Yes, its now an established part of my reloading process:
- Deprime/neck-size
- Trim if necessary
- Chamfer
- Wet tumble
- Dry
- Anneal
- Neck-size
- Reload as required
Would anyone be interested in an affordable, UK made induction annealing machine?
- Thread starter HandB
- Start date
What method did you use to determine optimal anneal time? I think this would be an issue with any potential induction annealing machine too.
Sacrifical cases and colour change
Bavarianbrit
Well-Known Member
I just did pay for the Reloader Brass Annealer.
Please, pay using the option "Send money to someone you trust" so that I don't get charged. Hm?????
No protection to me if the shipment gets lost or?
Please, pay using the option "Send money to someone you trust" so that I don't get charged. Hm?????
No protection to me if the shipment gets lost or?
I think technically - yes. No different if you paid by bank transfer.
Bavarianbrit
Well-Known Member
I will live in hope.
All I can say is that he has many happy customer’s over several years.
Bavarianbrit
Well-Known Member
Good to hear that, Bulgaria is for me a bit far on the eastern border of the EU, but at least they are in it.
Like most/all other shooters answering this most interesting post from ‘HandB’, YES I would be most interested in a good quality UK Made, Induction Annealing Machine, ESPECIALLY if the costs to join the Club are inviting!!?
Any further information along these lines please my friend?? We are ALL waiting to see what can be offered here I know….
ATVB,
Steve.
Bavarianbrit
Well-Known Member
The one from reloader in Bulgaria arrived in good time with all the extra wheels. I have been too busy to set it up as the workshop here gets too cold in the winter.
Thanks Steve, yes I am pleased to report that my engineering pal is progressing well with his development work on the induction annealing machine. At the moment he is testing out different induction coil geometries and has decided to make the machine with a top mounted auto feed carousel big enough automatically to process a batch of 30 cartridge cases in one go. The holes in the carousel will be sized to accommodate cases up to and including .308 and similar sized diameter case heads (such as .243, 6.5 Creedmoor and so on). He is also thinking about making a carousel with magnum sized holes available to buy as an optional extra if anyone wants to anneal large cases like .338 Lapua Magnum. So if anyone interested in annealing magnum cases in the machine please do let me know in this thread and I will do my best to encourage him to offer this large sized carousel.
Happy New Year!
Great - I am meeting him tomorrow so I will mention your requirement to him.
Update - I met up with my engineering pal today and I am pleased to report that he has created a workable induction coil geometry. We test annealed some .270 Winchester cartridge cases and they were annealed in 7 seconds per case which gives a good balance of speed and precision. The coil did get quite hot so the next engineering challenge for my pal is to create a suitable cooling system, which he will be working on this month.
On a logistical note, my pal has done some cost calculations and it turns out the induction annealer machine with an integral auto feed carousel apparatus will cost approximately the same price as the manual feeding version of the AMP annealer. This is a higher budget than I can afford at the moment so in order to maintain an affordable price for me my pal will make me the first induction annealer in the manual feeding format, without the auto feed carousel apparatus. Working in this manual feeding format with the annealer today we found that we could anneal 100 .270 Winchester cases in about 16 minutes which is acceptable for me as it is a similar work rate to when I trim brass on my Wilson case trimmer. If a shooter has a larger budget than me and wants this machine built with an integral autofeed carousel for approximately the same price as a manual feeding version of the AMP annealer then my pal said he can make one as the design is quite flexible.
But first things first, I will purchase the base model manual feeding induction annealer from my pal when he has perfected the cooling requirements and post a video on here of it in action so that people can watch, comment and generally decide for themselves if it is still of interest.
On a logistical note, my pal has done some cost calculations and it turns out the induction annealer machine with an integral auto feed carousel apparatus will cost approximately the same price as the manual feeding version of the AMP annealer. This is a higher budget than I can afford at the moment so in order to maintain an affordable price for me my pal will make me the first induction annealer in the manual feeding format, without the auto feed carousel apparatus. Working in this manual feeding format with the annealer today we found that we could anneal 100 .270 Winchester cases in about 16 minutes which is acceptable for me as it is a similar work rate to when I trim brass on my Wilson case trimmer. If a shooter has a larger budget than me and wants this machine built with an integral autofeed carousel for approximately the same price as a manual feeding version of the AMP annealer then my pal said he can make one as the design is quite flexible.
But first things first, I will purchase the base model manual feeding induction annealer from my pal when he has perfected the cooling requirements and post a video on here of it in action so that people can watch, comment and generally decide for themselves if it is still of interest.
I made one a month ago, cost £300 all in, including a 150x150x400mm aluminium extrusion to put it in, a programmable timer, 120mm diameter fan, and the gubbins inside. Anyone can do it. I will open it up and send some photos when I have time.
Mine takes 15 second to anneal a 0.270 case, getting the top to bright red hot. Getting it to dull red takes 10s. A tighter coil would reduce that, and keeping the temperature down to 550C rather than almost the melting point would cut to under 5s: I have a cheap IR thermometer so this is simple to set up. I see people on Youtube doing it with the same setup in 2 seconds though.
The key thing to get right, is use a solid copper block to screw the coils into. Using an aluminium block erodes the wire.
Coils are a consumable, to replace every 400 or so annealings. One does not need an insulator between the coils, so long as they are spaced apart. The glass fibre woven insulators burn away within 30 annealings so are a waste of time. One tip in bending the coils, is put the wire into the annealer first so the wire is soft, then once it has cooled down, wind the coil. Winding the coil without annealing the wire is hard work (it did my first one on a lathe, then as soon as I had finished, though "What am I doing, am I really that dumb?", and went to the annealer to soften the rest of the wire).
The heat bands on the annealed casings are fairly uniform, but take a lot of tumbling to get back to smooth brass. A wet tumbler and pins would be much faster. Photo below of the result before cleaning. To make things more consistent I am now using a glass cup for TIG welding to hold the bullet and the coil is wrapped around the cup.
On the safety side, I take all powder out of the reloading area before using the annealer, just in case, and keep phones etc away though in theory the field is very localised.
I looked at making an auto-loading carousel for it, but that would take a day or two of my time to build plus £100 of materials, and still take a couple of seconds per round to load and unload, so it is more economical in time to just hand load the annealer. A carousel would also take more space: at the moment the whole thing is just 15 x 15 x 40cm, with a switched and fused IEC socket for the mains inlet, so no loose cables.
Mine takes 15 second to anneal a 0.270 case, getting the top to bright red hot. Getting it to dull red takes 10s. A tighter coil would reduce that, and keeping the temperature down to 550C rather than almost the melting point would cut to under 5s: I have a cheap IR thermometer so this is simple to set up. I see people on Youtube doing it with the same setup in 2 seconds though.
The key thing to get right, is use a solid copper block to screw the coils into. Using an aluminium block erodes the wire.
Coils are a consumable, to replace every 400 or so annealings. One does not need an insulator between the coils, so long as they are spaced apart. The glass fibre woven insulators burn away within 30 annealings so are a waste of time. One tip in bending the coils, is put the wire into the annealer first so the wire is soft, then once it has cooled down, wind the coil. Winding the coil without annealing the wire is hard work (it did my first one on a lathe, then as soon as I had finished, though "What am I doing, am I really that dumb?", and went to the annealer to soften the rest of the wire).
The heat bands on the annealed casings are fairly uniform, but take a lot of tumbling to get back to smooth brass. A wet tumbler and pins would be much faster. Photo below of the result before cleaning. To make things more consistent I am now using a glass cup for TIG welding to hold the bullet and the coil is wrapped around the cup.
On the safety side, I take all powder out of the reloading area before using the annealer, just in case, and keep phones etc away though in theory the field is very localised.
I looked at making an auto-loading carousel for it, but that would take a day or two of my time to build plus £100 of materials, and still take a couple of seconds per round to load and unload, so it is more economical in time to just hand load the annealer. A carousel would also take more space: at the moment the whole thing is just 15 x 15 x 40cm, with a switched and fused IEC socket for the mains inlet, so no loose cables.
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Thanks Alex, nice work - the anneal lines look good to me. As long as the case head is not softened I think they will be fine if some annealed are a bit lower than others. And I think your anneal time of 15 seconds per case is decent as the longer the anneal time the more precise the depth of anneal. I wouldn't want to go much faster than 7 seconds that my pal's machine currently works at.
My 25-year old Gaggia coffee making machine threw in the towel yesterday which has me plotting thinking.
Can this development stage annealing machine be made to look like an inclusive (Part B) component of a funky 21st century replacement of the aforementioned?? Asking for the Wife!
Thanks
K
Can this development stage annealing machine be made to look like an inclusive (Part B) component of a funky 21st century replacement of the aforementioned?? Asking for the Wife!
Thanks
K
Why do the anneal after tumbling? Annealed brass is not pretty. Annealing makes it look beautiful again.
I am using the sequence:
- Decap
- Anneal
- Vibratory cleaner (wet tumble would be better, saving me the need to use a wire brush in a lathe to clean all the pockets)
- Full Length Sizing
- Trim if needed
- Chamfer
- Reload:
Prime
Load powder
Load bullet
As it happens my pal's induction annealer will look like a coffee machine as it will stand on legs made of aluminium extrusion in order to allow space underneath for a receptacle into which the annealed cases will drop. That receptacle could be a coffee mug if you so chose...
