Cleaning up baked on Bees Wax from mold

[jloader]

Truly a newbie mistake... I've overlubed the mold with bees wax and got it into the mold, between mold halfs, plugged up the vent grooves - just about everywhere.
Everything is nicely baked on and sticky.
I've read about boiling the mold in hot water but I'm not sure if that will help with baked on blackened bees wax.
Any recommendations for cleaning it up?
Since it was sooo thick, I've gently used steel wool to get close to aluminum without scratching it on the flat surfaces, but that will not work inside the cavities and vent grooves.
Thanks.

[Ohio3Wheels]

You could try boiling, but if the wax is badly burned it might not work or it'll take a long time, however that is probably the safest thing to try as it stands very little chance of damaging the mold. The wax will float so you'll have to pour or skim it off before pulling the now hopefully clean mold out.

Alternately you could fire up the pot and cast until you burn it all out. Could take a lot of time and lead, drop the sprues and bullets back into the pot as you go they wont be much good for a while. It's possible I guess to over heat an aluminum mold to the point of causing damage. I run some of my Lee's really hot and so far haven't hurt them. I'm talking frosty bullets and 10 or 15 seconds or more for the puddle to get solid, don't recommend it but some of these suckers cast their best boolits that way.

Good luck with the mold whatever you wind up trying.

Make smoke,

[Fyodor]

When you decide to boil the mold, do not put the vessel in the dishwasher afterwards without completely removing any trace of wax before. Even very small amounts of wax can ruin your dishwasher. Don't ask where I know that from...

[Ranch Dog]

I would use odorless mineral spirits. Soak the mold a few minutes in it and then wash it with Dawn Ultra in really hot water.

I use mineral spirits to remove liquid alox and other lubing debris from my presses and floors so my guess is that it will remove the accumulation. In that it is "burnt" or heated into the aluminum, it might take a short casting session to totally remove it.

I use the NRA Beeswax to lube my alignment pins and sprue pivot. I get a small shaving of the wax with a small slotted blade screwdriver, a trace, and then touch the blade to those points.

[jloader]

Thanks for the suggestions!
I've kept the mold in boiling water for about an hour or so with occational scrub with old toothbrush.
The toothbrush really did not like the hot environment - I guess that's not it's normal "operating temperature" he, he.

The water got brownish form the burned on wax so some that tells me that some of it came off - that's the good part.
The bad part is that very little came off and after about 20 minutes there were no more changes in amount of wax that came off.
Upon closer inspection (I put my reading glasses on ), I've noticed that the micro lube grooves were just about packed to the rim with burned wax.
Gently, very gently, I used paper clip to 'plink' out the deposits. Turns out that they actually came off pretty easily without scratching the mold. The mold was smoked prior to wax treatment.

I've done about 50 casts from it and things are... kind of OK. Definitely the vent grooves are still plugged up but they are too small to use paper clip safely.

I'll try the mineral oil tonight.

[Ohio3Wheels]

Glad you're making progress but you want mineral spirits not oil.

Make smoke

[mikld]

I'd try boiling, dish soap and brake clean (not at the same time ). It'll proly burn off in time, but you don't know what kind of residue will be left behind. If a paper clip s too "blunt", try a sewing needle...

Normally I don't use any smoke or "mold release" just a clean mold. I like a good hot mold, just under "frosting" temp...

P.S., not mineral oil. Mineral spirits (aka; paint thinner, solvent). It's a light multi-use solvent good for cleaning and degreasing. Odorless mineral spirits is nicer to use without that lingering "solvent/chemical" smell...

[GasGuzzler]

Mineral spirits, lighter fluid, or lacquer thinner.

[jloader]

Yes, yes, yes, mineral spirit - I misspoke.
And surely my better half just took her sawing machine out last night... I'll steal one of her needles.
The break cleaner did not seam to have had any effect on it. It was great on the initial after factory cleaning.

Update:
So I've soaked the mold in mineral spirit for over an hour - it seemed to have soften up the baked on BeesWax.
Picked up a small brass wire brush at Harbor Freight - now that was a great help. It did not scratch up the mold but it did get into the vent grooves. I was even able to clean up the micro lube bands with it.
The only part that was giving me hard time was the round nose part of the mold. Using a q-tip with some scrubbing did get most of that cleaned up.

Then it was into the break cleaner 'shower' to clean up the mineral spirit residue, re-lube the mold with just a touch of Bees Wax and back in business casting pretty bullets, no more sticking due to Bees Wax residues!!!

Thanks to all for your comments.