Our story on the Lee Classic Turret Press Kit continues. There’s a lot in the kit, and we’re presenting articles on each item (links for our earlier Classic Turret Press Kit, its contents, and other Lee-related blogs are included at the end of this blog). Today’s blog focuses on the Lee bench plate. The bench plate allows quick installation and removal of any Lee press, and its price is $39. The bench plate idea is a good one. I own a couple of Lee progressive reloaders and I don’t have extensive real estate on my loading bench. The Lee bench plate is the answer.
Here’s what you get in the Lee bench plate kit.
The Lee bench plate includes the lower plate, two Z-bars, four Phillips head screws, three panhead bolts with washers and nuts, and the upper plate.
The smaller upper plate bolts to the press base (the red casting that forms the base of any Lee reloading press). The larger lower plate bolts to your reloading bench. The two zinc plated pieces are Z-bars that screw into the lower plate and capture the upper plate bolted to the press. The upper plate has several holes that allow it to be attched to any Lee press. You can buy extra upper plates if you have other presses. It makes it easier to change presses on your bench.
The Lee bench plate includes everything you’ll need except the bolts required to attach the lower plate to your reloading bench (that makes sense because Lee doesn’t know the thickness of your reloading bench). You have to drill four holes through your bench to attach the lower plate. Here’s what the lower plate looks like installed on my reloading bench.
The lower plate attached bo my reloading bench.
After attaching the lower plate to your reloading bench, the next step is to attach the upper plate to the reloading press. I installed the upper plate on my Lee Classic Turret Press using the three panhead bolts, nuts, and washers Lee includes. Note that the press is inverted in the photo immediately below.
The upper plate attached to the press. The red arrow indicates the nub that prevents the press and upper plate from backing out. The press is upside down in this photo.
It’s not immediately apparent in the Lee instructions how to orient the upper plate (i.e., which side faces up). It should be installed such that the flat base of the plate is at the bottom, and the two lips on either side extend up. This will be more clear in the photos below.
Once the upper plate is attached to the press, the press and plate are set on the lower plate and the Z-bars can be secured to the lower plate with the four Phllips head screws Lee provides. The Z-bars capture the upper plate, securing the press to the lower plate and the reloading bench.
There are nubs at the end of the upper plate lips that catch the end of the Z-clamps (denoted by the red arrow), so then the Z-clamps are tightened, the little nub prevents the whole affair (upper plate and reloading press) from backing out.A macro shot showing the upper plate nub captured by the Z-bar.
Here’s the press mounted on the bench with the Lee bench plate. It’s a clever approach.
Lee turret press attached to the reloading bench with the Lee bench plate kit (right side).Lee turret press attached to the reloading bench with the Lee bench plate kit (left side).
If you have other Lee presses or reloading gear, you can purchase additional upper plates (Lee calls this part the steel base block) directly from Lee. Lee includes the mounting hardware (the panhead bolts, nuts, and washers) with each additional upper plate. Lee lists the other equipment items compatible with the bench plate in their instructions:
Classic Turret Press
Load-Master
Breech Lock Reloader Press
Breech Lock Challenger
Classic Cast
Breech Lock Classic Cast
Pro 6000 Six Pack Progressive
Red Base Pro 1000
Red Base 4 Hole Value Turret Press
Year 2018+ Pro 1000 Press
Year 2018+ 4 Hole Value Turret Press
Auto Breech Lock Pro Press
Automatic Processing Press & Automatic Case Primer
Auto Bench Prime
If you don’t want to purchase additional upper plates, you can make your own upper plate from 3/4-inch plywood. Lee includes a drawing in their instructions showing the dimensions of a plywood upper plate. That’s a nice touch. Lee also offers information on plywood bases for, as they describe it, “other color” presses. That’s a nice touch, too.
The key question in all of this is: Do you need the Lee bench plate? If you use one press only, the answer may be no. You could just mount your press directly to the bench and not use the plate at all. But if you own other Lee reloading gear (or another “other color” press), you might want to consider the Lee bench plate. Or, if you want to get your press out of the way to use your bench for other purposes (such as cleaning a gun), it makes sense. The bench plate greatly eases removing the Lee press for installing other equipment or to clear the bench. It’s a good idea and good value for the money. It makes sense for me.
Help us out, folks: Hit those popup ads!
Never miss an ExNotes blog:
Check out our other Lee reloading equipment blog posts:
There are a couple styles of these Chinese heaters. I bought the all-in-one, suitcase version. My Chinese heater came mostly assembled and all I had to do was rig up the included exhaust pipe, air intake, output duct, and connect a 12-volt battery. If you’re going to install the heater in a van I think the version broken into separate parts would be a better choice. In fact, maybe it’s the better choice regardless.
My suitcase Chinese heater works okay but you can smell diesel fuel even when it’s not operating because the fuel tank cap is vented. It’s not a strong smell and my shed is pretty drafty. If my shed was sealed tighter the fumes would be more noticeable. The heat output has no diesel smell but it has some sort of odor I can’t quite place, maybe it’s the plastic housing covering the heater cooking off or it could be the smell of air on hot aluminum. Anyway, it’s not an objectionable smell and I remain fully conscious when the heater is running.
Installation was a breeze and only took about 30 minutes. I mounted the unit on two recycled pieces of 2×6 form wood to get the exhaust pipe high enough to go over the shed sill and punched a 1-inch hole in the shed wall for the combustion gas exhaust.
For the combustion air intake I simply strapped the air filter to the side of the heater with a tie wrap. I was kind of excited to see if the Chinese heater would actually heat so I hung the output pipe in mid-air and connected a 12-volt lawn mower battery for power.
My unit came with the cheapest controller available and maybe that’s because I bought the cheapest available heater. I can’t say. The poorly written installation manual gave a “5-push on the unit’s start-stop button while holding the remote control button down” type of pairing instruction. After a few tries I was surprised that the remote control linked up with the heater and could turn the machine on and off. In Chinese Heater: Part 1 I mused about replacing the control with a fancier unit but after seeing the el cheapo in action I’ll just stay with it until it breaks.
These Chinese heaters follow an automated start up process. First the blower comes on at slow speed, then the glow plug (or igniter) starts heating a small metal screen in the combustion chamber. Next, the fuel pump starts pulsing to supply fuel to the combustion chamber. A few minutes after pushing the on button you’ll hear the fuel ignite with a muffled roar and the blower will pick up speed. In the final step the glow plug turns off and the unit burns the diesel fuel from the red hot metal screen. If anything goes wrong with the startup the heater will try again. You really get an amazing amount of technology for 120 bucks.
Of the ten times I’ve started it my machine failed to launch once, but on the next try it was ok. The heater puts out a fairly good stream of heat and in a smaller space it would work well. Unfortunately, my large, steel shed has zero insulation and gaping holes everywhere so the unit had to be run flat out to effect any change in the shed temperature.
It took about 30 minutes to raise the shed temp from 42 degrees to 48 degrees and that was about as warm as it got. That’s still better than no heat at all. I think if I had three more Chinese heaters I could get it nice and warm inside.
Shutting down the Chinese heater takes about 5 minutes as the blower keeps running until the combustion chamber cools down. Shutdown is also fully automated and all you have to do is press the power button until the remote displays off and then wait. It’s probably not a good idea to cut 12-volt power to the unit during shutdown, as the plastic heater housing would probably not like that.
One of the reasons I recommend the break-down version is that you are free to mount the fuel tank outside. In fact, you could mount the entire unit outside and poke two holes for a return air and hot air registers. Mount the control panel on the wall and you don’t even have to go outside to turn the little beast on. Outside installation would eliminate any diesel odors, as you would have only warm air pumping into your shed. The entire combustion cycle would be on the other side of the wall, free to stink up the planet.
Noise is another concern that favors outside installation. My Chinese heater made a bit of noise. You hear the burning process, it sounds like a furnace kicking in but quieter and the blower makes normal blower noises depending on what power level the machine is operating. The fuel pump has a slight ticking noise that isn’t noticeable at high power/high blower speed. As you turn down the heat output the blower gets much quieter and the pump ticking becomes more noticeable. None of this matters in my situation because it’s a shed and I run the heater at full power all the time. The heater isn’t so loud that you can’t carry on a conversation standing next to it.
Once I was sure I was going to keep the little heater I bent a piece of sheet metal to hold the ductwork. Without a brace the hose kind of wiggled around, describing a figure eight in space.
As a test, I marked the fuel level of the see through tank and added 1 quart of diesel fuel. The heater ran over two hours at full power on that quart. Of course if you turned it down like you would in a van or RV it would burn even less fuel. 1.7hz was the lowest power setting, meaning the fuel pump cycled 1.7 times per second. 5.5hz was the highest setting. I’m not sure it works like this but if 5.5hz burns a quart every two hours then a setting somewhere south of 3hz should double your fuel mileage and halve your heat output.
Since the shed is off-grid and runs on solar power I have tons of 12-volt DC power available. There are 12 deep cycle batteries on a rack outside the building and a 12-volt breaker panel but I don’t have any conduit to where the heater is located. These heater units use a good bit of DC power when first starting, maybe 8 amps or so. Once the glow plug shuts off the unit runs on the red-hot screen that surrounds the glow plug, kind of like an old Cox .049 model airplane engine. With only the blower running my 2-amp trickle charger kept up with the demand. If you are using the heater in a van make sure you don’t drain your battery running the heater.
I’ve ordered a temporary, 15-amp, 12-volt power supply to run the heater off 120VAC. Eventually I will get around to connecting the heater to my battery bank. There is a drop of around 1-volt between what the remote display says is available at the heater and the actual battery voltage measured at the battery terminals. I might run some heavier wires to the heater control board. Most likely I won’t worry about the voltage drop because I just like saying voltage drop.
From my online research the only parts that go wrong with these Chinese heaters are glow plug failures and blower motor bearings. These problems don’t seem to crop up until a few years have passed. Parts are available and cheap for the heater so it should last a good long time with regular service. After a few years of running dirty fuel oil the combustion chamber may soot up requiring a clean out. Again, the gasket kits needed for this procedure are easy to find online. There’s a vibrant Chinese heater community on the Internet. It’s like owning a CSC RX3 adventure motorcycle.
The heater works and it produces heat, which is all it promised to do. My unit is rated at 8kw, which works out to 27,000 BTUs. I’ll still need to wear a jacket in the winter. Future modifications may be to relocate the combustion air intake to the outside so I don’t suck my hard-earned, heated shed-air into the combustion chamber and out the exhaust. Maybe I’ll move the whole magilla outside. A carbon monoxide alarm in the shed wouldn’t hurt either. I think if your shed is maybe 20 X 20 feet and well insulated the Chinese heater would work well. If you are into the Van Life thing a Chinese heater could be just the ticket to stay warm without running the van engine.
In the future I’m going to try recycling my used motor oil at 25% used oil to 75% diesel. I have a lot of old motor oil and I might as well use it to heat instead of pouring it into the Autolube tank on my Yamaha like my buddy Hunter does. If you decide to get one of these heaters let us know how it works for you.
Help us bring more stories to you…please click on the popup ads!
Lee’s Classic Turret Press Kit includes their Modern Reloading manual. It’s written by the late Richard Lee (the founder of Lee Precision), it’s the second edition, and Lee’s retail price is $40.98. By way of comparison, on Hornady’s site their reloading manual is $59.99, on Sierra’s site their reloading manual is $39.99, on the Lyman site their reloading manual is $34.98, and on the Speer site you get the load data for free (it’s published on their site). You can also purchase the Lee manual on Amazon; oddly, the price on Amazon is higher than it is on the Lee website.
The Lee reloading manual is comparable in heft and contents to other big reloading manuals. It’s a hardcover book with 692 pages and several chapters on various reloading topics, including basic instructions and more in-depth discussions of advanced reloading topics. Richard Lee wrote the first parts covering various topics including the company’s history, Lee’s reloading equipment, primers and primer sensitivity (this was extremely interesting), how to reload, reloading for best accuracy, rifle reloading, handgun relaoding, measuring powder, powder safety, pressure issues, matching bullet metal to chamber pressure, hardness testing, bullet casting and sizing, shotgun reloading, and muzzle loading. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Lee’s articles. They are written in a folksy, technical, and easy to follow manner. It’s like having a conversation with one of my shooting buddies. That, all by itself, is a good reason to buy the Lee reloading manual.
A load table inside the Lee reloading manual showing some of the date it contains that other reloading manuals do not. This includes the starting charge volume, the Lee dipper number, the Lee Auto-Disk number, and the 1 Grain Factors.
The load data tables start on Page 161 and continue to Page 686 (the load tables comprise most of the book). These are interesting and they include several bits of data not found in other reloading manuals. There’s the usual dimensioned cartridge drawings, starting load and max loads, the pressure, and the velocities, and then there’s more. These additional pieces of information not usually found in other reloading manuals are:
Useful Case Capacity. On each of the load table cartridge drawings, Lee includes the useful case volume in cubic centimeters. Why this is useful will be apparent when you read the next bulleted statement.
Volume cc. This table entry, immediately to the right of the starting load, shows the volume occupied by the starting charge. You can compare this to the useful case capacity info (see above) included in the cartridge drawing to get an idea of how full the cartridge case will be at the starting charge. Usually, a cartridge will perform better if the case is full or nearly full. I’ve not seen this information in other reloading manuals. I think it’s a good thing to know when selecting which powder to use.
Lee Dipper. Lee manufactures different size powder dippers. The powder dipper is basically a yellow plastic spoon used to scoop a known volume of powder. Some reloaders use this approach rather than using a powder dispenser or a scale, but others do. Dippers are included with Lee dies, and you can also buy a set of different sized dippers separately. It’s not the powder measurement and dispensing approach I used, but I found the data interesting. I’ve never seen this data in other load manuals.
Auto-Disk. Lee makes an Auto-Disk Powder Measure. It’s a device that uses a sliding disk with different volume chambers (or cavities) in it to control the volume of powder dispensed by their Auto-Disk Powder Measure. These cavities are denoted by decimal numbers. The Lee reloading manual tables identify the appropriate Auto-Disk to use with charges included in the table. I’ve never seen this data in other manuals.
1 Grain Factor. This is another bit of data not included in any other reloading manual I’ve ever seen. The 1 Grain Factor can be used to show velocity reduction if the maximum powder charge is decreased by one grain. You take the maximum velocity, multiply it by the 1 Grain Factor, and it will show the decrease in velocity that will be realized by reducing the powder charge 1 grain. There’s a similar 1 Grain Factor included that can be used to calculate pressure reduction for a 1 grain powder reduction The 1 Grain Factors are not included for every cartridge (they are included for the hotter magnum cartridges such as .44 Magnum and 7mm Remington Magnum).
A Lee dipper included with a set of Lee reloading dies. The dipper is a powder scoop. You can also buy the dippers separately.An earlier Lee Auto-Disk Powder dispenser. This powder dispensing approach used disks (see lower arrow) installed in the dispenser (see upper arrow). The disks contained different cavities that dispensed different powder volumes.A Lee Auto-Disk powder disk, as seen from below. The cylindrical openings collect different volumes of powder from the Auto-Disk hopper. Selecting different openings will dispense different charges.Lee Auto-Disk powder disk as seen from above. The volume designator for each cavity is identified on the disk top. The Lee reloading manual shows which opening to use for a selected powder charge. No other reloading manual contains this information.
The Lee manual breaks with typical reloading manuals on the order in which loads are shown. In other manuals, the cartridge sequence is organized by bullet diameter, and then within each bullet diameter category, by cartridge maximum velocity. There is a table of contents in the Lee manual (it’s on Pages 159-160) showing all the cartridges included in the Lee manual and where their load data appears.
If you are a reloader who enjoys getting into the more technical aspects of load development (and what reloader isn’t?) I believe you will thoroughly enjoy Lee’s Modern Reloading. I think it’s a first-class work as good as or better than the manuals from Lyman, Sierra, Hornady, and other reloading manual publishers. It’s money well spent, and when you purchase Lee’s Classic Turret Press Kit, you basically get it for free.
It’s starting to get a little cold here at Tinfiny Ranch. Our nights drop to the mid 20’s and the sunny days top out somewhere in the mid 50’s. That’s not very cold compared to the northern states but it’s still cold enough to make working in the shed less than comfortable. Part of the problem is the shed itself: Made of thin sheet metal with zero insulation, the inside of the shed tends to mirror the outside temperature within a few degrees. Before you tell me to insulate the shed know that it costs nearly as much as the shed to insulate the thing and that I am thrifty.
I suffer in the cold of winter and in the heat of summer. Summer isn’t as bad because I can open the four big roll-up doors and get some air moving through the building. Winter is harder to deal with so I bought one of those Chinese diesel heaters that you’ve read about in all the larger heater-centric publications like “Chinese Heater Digest” or “Hot Asians!” magazines. I took the plunge into oil burning and am here to tell you about it.
Chinese diesel heaters have a huge YouTube community. There are hundreds of videos describing installation, modification, how to burn waste oil, hydraulic oil and any other type of oil. The phrase “Chinese heater” encompasses dozens of factories producing hundreds of Webasco and Espar clones. The price difference is incredible: A real Webasco 2000-watt diesel heater will cost around $1300 while I picked up the 8kw Vevor clone version for $119 with shipping included. You have to really dislike China to pay $1200 more for essentially the same item. The build quality is slightly better on the brand name units but functionally they are the same. You can find comparison videos on YouTube if you are interested in the minor differences.
Normally I buy a lot of junk from Amazon. I know I shouldn’t because Bezos has all the money and maybe it would be better if we spread it around a bit. For the Chinese heater purchase I decided to try EBay and give a different multi-billionaire my money. Unfortunately, the ultra low price I paid blinded me to some important control module downgrades. Anyway, Bezos gave Dolly Parton 100 million dollars for her charity work so he’s back in my good graces.
My EBay heater came securely packed with only minor damage to one of the mounting flanges. Everything you need for installation was included except for two triple A batteries for the remote control and diesel fuel for the tank.
The instruction manual’s translation was in the style of a 1960’s Japanese motorcycle owner’s manual and if anything was even more cryptic. I found it easier to watch several YouTube videos as the manual was nearly useless.
The cheaper, cheap Vevor Chinese version I bought came with the simplest control. A large push button turned the heater on and off. A remote control allows for changing power output by speeding up or slowing down the fuel pump (measured in pump-cycle hz). The startup and shutdown sequence is fully automated and several steps long. This is where I wish I had the better control panel as it shows each step of the process. I am kind of in the dark with the controller supplied. I’m never sure what the thing is doing or where in the sequence we are. It costs $30 for the good controller, negating any money I saved getting the cheaper, cheap Chinese model. I should have bitten the bullet and bought this one from Amazon.
Like the good chair at your house, the good controller does everything better. It shows fan speed in RPM, glow plug status, combustion cycle, and displays any error codes in alphanumeric format instead of blinking lights. You can also prime the fuel pump a little easier with the good controller. The heater works exactly the same but you feel better about it.
You get a couple feet of exhaust tubing and a little muffler for the combustion gas exhaust. If you are installing the heater in a van or RV you’ll probably need a longer pipe.
For combustion air intake you get a coarse, plastic air filter that will stop large animals from climbing inside the air intake pipe. Also included are a duct pipe, a register, and a bunch of clamps, screws and small parts.
In Chinese Diesel Heat Part 2 we will assemble and install the diesel heater and see how it performs. Internet reviews on these heaters are all over the map. Some people say they are junk, some say they are equal to the expensive units. With the variations of quality coming out of various Chinese factories, both camps may be right. I’ve found any product that requires installation or mechanical ability to use seems to garner more negative reviews. I suspect some of those bad reviews are installer created problems.
This is the next installment of our Lee Classic Turret Press Kit series, and this article focuses on Lee’s Safety Powder Scale. It’s the scale you see in the above photo and in the photos that follow. I haven’t assembled the turret press yet (that’s coming). Before I get to that, I’m doing this blog on the Lee scale, and then others on the Lee reloading manual and the Lee bench plate. These will be followed by blogs on the Lee turret press, the powder dispenser, the priming tool, and the 9mm dies I’ll use with this equipment.
My new Lee Safety Powder Scale. I used a .223 caliber 62-grain Hornady full metal jacket bullet to check my zero and the scale’s accuracy. Yep. It’s good.
Packaging
The box you see below was inside the Classic Turret Press Kit, and the Turret Press Kit’s box was inside a bigger box. It’s a box in a box (you know, Russian doll packaging, like I mentioned in the first blog on the Turret Press Kit). The Lee packaging is good. Everything arrived undamaged.
The Lee Safety Powder Scale box. It’s well packaged.What’s inside the Lee Safety Powder Scale box. You get the scale base, the balance beam, and the pan.
Lee Safety Scale Components
As mentioned in the photo above, there are three components in the Lee Safety Scale. These are the scale base (that’s the cast red frame in the photo below), the beam (I call it a balance beam; it’s the black subassembly in the photo below), and the pan (that’s where the material to be weighed is placed). The pan has an attached hook on it (it’s the bar extending up in the photo below) that hooks onto the right end of the beam.
The Lee base, balance beam, and pan.
The red base has a machined groove on the piece that extends up on the right side. The beam is placed over this, and it balances on a knife edge in this groove. There are magnets in the base to dampen the beam’s movement as it balances. The photo below shows the scale with everything in place.
The assembled Lee Safety Powder scale. The left arrow points to the index mark (the beam should point to it when weighing), the bottom arrow points to the 10-grain poise (more on it below), the center top arrow points to the 10-grain increments and markings on the balance beam, and the right arrow points to the 1-grain/.01-grain poise.
The magnetic beam dampers in the scale base work. When weighing powder charges with the Lee scale, the beam balanced in just a couple of oscillations.
The Lee balance beam is a molded phenolic subassembly with two poises. “Poise” an engineering term for the movable weights that balance the beam. It’s a term Lee uses in their documentation.
When I was Director of Engineering at Aerojet (we designed and manufactured munitions…big stuff, 2000-pound bombs, anti-armor munitions, and other things I can’t tell you about), we used plastic on as many parts as possible (rather than metal) because plastic was less expensive, it does not not corrode, it can be molded to exact dimensions, and moving parts are less likely to jam. Lee makes some of these same points in their literature. My point here is this: Don’t dismiss the Lee balance beam because it is a phenolic part. From an engineering perspective, it is the right choice. As Richard Lee (Lee Precision Products founder) stated in his excellent reloading manual, Modern Reloading:
Lee Safety Scale has a phenolic beam. Like a glass thermometer, if it is not broken it is still accurate.
Incidentally, the next blog in this series will be on Lee’s Modern Reloading book. I’m reading it now and it’s good.
The Lee pan is a one-piece subassembly that consists of an arm (the pan hangs from it on the right side of the beam) and the pan. The pan can be a bit difficult to get under a powder dispenser because the arm gets in the way. That’s not a big deal, and when I was weighing .357 Magnum charges with the Lee scale (so I could adjust my powder dispenser to drop the correct charge), it didn’t affect my ability to catch and weigh the powder.
The arm on the Lee pan interfered with getting the pan directly underneath the powder dispenser, but it was a minor inconvenience. That’s 8.0 grains of Unique you see above.
Measurement Range
The Lee scale can measure up to 110 grains. That’s good news and bad news. Most of us use powder scales for measuring powder, and if that’s your purpose, the Lee scale is the right tool. The 110-grain measurement range gives superior sensitivity for detecting slight weight differences. Other balance beam reloading scales can weigh up to 510 grains, but they do so with the same range of motion as the Lee scale, and that means they don’t provide the same sensitivity.
Sometimes we wish to weigh bullets (competitive bench rest shooters and cast bullet shooters might want to sort bullets by weight). On the Lee scale, you can only weigh bullets that are 110 grains or less. I’m what I would call a serious reloader, and in the last 50 years, I might have weighed bullets maybe a half dozen times. I’m happy to lose the ability to weigh bullets in exhange for the increased sensitivity I’ll get when weighing powder charges with the Lee scale. Your mileage may vary.
The bottom line is this: For weighing powder, the Lee scale does a superior job within its measurement range, and that range is adequate for any thing I shoot (that includes .22 Hornet, .416 Rigby, .458 Win Mag, and many handgun and rifle cartridges in between). For weighing bullets over 110 grains, you would be better served with scales offering a greater range than the Lee scale, but you give up accuracy with those scales. Do you really need the increased weight range? Most of us do not.
Zeroing the Scale
Like all scales, the Lee Safety Scale requires zeroing before use. Lee incorporates a threaded brass weight (in the form of a wheel) in the balance beam to move the beam up or down on its pivot in the base.
The Lee balance beam. The black arrow on the right is used for zeroing the scale, which is explained below. The red arrow points to the 10-grain poise.
The idea is you set the both poises to zero (see below). To set the 10-grain poise to zero, you roll it all the way to the right, and it comes to rest on the zero marker. The balance beam has ridges that will position the 10-grain poise ball bearing in 10-grain increments, starting at 0 and going up to 100 grains. To set the 1-grain poise to zero, you slide it all the way to the right, and lock the poise in the zero position with a little locking button on the bottom of the poise.
The 1-grain poise in the 0 position. The lower left red arrow points to the poise locking button (you push it in to lock the poise in place). The lower right arrow points to the 0 grains reading. The upper red arrow points to a protuberance that can be used as a little handle to move the poise. The “.1 grain” marking denotes the Vernier lines and windows used for reading tenths of a grain.
When the two poises are set to zero (as explained above), the brass wheel in the balance beam can be rotated to zero the scale. As the brass wheel is rotated, it moves to either the left or right along its threaded shaft depending on which way the wheel is turned. The idea is to turn the wheel until the balance beam is aligned with the index mark on the scale base as shown below.
The balance beam’s brass wheel. It’s used for zeroing the scale.The lower black arrow points to the 10-grain poise. It’s a captured ball bearing that can be moved in 10-grain increments. In this photo, it’s in the 0 grains position. The right arrow points to the 1-grain poise. The left black arrow points to the balance beam aligned with the base index mark.
Using the Lee Safety Scale
Using the scale after it has been zeroed when setting up a powder dispenser involves setting the desired powder charge with the 10-grain and 1-grain poises, and then adjusting the dispenser to provide an amount of powder that matches the scale adjustment. It’s fairly straightforward, although using the 1-grain poise with its Vernier tenth-grain readings may be new to some people.
Or, you may have an item you wish to weigh. Reading the scale is the same in either case. It involves setting the 10-grain poise in the appropriate notch, and then moving the 1-grain poise to the appropriate place.
After I had zeroed the scale, I wanted to check its accuracy. I weighed a .224-inch diameter, 62-grain Hornady jacketed boattail bullet to do this. I put the bullet in the pan, moved the 10-grain poise to the 60-grain position, and then moved the 1-grain poise laterally along the balance beam until the beam was aligned with the base index mark.
A 62-grain Hornady bullet in the Lee scale pan.The balance beam is balanced, with the pointed aligned to the base index marrk. The 10-grain poise is in the 60-grain notch.
Using the 1-grain poise is a bit tricky. In the photo below you can see that the poise shows 2 grains in the lower window. The Vernier windows on top of the 1-grain poise show that the 0 and .9 grain windows are aligned with visible lines, and a window is just a bit aligned with the .1 grain windows above and below the 0 and 9 windows. Like I said, interpreting the Vernier approach is a bit complicated, but the Lee instructions contain several photos explaining how to do it. What you see below for this measurement is interpreted to mean that the weight in tenths of a grain around the 2 grains in the lower window is somewhere between 1.9, 2.0, and 2.1 grains, and I interpolated that as 0.0 grains away from 2.0 grains. Stated differently, the measured bullet weight is 62.0 grains, which is exactly what it is supposed to be.
The Lee 1-grain poise. This sliding weight (or poise) is used for reading grains and tenths of a grain. Grains are read in the window denoted by the right arrow. Tenths of a grain are interpolated with a Vernier-based set of lines and windows denoted by the left arrow.
As a check, I also measured the bullet’s weight with the RCBS scale I’ve been using for the last 50 years, and it returned the same weight: 62.0 grains.
Cost
Lee did their usual outstanding job here: The Lee Safety Scale price is significantly lower than the competition. The Lee scale lists for $46.98 on the Lee website (interestingly, they also list factory second scales for $31.32). You can also purchase the Lee scale from Amazon and other retail outlets, and Lee tells you on their website that their retailers typically have lower prices than Lee advertises.
The nearest competitor to the Lee scale is the RCBS M500 mechanical scale, and that lists for $125.99 on the RCBS website. From a cost perspective, Lee is the clear winner here.
Documentation
The Lee scale includes a single-sheet, two-page instruction sheet. It’s good, and it provides all the information you need to set up and use the Lee scale. As mentioned above, the Lee instructions include information on using the Vernier feature on the 1-grain poise.
The Bottom Line
The Lee Safety Scale is accurate, inexpensive (less than half the cost of competitor products), and well built. Reading the Vernier scale to get tenths of a grain takes a little bit of study and practice, but once you get it, you’ll find it quick and easy to use. This is a good scale, it will serve any reloader well, and it should last a lifetime (and then some).
Help us out! Please click on the popup ads! And check out what else is available from Lee Precision.
Never miss an ExNotes blog:
Read our blogs on unveiling the Lee Classic Turret Kit and the Lee Deluxe 4-die sets:
The Honda Cub is the most-produced motor vehicle of any kind in the history of the world. Not just motorcycles, but motor vehicles. Honda passed the 100 million Cub mark years ago; today they still offer a Cub in the form of the 125cc Super Cub. That 100 million figure doesn’t count all the knockoffs by Yamaha and the Chinese marques. It’s a staggering number for a staggering vehicular concept. So, if you’re a watch company and you want to produce a watch honoring a motorcycle…well, you know where this is going.
Seiko is the company, and this year they introduced a limited edition of the Honda Super Cub watch. These watches have been nearly impossible to get, so I was astounded when on Christmas photog duty at the mall I wandered into a watch store and what do you know, there it was. It was the only Seiko Super Cub watch I’ve seen and I knew I had to have it. It’s self-winding and to watch weirdos like me it doesn’t get any better than a mechanical self-winding watch. The ticket in was $400, I asked if there was any room in the price, the store manager said no, and I pulled the trigger anyway. I bought it for list price and that was still a good deal.
Seiko is offering a limited run of the Super Cub watch in two colors. I’ve not seen the black one in person, but that’s okay. I like the green and white one better.
The Seiko Honda Super Cub watch has several cool details, including a NATO band, a rear cover intended to evoke a tail light, and a stem that looks like a Cub fuel gage.
Two of your blog boys (that would be Gresh and yours truly) both owned Honda Cubs back in the day (Huber didn’t, but he has an excuse…he wasn’t born yet). I guess that made Gresh and I two of the nicest people you’d ever meet.
To my great surprise, I found a couple of photos of my Honda Cub buried in an old photo album. The image quality is not up to my current standards, but hey, I took these photos with a Minolta C110 camera in the 1960s. With those little 110 film cassettes, these 60-year-old pics ain’t half bad.
I bought the Cub for $50 (a dollar per cubic centimeter) from Zeb Moser (a buddy in New Jersey; RIP, Zeb), rode around on it a little bit, and then sold it for $70 thinking I’d done well. There’s no need to say it, but I will anyway: I wish I still had my Cub.
Help us bring more to you: Please click on the popup ads!
The Yamaha RT1-B 360cc that I call Godzilla has been my long haul dirt bike choice for years. The old Yamaha has criss-crossed the country on dirt and on pavement and I had it set up to carry a lot of gasoline and a lot of gear. Up front, I removed the non-functional speedometer/tachometer cluster and replaced it with a luggage rack. The rack worked great, it redistributed the weight of my travel gear and made the bike handle less worse than if everything was strapped to the back rack.
I crashed in Beaver, Utah a few years ago and mangled the front rack so I removed it for future repairs. While I was at it I got rid of the cheesy GPS mount that fit a GPS I no longer owned. Truthfully, I don’t need that stuff because haven’t been doing any long distance dirt rides lately. It seems like all my rowdy friends have settled down. Anyway, with that junk out of the way the view from the saddle was kind of sparse. I decided to freshen up Godzilla’s front end.
I rode Godzilla for many years with the stock handlebars (bottom bars) and they were fine. The last couple rides my wrists started hurting a bit and I think the sweep back angle was causing too much stress on my decrepit body. The bars on the Husky are almost flat across and very comfortable so I bought a new, lower, flatter bar (top bar). The new bar has no cross brace and is made of powder-coated aluminum; I’m hoping they flex a bit more to smooth out the really rough trails where I tend to crash.
After replacing the handlebars my horn quit working. I figured that the process of removing and replacing the switch must have disturbed the rust inside so I dismantled and cleaned out the three switches in the control module. The horn button was really rusty and the other switches looked none too good, either.
After all that work on the switches the horn still didn’t beep. The Yamaha wiring supplies the horn with power and the horn button grounds the circuit through the handlebars, triple clamps, and steering head bearings then on to the frame, which is grounded. This convoluted electrical path makes the horn go beep. I took the headlight apart and grounded the horn wire inside the headlight housing. It worked. Then I grounded the horn to the new handlebars: nothing. Turns out, powder coat is an effective electrical isolator. Instead of scraping the powder coat off to make a connection I ran an extra ground wire to the switch pod. Now I had a horn.
For a speedometer I decided to try one of those cableless, GPS, analog types from Amazon. The voltage input on the speedo is 9 to 32 volts and the thing powered up fine on Godzilla’s 6-volt battery. Since this fancy electronic wizardry was all new to me I also bought a 6-volt to 12-volt converter to make sure the speedo had plenty of voltage. All this junk needed to go somewhere so I made a LeCrox template and chopped the side out of a storage cabinet for sheet metal.
After bending and welding the gauge console I gave it a lick of spot putty and some black paint to hide the sins of my welding. Next all the pieces went into the housing and I pre-wired the speedometer so that it would plug into an unused, key-switched, 6-volt power wire inside the headlight.
I used the existing Yamaha speedo/tach mounting base by adding a couple rubber lord mounts and assembled the whole mess onto the motorcycle. It powered up fine and was ready for a test ride.
The test ride was a failure. Not because of the speedo (it worked great), but the cantilevered gauge console flexed the rubber mounts so much the gauge was dancing up and down like a set of those humorous, wind up chattering teeth. It was back to the shop for a quick brace on the front of the console.
I used the high beam indicator hole on the headlight shell and ran a short brace to another lord mount that steadied the gauge nicely. Now I can bang around in the dirt without the speedometer trying to slap me upside the head. Hopefully it won’t push the headlight aim down.
To finish off the front-end facelift I bought a new mirror to replace the crappy bar-end mirror. The old bar-end mirror was a bicycle part and never worked very well. It was there for legal, not visual reasons. The new mirror gives me a fairly clear view of what is going on behind me.
The GPS speedometer is smooth. You have to wait a few seconds while it acquires a satellite fix but from then on it seems just like a regular speedometer except it is accurate and the needle is steady. With no reception it won’t work indoors but I don’t ride far indoors. I zipped the RT1-B up to 75 miles per hour and all was well.
There are several functions you can access like different color backlights, Trip 1, Trip 2, odometer and compass. Trip 1 is sort of useless because it resets each time you turn the key off. Trip 2 supposedly saves the data and you have to hold a button for 3 seconds to clear it. The compass is a 360-degree type so you get a numerical reading instead of north, south, east and west. I’ll have to mess with the thing a little more to see how all this flimflammery works.
One thing I don’t like is that the mode and set buttons are on the back of the speedo. This is not a problem for a motorcycle because you can reach behind and push them. If the speedo was mounted in a car or boat dash this would be a deal killer. If I had it to do over I would try to find a unit with the buttons on the face. Also, it would be nice if the antenna could be incorporated into the gauge, eliminating the external antenna but that probably wouldn’t work in a car.
For a prototype my dash console works good enough. If the speedo holds up I may re-work the design a bit. If I flipped the mounting flange 180 degrees the mounting bolts would be hidden inside the console and it would move the speedo back a bit which I think would look better. As it is the gauge console has a clunky, AMF-era, Harley-Davidson look to the thing. I may remake the console using aluminum as the sheet metal one, while thin, is not very light. Godzilla is a high society motorcycle now with its modern, space age speedometer; I guess there’s nothing more for me to do but to join my peers down at the local Starbucks.
Help us continue to bring exciting content to you: Please click on the popup ads!
ExhaustNotes readers may think I pour a lot of concrete but that’s not really true. I do pour concrete frequently but only a little at a time. My limiting factor is how much total work I can get done in one day. That number dwindles as I grow older. I pour 30 to 40 60-pound bags of 4000 psi concrete on average. Any more and I start to have problems keeping up the finish work and any less is not worth getting the tools dirty. Cleanup takes a lot of time and if you don’t wash everything each time your tools become encrusted with dried concrete. It’s never fun to work with heavy, dirty tools.
Take my latest project, the driveway in front of the little shack we call The Carriage House. In an attempt to class up the place I am removing the existing driveway, which consisted of remnants of old rugs thrown over dirt. We acquired the rugs from a Physical Therapy training center. The PT rugs were in great condition and very sturdily constructed. Best of all they were free. The rugs served us well for many years by adding a semi-pervious layer between our feet and the dirt below. Engineered earth is the technical term, I think, for fabric-supported fill.
Of course, old rugs aren’t the most perfect solution for driveways or everyone would be using them. You’d see them in Beverly Hills or New York City, not just in poverty stricken rural areas. After several years the rugs become impregnated with dirt and are impossible to vacuum, much less shampoo. Being semi-pervious you still get mud underneath the rug although you don’t sink in as far as you would if going bare earth.
For this driveway I’m using a decorative finishing method called No Need To Square. No Need To Square means just that: the concrete is formed and finished in a random pattern giving the illusion of being made from many individual pavers. No Need To Square frees the concrete from The Man’s rigid, conformist hierarchy. It allows the finisher to follow the jagged contours found in the crystalline structure of cast Iron like you see in those electron-microscope photographs. The only constant is the slope that steers water runoff towards the drainage ditch running alongside The Carriage House.
Just as a cubist must master fine arts before experimenting with abstract art, the concrete finisher must master the square before leaving it far behind. Unfortunately, I am neither an artist nor a concrete finisher so things can go pear shaped quickly if you don’t mind your grades.
I’ve purchased a new tool for this driveway project: a belt-mounted tie wire spool. Tie wire is used to tie rebar together so that it doesn’t shift position when the concrete pours into the form or clumsy finishers kick it around when striking off. I owned a spool many years ago when I was a construction worker. My old one was more open, like a cage. You could see the wire in the spool, unlike this new one. I don’t know what happened to that old spool.
You’d think as often as I do little concrete pours I would have bought a wire spool sooner and I would have except for the price. The things are like $47 at Home Depot for an off-brand spool. I found a Klein brand spool on Amazon for only a dollar more than the clone version at HD. I’ve seen cheaper, plastic versions and they probably work fine.
There are basically two types of ties for re-bar: the saddle for tying re-bars that cross at right angles and the plain old loop for tying straight pieces together. I like to make up a bunch of each type before starting to tie. Real iron workers make up saddles and loops as they go so because it’s faster and they don’t have to carry a bunch of little, pre-made bits. I’m never in a hurry. Sitting in a chair with New Mexico’s warm, winter sun shining down on me gives the pre-tying process a sort of Zen-like quality. Sometimes I fall into a trance and end up making 600 of the things.
If you’ve tied much wire you know how easily an unspooled roll of wire can unwind and get tangled up. Pulling wire from the center results in a pig’s tail that you need to straighten out before using. I always double up my wires, as a single strand is easy to break when twisting the rebar tight. The doubling method uses twice as much wire but it makes for a secure grid of rebar. It’s also easy to get stabbed with tie wire and the spool allows you to wind it back inside for the safety of everyone involved on the project.
I’m going to tackle the driveway in two parts: the southern and northern wings. I’ll do the southern (higher) side first. That will give CT somewhere to park while I work on the northern (lower) section. I expect to be working on the southern section for a month or so before the weather gets too cold and I take a break and go back to tying up loose ends on motorcycles.
Help us help you: Please click on the popup links!
We’re writing a series of blogs on the Lee Precision Classic Turret Press Kit, and this first one focuses on unpacking and taking an initial look at the kit. I think the YouTube kids call this a “reveal.” I’ll just call it unboxing and seeing what’s in the box. I thought I could do a single blog on the Classic Turret Press Kit, but there’s too much included in the kit and too much that’s new to me to handle in one blog. We’re going to instead do a series of blogs: One on each item that’s included with the kit, a blog on setting the press and dies up, a blog on reloading with the Lee equipment, and a blog on how the ammo reloaded with the Classic Turret Press Kit performs. There’s a lot here. You’ll get a feel for just how much in this initial blog on the Classic Turret Press Kit.
Here’s the picture on Lee’s website for the kit, which Lee advertises for $380.
The photo above shows everything set up, but the photo doesn’t do justice to the excitement associated with getting this kit, taking everything out of the box, and opening it. Nor does it convey what I expect to be the satisfaction I’ll experience with using the Lee equipment. That will be the subject of future blogs. Think of this first blog as Christmas morning. That’s what opening and unpacking the Lee kit felt like to me.
ExNotes blog readers will recall that good buddy Jose left a comment on one of our Lee Deluxe 4-die set blogs. Jose told us about his Lee turret press. He wrote a guest blog or two for us here on ExNotes and he is a Ruger No. 1 aficionado, which means he stands tall with me. After reading Jose’s comments, I had to check out the Lee Classic Turret Press Kit myself, and after poking around on Lee’s site a bit and seeing what the Lee kit included, I knew I wanted one. I specifically wanted to set it up for 9mm using Lee’s Deluxe 4-die set. I’ve been using older 9mm dies from various die makers, and my reloads would sometimes jam. With my old dies, the crimps were inconsistent, and I knew from my experience with Lee’s .357 and .44 Magnum Deluxe dies I wouldn’t have that problem with Lee equipment. I have the Lee Deluxe handgun die sets in 38 Special/357 Magnum, 44 Special/44 Magnum, .45 Colt, and .30 Carbine, and the ammo I reload with those dies is exceptional (better than anything I loaded with other manufacturers’ dies). I use Lee dies for several rifle cartridges, and I have more than a few other bits of Lee equipment. I’ve been pleased with all of it.
Lee advertises that their Classic Turret Press Kit includes everything needed to start making ammo, except for the dies and, of course, the components (brass, powder, primers, and bullets). I have plenty of components, and the thought of wringing out the Lee gear, writing about it, and testing the ammo in a couple of my favorite 9mm handguns checked all the boxes for me. This will be a fun project and I want to share the excitement with you.
I placed my order with Lee for the Classic Turret Press Kit, the Bench Plate Kit (something I saw on their website that appealed to me), and the 9mm dies. It all arrived a few days later, well packed in a single box. I was impressed with how fast it arrived (it shipped during the holiday season) and the packaging. The Lee folks have done this before; it’s first class customer service.
This is the right time of year to open a box full of goodies and examine the contents. I was a kid on Christmas morning. This was fun!
When I opened the outer container, I saw my 9mm Deluxe 4-die set and the Lee bench plate.
As I mentioned above, I’m a firm believer in Lee’s Deluxe dies. I can’t wait to put these to work making 9mm ammunition for my SIG P226 Scorpion and Springfield Armory 1911.
The idea behind the Lee Bench Plate is that it’s a quick detach/attach mount for a Lee press. It’s not included with the Classic Turret Press Kit (it’s priced at $39 on Lee’s website), but I like the idea of being able to quickly remove the press from my reloading bench. You’ll get a complete report on setting up and using the Bench Plate in a future ExNotes blog.
After unpacking the 9mm dies and the bench plate, I pulled out the Lee Classic Turret Press Kit. This was like one of those Russian dolls. I was peeling the onion and enjoying it.
The Lee Safety Primer Feed (shown in the two photos below) is a device I have not used before. I’ll explain how it works in a future blog. I have three other Lee priming devices and I’ve been using them for decades with no problems. The Lee Safety Primer Feed sells for $30.
Lee includes their Case Conditioning Kit (see the photo below) with the Classic Turret Press Kit. The Case Conditioning Kit consists of a primer pocket cleaner, a case cutter and locking stud, and a chamfer to bevel the case mouth after it has been trimmed. I have not used these tools from Lee before; it will be interesting to see how they perform. I have other equipment that performs these tasks, but I had to buy those items separately. With the Lee Classic Turret Press Kit, it’s all included. The Case Conditioning Kit lists for $12.98 on the Lee site.
I won’t need the Lee Resizing Lube shown below because my new Lee 9mm dies include a carbide resizer (which negates the need for case lubrication). Not having to lube the cases is a good thing. On rifle cases, though, lube is necessary, so I’ll put the lube to good use on those. The price for Lee’s Resizing Lube is $5.98.
The Lee Classic Turret Press Kit includes Lee’s Modern Reloading manual (a sizeable book, comparable to the manuals from Hornady, Speer, Sierra, and other reloading component companies), and a Hodgdon reloading pamphlet. I’m looking forward to reviewing the Lee manual. I’ve been reloading a long time, but I still learn something new every time I pick up a reloading manual. If you were to buy the Lee Modern Reloading manual separately, it sells for $40.98. Lee also includes the Hodgdon Data Manual with the Classic Turret Press Kit. I’ve seen the pamphlets from Hodgdon before; I’ll take a look at this one and share my impressions in a subsequent blog.
Next out of the box was Lee’s Auto-Drum Powder Measure. I’ve used an older Lee version of this device. I’m not familiar with how the new one works, but I’m looking forward to finding out. The Auto-Drum Powder Measure is infinitely adjustable. That’s a good thing. The older version used a charging plate with discrete increments; infinite adjustment is a much better way to go. The Auto-Drum Powder Measure automatically charges the case with with each stroke of the press. If purchased separately, the Auto-Drum Powder Measure sells for $55.00.
Lee includes a Powder Measure Riser in the Classic Turret Press Kit (see the photo below). This is used with the Auto-Drum Powder Measure to position the powder dispenser above the priming mechanism (it allows adequate clearance). The Powder Measure Riser sells for $9.98 on the Lee site.
There’s a balance beam scale (the Lee Safety Powder Scale) in the Classic Turret Kit. This is a standard reloading scale. The Safety Powder Scale is $46.98 on the Lee site. You might wonder: Why use a simple mechanical scale when there are digital scales and digital powder dispensers? The reasons are simplicity, reliability, and cost. I have friends that use digital scales, and they report inaccuracies induced by nearby metal objects (have any of those on your reloading bench?), slow operation, and of course, much greater expense. For me a simple balance beam scale works best; it’s what I’ve been using for 50 years. The Lee Safety Powder Scale is new to me, and I’ll report how it works.
The Classic Turret Press is massive. It’s beefy, it’s heavy, and it looks to be well built. What you see below is the press, along with the operating handle, a spent primer catch tube (a nice touch), the four position turret head, and the hardware required to assemble it.
So there you have it: The Lee Classic Turret Press Kit. You might have noticed that I listed the cost for each item above separately, along with a link to the appropriate Lee page. I thought it would be interesting to sum the prices and compare the total to Lee’s Classic Turret Press Kit price:
At Lee’s price of $380 for the Classic Turret Press Kit, it’s a good deal compared to buying the items separately. But Lee goes a step further. They recognize that retailers often sell the individual items and the Classic Turret Press Kit at lower prices, and Lee states on their site that you can find lower prices by visiting a Lee retailer. One of the best places to find lower prices is Amazon. I encourage you to explore Lee’s website, and to take a look at Lee gear on Amazon.
This project is going to be fun, folks. Keep an eye on the ExhaustNotes blog as we put the Lee Classic Turret Press Kit through its paces.
Like what you see here? Don’t forget to help us by clicking on the popup ads!
There are many more shooting and reloading stories on Tales of the Gun. Hope on over and take a look.
In the spirit of complete disclosure: Lee liked our blogs on the .357 Magnum and .44 Magnum Deluxe 4-die sets and they asked us to similarly review the Classic Turret Press Kit. Lee provided the kit to us at no charge. But rest assured: That won’t color our judgment or what we report. You will get the complete story, warts and all.
I’ve been putting miles on the 1974 RD350 in the last few months, almost doubling the 4100 miles that showed on the bike’s odometer when I first got it. As my confidence in the bike increases so do the miles racked up in a single ride. This increase in running time has led to a problem with the battery that was installed in the RD350.
The battery seemed to work okay; it held a charge and didn’t use too much electrolyte but the fill plugs located on top were seeping a bit of acid. The caps felt snug and the battery vent was not clogged yet after a long ride the acid-damp lay heavy on the battery and even started dripping down the sides. I sort of let it slide for a while. Riding the RD is too much fun and stopping the bike for maintenance seemed like a waste of good weather.
Now that it’s a bit cooler I tackled the battery situation. The acid had dripped down onto the swing arm and corroded the battery box along with the small coil spring that keeps the oil tank vent from kinking. My laziness always comes back to haunt me.
I took the battery box, along with the attached rectifier and voltage regulator out of the frame and washed everything down with a mix of baking soda and water. The affected paint fell off in large chunks. I dismantled the electrical components and soaked the battery box in Evap-Rust then wire brushed any loose paint.
It was a nippy week at The Ranch so painting the box in 50-degree weather was a challenge. I heated the rattle can and the battery box to within 2.8 degrees of each other (measured via a recently calibrated fingertip) then shot the box with primer and two coats of Krylon satin black. I used a brush to apply paint to the bare spots on the swing arm.
It all came out good enough and anyway, I’m riding this bike, not showing it. The electrical bits, being directly under the battery did not suffer any acid corrosion. I cleaned them up and reassembled the mess into the motorcycle.
Many older motorcycles do not regulate their voltage as precisely as you would like and my Yamaha RD350 is one of the many. With the headlights on and engine revving I measured 14/14.1 volts at the battery. This is ideal. With the headlights off 15 volts were going into the battery. 15 volts is a little too high for comfort but I decided that since I leave the headlights on all the time the original regulator would be okay.
My good buddy Deet told me about using sealed, AGM type, alarm-system/UPS batteries in old bikes. I have had one of them in Godzilla, the 1971 RT1-B for a couple years and it has been working great. These type batteries hold a charge much longer than flooded lead acid batteries. The new one I bought on Amazon has a high tolerance for high voltage; it can handle up to 15-volts charging. These AGM standby batteries can withstand constant trickle charging and long periods of inactivity, which describes vintage motorcycle riding to a tee. The small spade terminals on these batteries are not made for large current loads like an electric starter or lighting up the strip in Las Vegas but they can handle motorcycle lighting and ignition circuits without complaint.
At 4AH the new battery has a bit less capacity than the leaky old 5.5AH unit I took out but I think it will work okay. Close enough counts in hand grenades, horseshoes and motorcycle batteries.
The new battery is a skosh smaller than the old battery so I used some closed-cell packing foam to keep the thing from rattling around inside the battery box. The RD350 is once again ready to rumble. From my experience with the RT1-B, I’m not anticipating any problems with the RD350 but I’ll be sure to let ExhaustNotes readers know if I have any issues with the new AGM set up.
Do a friend a favor or ten: Click on those popup ads!
