Annealing

[Capt. Oblivious]

and Lee Whitsel asked a relevant question yesterday

 

[Markwalsh]

I would like to know how some of you anneal your cases. At this time is use a socket to hold the case while turning in a flame of propane. I can't afford a $500 unit.
THANKS
JDY

I bought an anneal easy last year an I think it is great I believe it is under$300.

 

[Dimner]

I would like to know how some of you anneal your cases. At this time is use a socket to hold the case while turning in a flame of propane. I can't afford a $500 unit.
THANKS
JDY

This might be able to work for you, might not. DIY case annealing.

When I used a socket to turn the case, I did the following.

1) Pair of leather welders gloves, or leather gardening gloves
2) a zip tie or washing machine hose clamp, the latter is more adjustable for me.
3) coorded or coordless drill. I used my coorded drill. I was able to dial in a speed that worked well.
4) a Socket that accepts the brass size you want.
5) long thin screwdriver, flat head.

Drill:
Basically using scrap pieces of wood, screws and clamps, I was able to setup the drill on an angle where it was in a fixed position. Basically a very crude drill cradle, drill was angled low some where above 45* maybe 55?. Then I made a base plate out of wood, attached my cradle part to. And left room so I could clamp it in place to my workbench.

This allowed me to loosen the clamps and move the whole cradle to the right and left and be able to make rough adjustments to move the case neck to/from distance to the torch.

I used the washing machine hose against the trigger of the drill to vary the speed. I never moved this hose clamp. I just unplugged the drill when I wanted to turn it off.

In my drill I had the appropriate socket, and I etched (i'm a maniac, a sharpie line would do) a line on the socket so I could count roughly how many revolutions the socket turned with a piece of brass in it. I used this and the color of the brass mouth to try an make annealing consistent from case to case.

Torch:
Then I used a piece of wood to hold the torch canister so the torch was at an angle. With a bunch of fiddling I was able to get the gemoetry of the torch very close to where I wanted it. Screwed in the torch holder to a base plate piece of wood. However, this cradle did not hold the entire canister. The base of the canister was resting on the workbench.

Adjusting the clamps and moving the 'torch riser' left and right would roughly adjust the height of the torch. For fine tuning, I adjusted the length of flame.

I probably used far more propane than I would have liked adjusting this system.. after a change in cartridge.

To use:
adjust both sides of the system as best you can using the clamps.
start the torch.
plug in the drill
put on your gloves
drop in a test piece of brass
adjust flame to fine tune everything.
(most of the time, I would now have to slightly loosen the torch side and just bump the base plate one way or another)

When you are ready to go... I would use the long flat head screw driver and drop a case over the screwdriver shaft. Place the case in the socket, use the screwdriver to remove the case after desired time, rinse and repeat.

I used this system about a half dozen times before I decided that I wanted part of my workbench back and I could splurge and buy the Ugly annealer.

I don't have a pic because when I bought the ugly annealer, eventually I unscrewed the system and used it for parts on creating a clampable rifle cradle for doing action and pillar bedding.

Edit to add: gosh darn zombie threads!

 

[riflemonkey]

I would like to know how some of you anneal your cases. At this time is use a socket to hold the case while turning in a flame of propane. I can't afford a $500 unit.
THANKS
JDY

I am looking at possibly getting the AGS Annealer V3. It is not to expensive - about $290.00, and you can order it on amazon. If this suits your budget, you may want to look at one...

(https://www.amazon.com/AGS-Brass-Ca...707348138&sprefix=ags+annealer,aps,118&sr=8-1)

Looks like a good unit, would make annealing easy, and is more reasonably priced than many alternatives...

Good luck,
-riflemonkey

 

[sharp.shooter.ser]

forum members have a 10% discount with "forum10" code for AGS Annealer

 

[sharp.shooter.ser]

forum members have a 10% discount with "forum10" code for AGS Annealer
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[sharp.shooter.ser]

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[sharp.shooter.ser]

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[searcher]

11 year old original post.

Yeah - and that was before we had affordable annealing machines.....