My first picture.

[45-70 Chevroner]

This is a modification to one of my Luber sizer a Lyman #45 quite old. I did this modification about 15 years ago. It makes it very easy to make a flat nose out of a round or spire point cast boolit, and get it exactly the same every time. Notice the 1/4 20 bolt going through the upper body of the ram it has a nut to lock it in place after you adjust the bolt to touch the lower part of the sizer and creats a stop. The bolt is 2" long, and quite easy to do. I drilled a hole then threaded it to 1/4 20 thread.

Well it looks like it didn't work. I will try to attach the picture later.

[45-70 Chevroner]

see original thread from 45-70 chevroner.24664











Looks like it needs a little more light.

[Buckshot]

Looks like it needs a little more light.

.............Yup, it does :-) but not bad for a first effort! I merged your 2 threads btw.

............Buckshot

[45-70 Chevroner]

Thanks Buckshot.

[AZ-Stew]

Though it could use a little more lighting to illuminate the shadow areas under the casting protrusions, the photo can be made to look better by using an image manipulation program. Photoshop is the most famous one, but it costs as much as a nice rifle. Photoshop Elements costs less than $100 and currently has a $20 rebate. I just bought a copy for $79. End price after rebate will be $59. There is an excellent program available for FREE on the net called GIMP. It's put out by the same people who developed the Linux operating system. Their object was to make open-source software available to everyone, which could be improved by anyone who had the programming skills. I have a copy of that, as well. The program I used to lighten your photo, below, is called Paint Shop Pro, by Corel. I've used it longer than the others, so I can make changes more quickly, but in reality, they all do the same things. You just have to pick one and learn how to use it. I believe that, in addition to being free, GIMP has some pretty good on-line training.

Here's what your photo could have looked like:

[ghh3rd]

24677
Not trying to show off, but another free one that works well is Irfanview. It's 100% free, and does lots of cool stuff. It only took about ten seconds to lighten your pic up with it, and sharpen it up too. I salvage many of my rejected pics with it. Definitely worth the price :-) The more free stuff I can get, the more $ for shootin...

[AZ-Stew]

ghh,

Thanks for the heads up on Irfanview. Never heard of it until now. It sure has a lot of capabilities with respect to reading different file types.

Regarads,

Stew

[45-70 Chevroner]

They both look pretty good but like old people to much light brings out the worst in them. I think I will stick with a little extra lighting so as to not bring out too many rinkles. The second one makes it look like it's growing green whiskers. The sizer luber actually looks better in real time. Of course it is about 40 years old or maybe older. Thanks guys, but I wish someone would comment on the added feature. Maybe it's not such a novel idea. I know that you can adjust the bullet depth, but as far as I know there is no way to adjust how much pressure is applied to the top of the boolit.

[Pepe Ray]

I like the idea of a stroke stop. In this case, however, it is a little too soon in the development of the Lube/Sizer.
The old Lyman #45 is notorious for having a weak handle. "Tho I've never broken mine, I always cautious to give the heavy duty sizing jobs to my newer #450.
I'll evaluate instaling your stroke stop on the #450.
Thanks for the idea.
Pepe Ray

[45-70 Chevroner]

Thanks Pepe Ray. I have a 450 also but I haven't put much thought in to modifying it. I did the modification on the 45 before I got the 450 so it wasn't necessary to do another one. I will look at the possibalities of modifying the 450 though. I don't use the stroke stop a lot but it's there when I need it.
45-70 Chevroner.

[AZ-Stew]

They both look pretty good but like old people. Too much light brings out the worst in them. I think I will stick with a little extra lighting so as to not bring out too many rinkles. The second one makes it look like it's growing green whiskers.

Sorry to not make a comment on the added feature, but since I don't own this model of lube/sizer, it's a little difficult to make an intellegent statement about it.

As to the "wrinkles" brought about by lightening the photos, the biggest one I see is that the camera wasn't steady during the shot. The cure is to either use a flash or a tripod. The second "enhancement" of your original photo suffers from too much file compression. The programs I mentioned, and surely also the Irfanview program, allow you to vary the amount of file compression when saving the file as a .JPG format image. Don't be afraid of the image manipulation programs. Get one and learn to use it. It's like reloading. The first time a friend told me I could reload my empty cartridges, I thought he was nuts. I couldn't imagine how anyone could purchase explosives (powder and primers), bullets, etc., and safely assemble them into usable ammo. 35+ years later, I almost never buy factory ammo. Typically, I buy empty brass when I need it, primers, powder and I either buy or cast my projectiles. I also turn out quality ammo that's as good as, or better than what I can buy. It's just a matter of education, practice and having the right tools. Same with the digital photos.

BTW, see my posts under this thread: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=91264 (scroll down). The second and third show the results from and discuss my new "tools" for digital photography (be sure to click the small photo so you can see the larger, more detailed one). The camera and lens don't matter too much. I have a ten year old Sony 3 Megapixel digital camera at work that will turn out essentially the same quality image. What you see REQUIRED the use of an image manipulation program to make the original small enough to post and to crop it into the short-wide aspect ratio photo you see there. I don't remember all of what I did to make it look its best, but I did tweak it a bit to make it look natural, then I reduced its size for posting here and set the .JPG compression to produce a small file size without losing detail. As I said, education, practice, tools.

Regards,

Stew