Homemade Annealing Machine

[Buckskinner]

I have been considering try to anneal for years, now I have a couple hundred 300 RUM pieces that are getting up there in shot counts and are showing signs of needing annealing. Have always been concerned about getting consistent annealing throughout the neck without a $400 machine... finger test doesn't seem right to me either and I'm not working with molten lead, that does strange things to a person...


Found a link to this machine on this site a bit back, looks like what I have been waiting for.



You Tube

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Also AR-15.com had 13 pages of info on building one.


http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_6_42/43...ne.html&page=1


I think I'm going to build one with a hand feed so I can simplify the build. You have to be by the unit when operating anyway...


Anyone here every make one???
Buckskin

 

[Lee in Texas]

I mail ordered the parts for one, but it haven't started it yet. Why make it hand fed? The feed cylinder looks pretty easy to make.

FWIW, the recommended little cake pan will accommodate a Remington Ultra Mag case.

I plan to get started soon. If I run into any problems, I can let you know what to look out for. I also have a couple of those little cake pans extra.

 

[Buckskinner]

I ordered all the fixin's for it, but some of it is on a slow boat from China... Should be here in about 10 days. I bought all the other stuff today, so will have the box ready to go.

I am doing hand feed for now, I will leave enough space to add the hopper and feed for the future. You have to be there anyway, so I don't see a big deal hand loading it onto the slide. That way I can inspect each piece of brass also.

That is good to know, I ordered a couple cake pans, I'm thinking I will need 2 for the spread between 204's and the modified 404 Jefferies...

 

[Tucker65]

I built one using the info on the AR-15 forum thread. I used a power source out of an old computer tower and that worked fine. I also found most of the other parts on E-Bay but sourced them in the states so I didn't have to wait forever for them to get here. I went with the feed hopper and one motor controller for the pan. The feed drum motor runs wide open and is controlled by a prox switch that is activated by the shell. You can see the switch, a small blue circle, where the shell waits to drop into the pan. So far it works great on the batch of 300 WSM shells I did.


[ame]https://youtu.be/nqFX8DkP9Tg[/ame]

 

[geargrinder]

I went cheap and built a salt bath annealer. I copied the design from this guy.

(click for video)
http://vid262.photobucket.com/albums/ii102/BattleRife/Saltbathannealingdemo2.mp4


It's just a cheap Lee lead melter, some USP grade potassium nitrate, and some scrap metal and screws. Less than $50 total and I can anneal most any size case fast and easy.

 

[oldfortyfiveauto]

I made this a while back so I could readily do rimmed and rimless cases. The second photo is my latest update with a small gear motor to rotate the case. With two torches its about 3 seconds each. If I was going to make another I'd make it horizontal so to keep my hands more away for the flames . The case goes up into the flames under the control of a timer relay and air valve and spring returns down. Pretty simple controls.

 

[Lonewolf74]

Man that's slick and well done! Would you mind posting the measurements you used and how to set the motor's and electrical part? I'm great at building, fabricating things not so good with the electrical and motor set up part

 

[Buckskinner]

That's pretty cool. Do you have a vid of it in operation?

 

[Buckskinner]

Well I got this contraption up and running, very utilitarian version, but **** am I impressed with the output. Took me a few scrap pieces of RUM brass to get it dialed in. All I have to do now is cut a second pan for 223 through 25-06 brass.