good starting point.
I took a couple of maple blocks and used them to apply a taper to the end of the tube by rolling it between them and pushing down at an angle. It took a while, but I got a good taper on it.
I got the ID down to about .455″ at the end.
Next I used my brass chamfer tool to sharpen the end a little. I took a little off the inside, and mostly took material off the outside.
I grabbed my tubing cutter and cut off about three inches. The tubing cutter put a nice roll crimp on the end so I had to open it back up again so the boolits would be able to pass through the tube.
I grabbed an old wooden wheel for a toy and opened the hole up to 1/2″ and used some epoxy to glue it onto the tube for a handle.
Here it is in use. After about four boolits they start coming out the end.
Here are all the boolits after cutting them out. You can see that there is a bunch of lube on the flats of the shorter wad cutters. I think I had a little too much lube in the pan.
And here is the remains of the lube cake when I was done.
Things I Learned:
- Don’t put so many boolits in the pan. I wanted to fit 100 in there, but there was not a good place to pour in the lube, so it was a problem.
- Pre-heat the cake pan and boolits before adding the lube to the pan. Otherwise the hot lube will cool in layers and cause spreading issues.
- A turkey baster is a messy way to transfer the lube. Maybe a small ladle?
- White Label 50/50 lube is sticky.
- It’s probably better to lube one style of boolit at a time. I got a little too much lube in the pan and had to clean off the shorter boolits. That’s what I get for being impatient.
