Annealing with Hot Sand?

I'm not actually doing any of this work,and I'm going to suggest something that may not work,...its just brainstorming.I have not tried any of it. I don't have an induction hot plate.
My idea might trigger someone elses better idea.
Small induction hot plates for cooking use are available for reasonable prices.
They heat ferrous metal pans well.
A cast iron fry pan would qualify.
I'm guessing a very fine grade of steel shot peen shot would also be heated if it was in the fry pan.
I'm not knocking the lead pot idea,but lead pot configuration suggests media depth far greater than necessary. A 4 in deep pot of media brings its own problems.
Why not go with ,say,1/2 in or so of the steel shot media depth? Use the bottom of the fry pan for a depth stop.
Media temp could be monitored with one of those $60 infa red non contact thermometers.
An occasional pan shake would level the media.

Like I said,its just brainstorming. Never tried it.
 
I like the way you think HiBC. So instead of a iron plate why not find the right diameter round steel stock 6''-12" cut a thick slice off to what works well for timing and to hold heat might be 2-3"... thick. bore out to depth for steal shot media and put it on a spindle. Turn it slowly until you reach the temp you find that will hold constant... propane should be good for heat.
Am I off track? :cool:
 
I don't think you can get the temp control fine enough with propane and the typical induction consumer hotplate has a temp range of less than 500 F

a $30 dollar lead pot is still the best option for the average home hobbyist. If you want to go north of one hundred that RCBS unit with the digital thermo and plus/minus 10F is tailor made for it
 
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Am I off track?
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(Longshot)

I couldn't say.Its your track.

I agree a lead pot is a practical component that can be easily purchased.It will make the heat and it has temp control.
I'm not at all critical of that idea.I'm not raining on the parade.
I have used sand on a lab hot plate to draw back torch hardened small steel parts. A lead pot is a better idea.

My input was an attempt to address both the fixturing of the brass for depth control and the limited thermal conductivity of sand.Fine steel shot peen shot is more conductive.
The heating elements are in the bottom and/or sides of the pot.Liquid lead will conduct/distribute that heat a few inches easily.Sand,less so. I see no advantage in sending the heat through two or three inches of sand that is not really part of the process.The extra sand is there because the pot is designed for capacity to cast bullets.
The extra depth of sand is a compromise to make the lead pot work.
IMO,with a conductive,loose flowing round shot media,the media does not need to be deeper than deep enough.The bottom of the vessel,or a false bottom,can be the depth stop,assuming the shot will self level reasonably well.

With proper media depth and temp control,fixturing might be a welder's glove.

As far as how the pot is fabricated....If you choose to start with a large billet of steel and lathe turn a vessel,that can work...I'm lazier than that.
A flea market cast iron pan (even a warped or pitted one) would do.

Once again,this is all just thought. I'm not actually doing any of it. I'm the peanut gallery.
Full kudos and support for the OP who IS actually doing it.
 
Full kudos and support for the OP who IS actually doing it.
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Have to correct this. The OP(me) is not doing this , at the moment at least. I am perfectly happy with my Anealeeze. I annealed about one hundred .260 cases with it this morning in about 30 minutes give or take

I may try this later on this year depending on the weather and my boredom factor but at the moment I have neither the time or the inclination. I just threw the idea out during a 3 beer brainstorm to see if anyone wanted to jump on it and refine it past the what if stage
 
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How would you keep lead from "soldering" itself to the brass?
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I use the lead pot method for all my .204 Ruger to .222 Magnum case conversions/annealing, and have never had any 'soldering problems'. Since this is just a minor 'neck up' case forming operation, I fire form first, then anneal. I think the carbon residue from that first firing, prevents any lead sticking to the brass. Incidentally, I leave the fired primer in place to prevent lead rising inside the case neck. Also, when I first started using the pot for annealing, I lightly wiped the inside and out side with an old gun cleaning rag...CLP on it...and had no problems with splashing molten lead...later, I dispensed with the oil treatment as it wasn't necessary.

When making .25-20 cases from .32-20, I use new brass, and do not anneal until I've fire formed. I have used a propane torch on occasion, but limit it's use to a 2-3 second twirl in the 1" flame. In this case I suspect that real annealing is not accomplished...I fire form next then go back to the lead pot method for subsequent annealings (every 4-5 shots).

Just one more shout out for safety...I wear a complete face mask and my impact resistant glasses, a very heavy shirt, buttoned to the neck, and also buttoned over leather work gloves. I have never had a visit from the "tinsel fairy", and will take all precautions to prevent a splash incident. I'm not annealing thousands of rounds, just 40-50 at a time and only in those two calibers; and I feel that the short time it takes me to process that many, allows me to maintain the concentration absolutely necessary to prevent accidents. It's molten lead, doncha know!!!

HTH's Rod
 
I’ve purchased a Lee lead pot and steel blasting shot (170) to try and do this without any liquid medium that raises the risks. Also the shot medium with a necked case will tend to provide the stability like sand to put them in for a few seconds and then remove so maybe a process of putting in multiple cases will work in a sequence and speed things up.


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Andrew - Lancaster, CA
NRA Life Member, SAF / CRPA / FPC member and supporter, USCCA Member
 
JH, besides keeping water away from the salt setup what else if anything should I watch out for? Lmk, appreciate your time. Thx!!
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Many salts are seriously reactive, you have to watch what you introduce into them.
Moisture is one, petrochemicals are another (brass cleaner, polish, etc/).
Depending on the salt base, just the brass might react.

You are probably safe with anything intended for heat treating, but it's not usually cheap.

I've not had time to mess with much lately, got busy all at once, but I did dump some shot peening media in the lead pot and did a couple runs at annealing.
Haven't had time to do Rockwell or micrograph yet, but it was stupid easy & I have no reason to think it wouldn't work. It has every element in spades for proper and complete annealing.

This is a crazy good idea, and it's dirt simple!
 
Thanks for this great idea and thread inputs.

I have a lot more practice to do but I’ve convinced myself this really works out fine with the steel blasting shot.

The pot was getting about 780 deg Fat edges, surface of the shot more like 680 F, stir it up and you see 800 F for a few seconds then the surface cools quickly. I used a drywall screw to stir the pot between case groups but this may not be necessary I wanted to see how the shot upper surface was cooling from the cases being in there.

The case mouth is seeing over 700 deg F for sure, less than 800 F unless stirring deeply toward the pot walls. The cases show nice faint discoloration, the tempilaq stick for 450 F showed case walls were not overheating below the shoulder, still need to practice and tune the timing. It does work to insert multiple cases and then count and remove them in sequence so all getting similar time in the shot. I was trying anywhere from 10-25 seconds of the case mouth and shoulder touching shot, maybe excessive not sure yet until I go shoot these and see. I’m VERY confident that the base of the cases was not overheated.

It is worth trying if you’re on the fence.

I am sure though that this method is not great for high throughput. Flame or induction would do this much faster.

A note about time... this pot took about 35-40 minutes to get all the shot to this steady temperature (did not stir while heating that might help) and then took about 1.5 hrs to cool before I could pick it up to put away in my plastic tool chest. It took about 30 minutes to do the first cases experimenting. Compare that to the OP reference to annealing 100 cases in 30 minutes.


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Blasting shot had a lot of impurities and oils on it when I got it here it smoked like crazy and I heated it three times to finally stop the smoking. Use ventilation at first but later probably not necessary.

A note on contactless IR thermometers, make sure you’re considering the emissivity if the material. Here I tried several settings and there is some uncertainties on the temp values because of this. Even if you know the emissivity of ‘raw steel’ the surface roughness and impurities bakes on to this blasting shot is not easily known and changes the answer. A second way to verify is good, hence why I bought the templilstiks and did not want to deal with cleaning off the liquid templilaq that will be getting blasting shot stuck to it the whole time if you go that route.

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Andrew - Lancaster, CA
NRA Life Member, SAF / CRPA / FPC member and supporter, USCCA Member
 
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This stuff really baffles me.
You guys go through all this Rube Goldberg stuff to do a very simple operation that has been done for over 100 years.
I can't understand what you're trying to accomplish.
 
Bill DeShivs said:
a very simple operation that has been done for over 100 years.
I can't understand what you're trying to accomplish.
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There is more than one way to make a knife, no? There is more than one way to do any simple operation that’s been done for thousands of years.



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Andrew - Lancaster, CA
NRA Life Member, SAF / CRPA / FPC member and supporter, USCCA Member
 
Bill DeShivs

This stuff really baffles me.
You guys go through all this Rube Goldberg stuff to do a very simple operation that has been done for over 100 years.
I can't understand what you're trying to accomplish.
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innovation, and improvement maybe
 
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