Hey Don,
You got a lot of good advice already, so I don't know if I can add to any of it, but I'll try.
#1 Almost all bottom pour pots (Lee IV) drip. They seem to get better with use and drip less. If this is what you have, whatever you do, do not try to open up the hole so the debris comes out easier by drilling it out. You will make it worse before better. If you drill it out too much, the pot will always drip and maybe even get a stream of lead coming out since the actuator rod won't seat fully anymore. At that point it will be junk.
A. Do yourself a favor, and flux your lead. This will clean it even more. I found the best thing to use is beeswax, however you can use a piece of old candle. (Any scent will do LOL). Take a chunk no bigger than a dime, maybe even smaller, and place it in an already hot lead pot. What the wax does, is draw up the impurities and dross. You will see it float to the top like crumbled lead. One thing I will warn you about flux, is be very careful when you do this. What you do is put the chunk in the pot and immediately throw a lit match in the pot. You will get a flame immediately, so do not look into the pot or try to figure out what is going on. Because you will get severely burned. While the flame is burning off the wax, take and old spoon and slowly mix the lead in the pot. Make sure there is nothing around the top above your pot or anything flammable that could ignite or burn. If you want help with this pm me off line and I will explain it better. THIS IS NOT DANGEROUS, BUT YOU DO HAVE TO BE ALERT AND KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND WHAT TO EXPECT AT ALL TIMES.
B. If you are getting flash (lead around your jig other than the profile of the jig) than what everybody else mentioned, you have something stuck to one of the mold halves. Take a small thin piece of aluminum, and gently scrape both mold halves where they make contact. Somewhere there is a spec of lead stuck or something.
C. You mentioned about too much candle soot causing the mold halves not to close flat. Don this is rare to impossible. The layer of soot that goes on there is very thin. Now I will tell you that soot from candles leaves an oily residue on the mold halves. So this may attract dirt but highly unlikely. I will also tell you that if I were you I would quit using a candle to soot the molds. From my experience it doesn't really work plus it is very messy. What does work is spraying your molds with "Drop Out Mold Release". If you don't believe another word I tell you, buy yourself a can of this. You will definitely Thank Me later. What mold release does is it coats the cavity with a release agent, that makes the lead just slide right into all of the orifices. It really works ask some of the guys here.
#2. You will always have a sprue mark left over. If it doesn't bother you paint over it. The fish don't care. I on the other hand am anal about my jigs, so I take a wretched cut half round file and file it all smooth. The file make easy work of lead. A lot easier than sanding.
A. On the hook eye. You need to clean it before baking as mentioned above. What I do is have a bunch of new drill bits that fit loosely into the hook eye. You don't want to use used drill bits, as the shank sometimes gets chewed up from not using them properly. Anyway find the size that will fit the current hook eye you have in your jig. Test it first to make sure it fits loosely before you paint the jig. So you heat your jig, swish it in the powder paint, and immediately take the drill bit and push it shank first through the hook eye and out the other side. What will happen is you will push any paint in the hook eye out and it will come out with the drill bit. You will see what happens when you try this. You will always have clean hook eyes and no need to clean after baking. Now however if you put on too much paint on your jig, and you hang your jigs nose down, then the paint will cover the hole again. If this happens, you can use the same process again, reheat the jigs and clean the eye, however do not burn the paint. This is a very touchy time now as you have already baked and hardened the paint. It is best to watch how much paint you put on so it doesn't run when you bake the jigs.
#3 On cleaning the weedguard hole. You do not have to do this anymore. Use the teflon pins for painting and pouring it is so much easier and you will thank me again for this tip. PM me.
#4 Fluid bed. If you don't want to buy one, I do have plans I can e-mail you. If you are somewhat handy, it is not complicated to make. Just a tip on fluid beds. Many people are under the assumption that this is a fix all for painting. Most colors will fluidize in a bed. Many colors are harder to work with like white. You can make your fluid bed work on all colors. The only thing is some colors you may need to swish the paint inside the cup to keep volcanoes from happening. Other factors are, keeping your powder paint dry. Do not leave them in the cup for days or even weeks. Humidity and moisture will kill your dry powder paint. Always take it out of your cup when not in use. Filter medium. You can use a wide variety of media. Some media works better on certain colors. So you may have to make yourself several cups with different media. Mark what colors work with what media.
Well I think I about ran out of info for you. Sorry for the long dissertation. PM me and I will get you more info.
