Mini lathe tailstock shell holder?

[skeet_man]

I have a Grizzly benchtop mini lathe that I have been playing around with as a trimmer.

I bought a forster cutter shaft off of ebay, which I dial in to dead center in my 4 jaw chuck, everything good on that end.

On the other end, I'm using a shell holder from a Lee case length gauge/trimmer in a drill chuck. it is oriented so the opening is at the bottom when loosened, and I have a pair of vice grips on the lock ring, so I stuff a shell up in, flip the vice grips over letting gravity tighten the ring, and I'm ready to trim.

The issue is the shell orientation is far from consistent, sometimes the mouth is pointed a little up, down, left, right, ect. There is enough slop in the quill when I pull the lock off that the case can or or less auto-align on the pilot, but this ends up with pressure on one side of the pilot, where the case rubs up against it. This doesn't cause any cutting problems, but it leaves some scratches inside the case neck. I tried using a little CLP on the pilot today as an experiment, less scratching but not eliminated. I've also considered polishing the pilot (surprised nobody offers pilots w/ a mirror finish). It would probably help if I stopped the lathe, ran the case forward loose in the holder, then tightened it when it was supported by the pilot, but i don't want to be turning my lathe off and on a thousand times.

Anybody have any thoughts on a better tailstock mounted shell holder setup? Or am I worrying about nothing when it comes to the scratches inside the neck? I'm not loading benchrest level rounds, but don't want to be giving up potential accuracy before I've even finished loading the round.

 

[Dusty Stevens]

Get a trimmer case holder from wilson, put that in the chuck then put an end mill in your tailstock

 

[WillyTP]

I picked up one of the above pictured case trimmers on this forum for really good deal, just to use the cam lock tail piece. Turned down the diameter and shortened it so it would fit with the tail chuck in the mini lathe. I use this setup for neck turning like the video on YouTube Erik Courtina posted along with the pumpkin turner.

 

[Ringostar]

Look at the case holder from 21st century.

 

[WillyTP]

Here’s how my little setup looks.

 

[Dusty Stevens]

View attachment 1047275
Here’s how my little setup looks.

Is that shower head in the back for coolant?

 

[ireload2]

Get a Wilson case holder for the Wilson trimmer.

Tap your case into the case holder.
Put a small parallel to use as a stop between your chuck jaws against the face of the chuck.
Slide the case head against the parallel and tighten the chuck.
Remove the parallel.

Trim using a turning tool or part off tool.
Forget the tail stock. You cannot easily control it.
The carriage can be locked in place so the cut will produce the same length everytime.

If you have a real lathe with a 5C collet system you can add an internal stop to the collet and hold the Wilson case holder in the collet with the case head against the internal stop.
Then just face off the case like this guy..

 

[ridgeway]

Sounds like an awful lot of screwing around, lol. Get a Wilson trimmer, Sinclair base and clamp it to bench. Insert case, lock down and turn cutter, done. Repeat.

 

[dcali]

Unless you're just doing it for grins, don't use a mini lathe. No matter how you do it it's going to be more difficult than using a dedicated tool.

 

[ireload2]

Actually a lathe with a 5C collet is very fast and easy to use.
Unless you add a clamp to a Wilson trimmer it sucks be cause you need both hans at all times.

Sounds like an awful lot of screwing around, lol. Get a Wilson trimmer, Sinclair base and clamp it to bench. Insert case, lock down and turn cutter, done. Repeat.