DIY Electrical Annealing Of Rifle Cases

I think I saw a documentary on that plane,
Didnt they try to recover it, then start it or fly it, only to burn it down?
When they were talking about what it was worth, how much they could make, I kind of tuned it out.
 
JeepHammer:
I think I saw a documentary on that plane,
Didnt they try to recover it, then start it or fly it, only to burn it down?
When they were talking about what it was worth, how much they could make, I kind of tuned it out.
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It could have been this plane which actually was in Iceland. Dream of Salvaging B-29 Goes Up in Smoke. Also, a Google of B 29 APU brings up some cool stuff.

Back on topic. JeepHammer while I haven't a clue what you have in mind as to a kit that can be marketed if you want to just mess around with some basic circuit board designs software like Express PCB may be a good start unless of course you already have some software ideas or stuff installed. There is also other free PCB layout design software out there to be had. Been several years but before retiring I used Orcad Capture for schematics and Orcad PSpice for board layout and design. They did offer free versions with limited capabilities. One limit was parts count which I doubt would affect what you want to do. Yeah, found Orcad Lite Version.

Again, not knowing what you have these are just random suggestions.

Several of the guys I have come across who were into building induction heaters it seemed forever were cooking their MOSFETs used in their designs, ebven MOSFETs rated well above the application demands. The guys trying and using IGBT circuits seemed to fare better. Most of the power supplies I have seen used just involve hacking old micro-wave over transformers. Gut the secondary and add about 30 turns (give or take) of AWG 12 around the old core.

If you need any parts don't hesitate to post as I have stuff I will never use lying around and if it will help it is yours for the asking.

Ron
 
Understood, a thought if not a good one.

I like putting things together, I don't like having to hash and sort through what might or might not work (nor the patience)

Worst case (pun) if my brother took my allowance to use his Annie away at this point I would dive in and buy one.

I am going to offer him the free use of my Lyman borescope so will see!

I continue to follow this with baited breath!

Two things come to mind right away,
1. Once you 'Standardize' you have to have parts made at full price.
That drives the price WAY up.
Then you have to think about product liability insurance, etc.

2. Idiot Proofing.
A TON of potential for disaster.
You have seen the arguments on here over something as simple as a case gauge, can you imagine how bad this could be screwed up?

For $500 the 'Annie' is a pretty good deal.

I'm trying to work something out for the guys that can plug in a surplus power supply without electrocuting themselves or burning the house down,
Then running two wires to the induction unit, and maybe wrapping a copper conductor around a ferrite core without screwing it up...

Some guys will electrocute themselves changing flashlight batteries,
Some guys can't figure out the difference between head space sizing and case length.

Some can use the information to make better brass, some won't, some will declare the entire thing unnecessary, it's up to them
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Kind of dated topic, I don't even know if the supply of 1,000 watt heaters is available, they were production over run out of China to begin with...

*IF* WE, as a group, could come up with a list of generic base parts,
A wiring diagram, and examples/explanations/directions for a single case annealer two things happen,
1. Annealer companies will have to step up their game.
If you can build one from components/directions/parts lists that are open source & free for $100 or less in parts,
(And I'm sure someone will gather the parts and sell everything as a kit)
Then we will see products that go beyond 'Basic'.

2. EVERY reloaded I've ever met was a 'Tinkerer', messes with something or another for the sheer enjoyment of 'Tinkering'.
This is a tinkering project that can and will be improved upon as people come up with new ideas, materials, function changes.

While some question if annealing is a 'Necessary' step or not,
About all would like to at least try it.
Gas bottles, fixtures, paint, water pans, etc are all a pain, and produce poor results.
Knowing someone that has one of these annealers would allow folks to at least try annealing...

And I can lose $100 worth of change in a month to the couch...
It's not like it would break the bank if annealing didn't show results for your particular reloading style.
 
This link may help. I know that forum had several threads on induction heating and their member gary 350 has done quite a bit with the things. I am not sure how good or credible any of the information is. I was active somewhat in that forum before I retired.

Something worth considering is many of the projects involving induction heater circuits use a center tapped coil. Some of the recent ones in the forum I linked are single coil not center tapped which is what I believe would be best for annealing. As to automating the case feed? My earliest thoughts involved similar to a loading block with the coil on a hand wand.

The original Annie had several problems. I think they went from MOSFET to IGBT and now they mention:

The Annie got SiC. and she's feeling a lot better! We made the decision to move to Silicon Carbide MOSFETs, leaving behind the silicon IGBTs we've used to date. In a nutshell, it's a dream material for semiconductors. It's capable of operating at higher temperatures, higher frequencies, and produces far less waste heat.

While SiC transistors have been around for a long time, only recently have they become economically viable. They are about 10x the cost, which is still a little hard to swallow. We did it, and we will not raise the price of the Annie to cover this upgrade!
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This is the problem I mentioned earlier which seems to plague these things. People are using transistors well within their ratings and they still like to fail.

Ron
 
As for me I am not worried nor really interested in quantity production .

I just have 600 or 1000 spare cases and take them out in bulk to get it done.


15 minutes or less for all I need to do, certainly easier than trimming.

There is zero doubt in my mind as to the value of annealing.

I may eventually go to all Lapua cases and if you can stretch those out more then really good.

I have enough odd ball cases I can run my mil surplus 06 and not worry about chamber issues. If they go for other reasons then I keep picking up enough odds and ends to more than cover just throwing them away.
 
Now if you were running a 110 v circuit the amps for 2,400 watts would be close to 22 amps, I only mentions that small matter because of current draw on the circuit so; I suggest the reloader beef up the circuit breaker and increase the diameter of the wire. And then; there is always a 'and then' moment. Go to a 220V circuit, the 220v circuit will pull half the amps for the same work done being done.

And then we go back to the big inning; someone suggested a pan of water and then someone in a loud, lofty authoritative voice said it was not necessary and it did nothing.

F. Guffey
 
One outfit wants a grand for their induction annealing machine, but the video is interesting to watch all the way through, as they've found different brass alloys used by different manufacturers require slightly different temperatures to anneal, assuming you have the same target hardness for all. They validate this with a Vickers hardness tester and run their programs to try to get all brass alloys and neck wall thicknesses the same.

I'm not sure that a specific hardness number is key, but anything that's consistent is a positive. In other words, if you always hit the same hardness number for a brand and caliber of brass, that probably matters more than what that exact hardness number is. But it is interesting to note that if you change brass brands that the same annealing heat source will not give you the same hardness. Their hardness testing certainly proves that much. And it's also a concern that a brand that contracts out brass is going to see alloy variations from one lot to the next and won't play nicely with their prescribed programs. But it is interesting how much trouble they've gone to.
 
One outfit wants a grand for their induction annealing machine, but the video is interesting to watch all the way through, as they've found different brass alloys used by different manufacturers require slightly different temperatures to anneal, assuming you have the same target hardness for all.
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Interesting point. I wonder, by manufacturer how much brass within a manufacturer can vary lot to lot? They obviously went through the trouble of assigning different programs to different manufacturers and I wonder just how much the brass varies? Does it really vary enough to care? A blow torch and pie pan of water is beginning to look good. :)

Hardness tester is an animal I wish I had or had scarfed up surplus at some point. :(

Ron
 
I watched the Aussie video,
What I took away from it is an entirely different take...

Good on them they are hardness testing...
Having a Rockwell machine (or similar) and graduated scaleable comparator microscope is a good deal,
Can't get absolute, quantifiable numbers without both.
That's why I use a Rockwell machine and Leica comparator to determine hardness.

I sneaked in some chemical analysis samples when doing a government contract a while back (same contract that required the Rockwell & optical comparator) and found you CAN infuse residue from previous discharges into the brass.

Two things come to mind that I didn't agree with in that video,
They are shooting to get ALL brass to one uniform hardness,
Which you simply won't accomplish with different zinc contents & trace metals/minerals in the 'Secret Formula' brass each company produces.

That's not the idea for a home annealer anyway,
Home annealer is looking for softening the case shoulder/neck so the brass resizes PRECISELY, and case lonjevity is dramatically increased.

The biggest issue I have is the guy saying the off gassing of the brass was 'Normal' & 'To Be Expected'...

Smoking/off gassing is one of two things,
Either you WAY over heated the brass and you are vaporizing alloy components in the brass,
OR,
The brass is still dirty!
Nothing like pumping lead, copper, cadmium and a dozen other heavy metals into vapor into your breathing air!

Welders are trained & warned about welding/brazing where they will be exposed to heavy metal contamination, but reloaders seem to be oblivious to the danger...

Annealing *Shouldn't* produce a color change in flame, if the flame color changes you are seriously overheating the brass, cooking out someone two of the alloy.
Electrical annealing will create a 'Puff' of smoke from inside the case alerting you to the fact you just cooked the case too hot...

Spotlessly clean cases won't smoke unless you over heat them.
Lubed cases always smoke, but long before you reach annealing temprature.

Now, as to 'Pan Of Water'...
When you can anneal the shoulder/neck enough to get color change in thermochromactic paint (roughly 700*-750*F.)
And yet, still hold the case in your bare fingers, pretty much proves your anneal isn't reaching the head of the case...
'Pan Of Water' not needed, no matter how the 'Plumbers Torch' guys used to do it.

This IS doable, the question is, are there enough people willing to donate to an 'Open Source' project to hammer it out?
 
I got sent this link, really interesting!

http://www.stanleyzinn.com/induction-heating/coil-design-2.html

Between this web site (and others) I've been able to build a convayor line annealer, two lines for faster production, and kept the consumption well over 2,500 watts, although capable of production annealing .50 BMG cases, I do MUCH smaller cases, including annealing of newly pressed brass from coiled sheet stock.

The biggest issue I had was finding non-metallic high temp materials to build the conveyor & framing for the coils out of so the magnetic fields and subsequent gems reached didn't cook the conveyor or framing right along with the cases...

Telflon stock gets expensive QUICK!
 
This IS doable, the question is, are there enough people willing to donate to an 'Open Source' project to hammer it out?
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I'm good with it. What do you figure to get something started? Looking at start hardware and then thinking about the control design. Then the actual induction circuit. You need a head count and figure a rough start cost.

Previously my reference to Pan of Water was in humor. :)

Ron
 
The big benifits seem to come with getting Rockwell B scale down to around 75 or so, and that's not terrably difficult,
Most 'High' cartridge brass will hit that mark right around 700*-725*F.
Right around 730*F. Up to a maximum of 750*F will give you full 'Normalization' of the brass, removing virtually all stress line compaction.

This by no means you MUST reach 750*F since 'Normalization' starts about 650*F.
That means ANY annealing past about 650*F produces desirable results.

Some of the really high zinc content brass (most name brand US made brass) sees results as low as 450*F.
This *Might* be where painting the case body with 450*F thermocromoactic paint comes from, I just can't say that definitively since I don't know the source.
 
Now if you were running a 110 v circuit the amps for 2,400 watts would be close to 22 amps, I only mentions that small matter because of current draw on the circuit so; I suggest the reloader beef up the circuit breaker and increase the diameter of the wire. And then; there is always a 'and then' moment. Go to a 220V circuit, the 220v circuit will pull half the amps for the same work done being done.

And then we go back to the big inning; someone suggested a pan of water and then someone in a loud, lofty authoritative voice said it was not necessary and it did nothing.
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I only respond to this as there is some electrical aspects to be cleared up here and about CBs from the above.

Your house uses what is called a Thermal (heat) Trip CB. Simplest CB out there. Most wall outlet CBs for any application are that type.

What that means is it has to heat up to trip.

A standard 20 amp (guess its 15 now) will take 40 amps for about 5 seconds before it trips. I.e. it takes a bit of time to heat up before it trips.

Electric motors draw a large surge current on startup but not sustained so they do fine.

Home compressors HP is rated on that Surge, i.e. you will see 3 and 5 hp rating when infarct the motor is 1/3 HP (which is about the limit)

A short pulse pull of 1.5 seconds will not trip it.

Sustained repeated pulse might, depends on the operation.

Cross check the wire size and don't just bump up the CB.

I rewired my shop compressor to 220 as it was iffy at the end of a long run.
 
They are shooting to get ALL brass to one uniform hardness,
Which you simply won't accomplish with different zinc contents & trace metals/minerals in the 'Secret Formula' brass each company produces.
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If the brass all work hardens above the target hardness, then all can be brought down to a lower target hardness that is the same value with the appropriate time and temperature exposure. The question I have is, is that what matters or not? I think what you may want is uniform bullet pull. This is going to be a combination of how much elastic spring force the neck applies normal to the bullet bearing surface in the neck and the coefficient of friction between the gilding metal and the brass, which won't be identical for the two alloys. So, to produce identical bullet pull, you don't want quite identical hardness in the two alloys. What I don't know is if the difference is enough to be seen on a target or it it's going to be lost in the noise.

An open source induction annealer sounds like a good idea to me. I don't have a lot of additional time these days, but would be happy to contribute where I can.
 
I had to buy a 'Dyno' of sorts for an ongoing production contract,
Testing rebound buffers, shock absorbers of sorts.
Having imperical data on neck tension was an eye opener.
It's where I first started honing out die necks and honing sizing balls on the cheaper dies to see if I could set up dies for different brands of brass, different neck thickness.

Annealing made for MUCH more consistent neck tension on any given die set, and any given headstamp brass/brand.
The inconsistency between brands was still there, but reduced.
Seems clean/annealed brass makes for consistency, nothing new there, but I dint realize how much. (I'm thick headed that way)

Annealing to a common temp, say around 730*F, seems to give VERY consistant results in about any 'High' brass, getting it down to 75-73 or so, which is very good, almost perfect for neck resizing.
A little hotter will give softer brass for forming, doesn't have to be totally soft for sizing.
 
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It was Greenland they tried to recover the B-29 at and burned it up.
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Greenland tried to recover the B-29? And then there is the 'at'?

Lou Piniella was at bat and not happy with the calls he was getting. He disagreed with the umpire; "where was that pitch at?". The umpire corrected Lou and suggested he should not end a sentence with a preposition. And then the next pitch; Lou was not happy with the call so he asked the Umpire; "Where was that pitch at A$$ H@le"; and then the rest of the story, Mr. Piniella was sent home early.

F. Guffey
 
F Guffy:

For someone who writes the most weird and twisted posts that takes a Crazy computer to untangle, hmmmmm

Location: Greenland

Group: Greenmeyer? (and clowns) Aka Aviation record setter (F-104?)

Burned Up: Though greed, fly by night operation and stupidity yes. Wonderfully intact gem destroyed. Should be shot.

That cover it ok?
 
Or, how many people have 10 x 100 watt lights running in their house for 5 or 6 hours a day? electric stove? electric dryer? Can you say spin the wheel?
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And I ask: How many houses have 10 100 watt lights on one circuit and I ask if the circuit is a series circuit or a parallel circuit? I ask because one 100 Watt light bulb is hard on a circuit that is wired in series, the 100 watt light bulb is hard on a switch. Typing slower; I am not a fan of a reloader jumping into reloading without basic skills and knowledge. Some members suggest purchasing the latest gadgets and most difficult presses to operate.

I feel the same way about electricity as I do about reloading. 22 amps is a load on (one) a circuit.

Burned Up: Though greed, fly by night operation and stupidity yes. Wonderfully intact gem destroyed. Should be shot.
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We can not be talking about the same plane; it took them close to 3 years to fly enough parts and repaired parts in just to get the plane airworthy. I do not understand the "lets get them" attitude. I want to the Smithsonian Museum, when I got to the aviation display I saw the nose of the Enola Gay sticking out of a wall and wondered how they did that. I thought the nose of the plane was attached to the rest of the plane behind the wall; not so. The rest of the proud old plane was parked in a lot with other planes; the planes looked abandoned. Moments before I saw the nose of the plane protruding from the wall I was talking about donating a few old airplane parts from planes that went back to 1915. Weird bunch at the Museum, they did not believe the atomic bomb should have been used.

That cover it ok?
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If you can not take it you should consider doing a better job or quit dishing this garbage out.

F, Guffey
 
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Do you have any specific suggestions for a power supply? I am looking at server power supplies running 1000w at 12v but I am curious if you know of any better deals or resources.

Sent from my SM-G930P using Tapatalk
 
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