Cutting the sprue by hand, not with a mallet

Just wanted to share a little tip I’ve started doing recently. Instead of beating the sprueplate open with a wooden mallet or other club-shaped thing I picked up a pair of these heat resistant oven gloves – https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GRC2JS6/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

They were a little tight on my hands at first but loosen up to a comfortable level pretty quickly. Once I get my molds up to around 450 degrees I can open the sprueplate by hand, gripping the mold and pushing the sprueplate with my thumb. If I grip the mold tightly I can feel the warmth but just opening the sprueplate I don’t get anywhere close to an uncomfortable level of heat. 

Unlike oven mitts I can still manipulate the allen keys to adjust the sprue plate bolt if I need to, which should give you a good idea of the detail work you can accomplish in these gloves. The main benefits I can see with opening the sprueplate this way are:

1) a much better tactile feel for when you need to reapply sprueplate lube
2) No more loud whacking with the mallet
3) better control over where your sprue goes. I can gently drop it back into the pot directly from the mold.

Sometimes I’ll get a bullet that doesn’t want to drop directly out of the mold when it opens. Instead of tapping the handles I just use my knuckles and rap on the half of the mold where the bullet is stuck – like i’m knocking on a door. Bullet falls right out and I’m not beating the mold with anything hard. The gloves provide enough cushion I can do this and not worry about my knuckles getting beat up either.