December 2006
Updated April 2007
Hensley & Gibbs Handles -- A note on separating handles from moulds
This article is a work in progress and may be altered or changed in the future.
For years I have hesitated to buy Hensley & Gibbs mould blocks that did not come with handles. As noted in many of their catalogs, Hensley & Gibbs would sell mould blocks when the buyer already owned a set of matching handles. For example, if a buyer wanted another two cavity mould for a different caliber to complement the two cavity block that he already owned, he could save a little money by purchasing just the blocks, and switch the handles between the blocks. You could even purchase the blocks without the sprue plate. I’ve seen this primarily on 8 and 10 cavity blocks. I would never take the trouble, or the risk of switching out sprue plates, but some buyers apparently felt confident about doing this.
Thus, the problem that exists today with blocks that are
sold without handles. Often, blocks and handles will be separated when
sold, in order to maximize profit for the seller. I generally did not see
a problem with this practice until just this year. After finally
collecting all my Hensley & Gibbs catalogs and publishing them on the
website, I noticed that in one late issue catalog Wayne Gibbs offered a new
style two cavity mould. As stated in the advertisement, these two cavity
handles would interchange with any other two cavity blocks of the same late
design as these! The new style two cavity handles are much thicker in
cross section that the old style handles. New style handles will not fit
the old style blocks. You can try and use old style handles with new
style blocks, but they may well be slop in the way they fit. I have not
tried this personally, and may post an update on this in the future. I
think
Unlike 2 cavity handles, the evolution of 4, 6, 8,
& 10 cavity handles does not appear to change, if at all, over the
years. As a general statement, 4 cavity handles from any time period
appear to interchange with any 4 cavity block. April 2007 Update:
There are two styles of 4 cavity handles.
I recently discovered a very early (circa 1938) Geo. A. Hensey 4 cavity mould that has a different thickness handle
than later thick(er) 4 cavity handles. I had not noticed a difference between 4
cavity handles until I examined all of my 4 cavity moulds and discovered
additional sets of thin and thick handles.
I will post a separate page on these two styles of 4 cavity handles. The same goes for 6, 8, and 10 cavity
handles. What does change on the 6, 8, & 10 cavity handles is the
hinge pin style. The earliest design of the hinge pin is a hand made
sealed capture pin, which is the name I give it. I have no idea what
George Hensley called it, but it was clearly fabricated in his shop. What
is significant about these early style handles is that the mould *cannot* open
all the way like later production moulds, this style of hinge pin only allows
the mould to open to approximately 45 degrees. The final design was a standard
“shoulder bolt & nut” that appears on all mid and late production 6, 8,
& 10 cavity mould handles. This style of handle will allow the mould to
open almost 180 degrees. Here are photos
of the old style hinge pin:
And here is Wayne Gibbs email regarding the evolution of the hinge pin from early style to late style:
Tom--this may be
a little difficult to verbalize textwise, but here
goes:
The portions of
the handle that go into the slots in the blocks need to be on the same
plane, since that is where the slots need to be located. The idea of this
early style handle was to use 5/16" thick by probably
1/2" wide flat steel stock. The problem comes when you want to
join the two for a hinging action. Round bar stock was used
and parted in a lathe to appropriate thickness, then these were welded to
the handle tangs so their center line was on the same center line as
the tangs.
This left the
round hinge-pieces half-way above and below the tangs, as you can see in your
photos. A threadless "rivet" type
bolt and a "washer" was turned, and after a lot of
grinding and smoothing was done on the welds the washer was attached and the
bolt was riveted over, then driven back to adjust the play in the hinge action.
One of the drawbacks of this way of building the handles was the blocks
could not be fully opened, which I did not like. My dad said that
after he personally fabricated some by this method, he figured there
had to be a less labor intensive way, so they started using a standard bolt and
nut, with 1/2" National Fine threads. Also, George detested welding, and
we really weren't set up for welding, as we were actually in an enlarged garage
which eventually wound up being in the middle of a residential neighborhood
in the middle of
After this, the
new style individual handles were machined from 5/16" hot rolled
steel. They were slit to 5/8" width up to the hinge pivot area, then
holes were drilled to weaken the hinge circle area, this part was
then broken off (using my arm, a monkey wrench and a large vise did
the trick)-- 12 individual handles were mounted on a home-made spindle, and the
metal shaper was used to plane the circle. The parts were then ground and
polished, then heated red hot in a forge, then off-set bent in a jig (again, my
arms and that big Prentiss vise. Great for your shoulder muscles, but I'm
sure it weakened my mind) Then they had to be bent (heated red-hot again, then
hit with a sledge hammer to acquire proper spacing to fit into the block slots.
Then polish out the imperfections, then heat red hot for the third time to give
a nice blue for uniform appearance, tap and ream the mating handles, and
we were ready for final fitting.
Notice the cross
hole near the end of the projecting end of the rivet. You may already know
this, [I didn’t by the way, T.D.] but this was for the purpose of hanging
the mold from the ceiling via a chain to support the front end of the mold over
the casting bench while in use. We continued to use this cross-hole in the new
bolts for a bunch of years, until I noticed (I became the official repair
dude by default, I guess). Anyway, I realized that absolutely no
mold sent in for repair had signs of any use of this cross-hole, so
we discontinued its use, and absolutely no one noticed, so
apparently no one missed it at all!
I am going to state this as my personal opinion and observation:
A buyer should make every attempt to purchase mould blocks with handles to avoid any fitting issues between blocks and handles.
I have decided to avoid purchasing Hensley & Gibbs blocks that do not come with handles. I have had to modify a few 6, 8, and 10 cavity handles to get them to fit corresponding sized blocks, but I dislike doing this because of the risk of irreversible damage to the handles.
Because of the website, many sellers contact me for information regarding Hensley & Gibbs moulds, and in each case I advise them to not separate the handles from the blocks. I hope buyers encourage this behavior also.
Back to the Hensley & Gibbs Bullet Mould Reference Website