Who's got a magic idea for a pinch trim die that works in a progressive press?

[xman777]

LOL thats too funny. Sounds just like my old lady.
She could write a diatribe about how un-attentive I am and ponder on whats bothering me when it is indeed the very most boring things in life like the lawn mower wont start and I havent figured out why.

[RLW]

got a little mental image in my head.
RLW eating breakfast looking out over the sunrise coming up behind the Eiffel tower and day dreaming about building a rotary cut-off tool.
[this is in black and white of course]
Brigit Bardot [played by RLW's wife] walks in behind him and puts her arms around him and asks what he is thinking.
breaking his concentration right when he gets to the dual gear driven gear reduction math part of the problem
his answer of course is.............. "nothing".
But she can see he is concerned because of the furrowed look on his brow, and wants to have a 45 minute conversation about it [thinking he is about to change the worlds fortunes] while she keeps changing position on the settee every Minute and 30 seconds.

sorry man,,,,,, I have an imagination sometimes.

Your not that far off. The setting is slightly different but it sounds like you have a pretty good idea of what is going on.

[RLW]

Xman777, how much of the case are you looking to remove?

[xman777]

I'm looking to cut a 40 s&w down to .725. Its about an 1/8th of an inch.

[jmorris]

All i know is the HF saw even with jigs is really slow.

Another way to use saw blades to trim brass.

[xman777]

How much re work is involved with a cut like this? Chamfer/deburr etc... Seems to me like I'd need a second operation to clean it all up unless tumbling in SS Media gets it cleaned off.

[jmorris]

Depends on the blade and feed but I just use it for a "rough" cut. Finish cut will be about the same as you could do with a mini chop saw, just automated.

[jmorris]

I made this video when I was checking out a machine a friend gave me.



It would work but would be expensive and slow.

An 1/8" is a lot for some trimmers but pretty easy with others. Getting rid of the chips becomes a problem as they try and nest in a vacuum hose (like a rats nest).

What kind of production are you looking for, time and number wise?

[xman777]

Nothing blazing. I just want to do other things while the cases get trimmed. I would also like an inside chamfer and deburr on the outside. I suppose 1 every second or 3 would suffice. So long as I can load them in a dillon case feeder and unload them ready for swaging. Thats kind of where I'm at with it.

[jmorris]

Maybe see if Giraud would make you a 3 way cutter for .40 and setup a custom tool head on a 650.

You won't get one a second production but could do 2 or 3 seconds.

how much money do you have to play with?

[xman777]

I talked to Giraud and due to the short size of the brass, he was unwilling to make a machine. I was looking at the camdex but its close to 40k with custom calibers. I was thinking between 3-5k was reasonable being that I make close to 5k rounds per month. I do not sell much of it, only some to friends so this is still hobby level, but figuring how much I have into swaging equipment, this price is pretty close to what I spent on a hydro press and that's only used for point forming at this point. I have plans to swage my own wire and make jackets, but the tooling for those is less of a priority than something to cut this brass which I get for free.

[RLW]

Nothing blazing. I just want to do other things while the cases get trimmed. I would also like an inside chamfer and deburr on the outside. I suppose 1 every second or 3 would suffice. So long as I can load them in a dillon case feeder and unload them ready for swaging. Thats kind of where I'm at with it.

I think on the 650 something with a dillon trimmer or even one of the trimmers I have set up would be your best bet. You wont get chamfer and deburr but it would be a clean cut. Not sure what you are capable of as far as 3d design. If you have nothing you can get simple software from a place like emachineshop.com and design the part or parts you need. You can even get a quote from them for what it would cost. I'll try to explain what I think would work but not sure how well I will be able to. You might have to do it in two parts. What I think would work is if the toolhead was cut instead of say an inch thick (not sure of actual thickness and no way for me to check at the moment) but thick enough so that the bottom of the toolhead almost touches the shellplate. You would obviously have to have material removed to allow for the bolt and spring that stick up from the shell plate. You would need to cut a sizing die down short enough that when the shell issized in the die it sticks out of the top of the die far enough to be trimmed. The toolhead in the station where the trimmer would go would have to have material taken from the top far enough down that the top of the cut off die is exposed when installed in the toolhead. Then a second part could be made that would bolt onto the top of the shell plate that has a mount for the trimmer. Obviously you would have to work out the height of the part that sits on top where the trimmer mounts and you would have to work out a system to vaccum the chips out.

Not sure if this makes any sense.

[xman777]

I think on the 650 something with a dillon trimmer or even one of the trimmers I have set up would be your best bet. You wont get chamfer and deburr but it would be a clean cut. Not sure what you are capable of as far as 3d design. If you have nothing you can get simple software from a place like emachineshop.com and design the part or parts you need. You can even get a quote from them for what it would cost. I'll try to explain what I think would work but not sure how well I will be able to. You might have to do it in two parts. What I think would work is if the toolhead was cut instead of say an inch thick (not sure of actual thickness and no way for me to check at the moment) but thick enough so that the bottom of the toolhead almost touches the shellplate. You would obviously have to have material removed to allow for the bolt and spring that stick up from the shell plate. You would need to cut a sizing die down short enough that when the shell issized in the die it sticks out of the top of the die far enough to be trimmed. The toolhead in the station where the trimmer would go would have to have material taken from the top far enough down that the top of the cut off die is exposed when installed in the toolhead. Then a second part could be made that would bolt onto the top of the shell plate that has a mount for the trimmer. Obviously you would have to work out the height of the part that sits on top where the trimmer mounts and you would have to work out a system to vaccum the chips out.

Not sure if this makes any sense.

It makes perfect sense to me. I have been attempting something close to this for a while but the short case poses a major problem which requires much modification. I have no machine equipment at this point. I do have solidworks design software and 3DCAD for work. I don't design for a living I am instead an automation engineer. I usually pick parts that work together and send them to the design engineers. I am a novice at best in 3D Design software so its brutal for me to poke around until I get it right.
I am however not afraid to try and I could tell you about ten things that won't work for this

[RLW]

Here are a couple photos that might illustrate what I was thinking. I made them real quick so I left out a lot of details like the rail that mounts it to the toolhead in the press and threads and holes for the other die stations and stuff but hopefully it will help make sense of what I wrote in my previous post. Not great photos as I did them and then took photos with my cell phone of my laptop screen.

[RLW]

Yeah, I think the short case would be your biggest obstical. That said, the die is simply being used to hold the case to prevent it from spinning when the cutter hits it. You could cut the die down and probably rockset or locktite the die in place.

[RLW]

Also, just in case you are not sure the one photo is the bottom part that holds the die and the other photo is the top part that holds the trimmer.

[clodhopper]

What if you just cut away enough of the tool head to provide room for the trimmer, then bolt an addition on the bottom of the tool head. the part bolted on the bottom could be made from much smaller stock, and better quality stock that does not require so much length for strong threads?

[xman777]

So what I currently have is a 550 toolhead that I cut a deep recess into using a forstner bit. (yes I know please save your time telling me I'm an idiot for using a wood cutting forstner bit on aluminum and I won't have to tell you that its all I have to work with and it did the job.) When I finally get it figured out Ill adapt it to the 650. I'm using the 550 no so the shellpate wont automatically rotate.
I saved the last 4 threads and screwed a lee pistol cutting die in. I have not cut the die yet. I am using a hand crank (currently) lee rapid trim which can do the job.
Drawbacks are this: Shavings, not semi-auto and not super accurate but probably due to the shavings clogging and keeping the rotational arm from seating in the die all the way.
Now what I was trying to do was get from there to something semi auto. Lee makes a chuckable head and those motors that RLW posted should hold that. So what's left is a mount for the motor or a router and a shaft which can get deep enough. Also some machining of vacuum ports so I can get the shavings out. This cut makes a lot of shavings.

[RLW]

xman777 Looking at a couple of your previous posts, if looks like your not completely limited by funds but you are limited as far as what you can make yourself based on the equipment that you have. You really should go on emachineshop and download their software. I really have minimal experience with 3D design myself as I usually just make things on the fly on manual machines and if I need something drawn up I have a friend that does it for a living so he helps me out. That software is pretty simple and they have enough tutorials that you could get something drawn up. I have never used them but I have messed around with their software a bit. I believe that there are some other simple software solutions you could use to draw something up as well. If nothing else draw something up and see what a few places would charge you for the work.

I did use onlinemachinist for the round mounts for my trimmers. I originally made one out of aluminum and then decided I would get a couple made from steel. Not sure why as the aluminum works fine but I really wanted steel and after making the aluminum on on the lathe I really didn't want to burn the time making two of them myself. For that particular site I had my friend do the drawing for me.

I may give this a shot when I get home as I think the parts would be really simple and the concept might help me out with another project I am working on. In which case you might be able to help me out. What I would need is some dimension off the 650 toolhead so that I could order some material to make the parts. If you can post the height, width and length including the ring that holds the toolhead in place as well as the distance from the toohead to the shell plate when the shell plate is raised all the way up that would help me out a bunch. I basically just need to know the minimum dimensions for ordering material.

[xman777]

I can get that for you.
On another note, How hard would it be to cut the threads Dillon uses for their trimmer into the lee 40 trim die? That might actually save me all the work. Is there someone following along here with lathe experience that could tell me that its possible to smooth out the die then cut threads to match Dillon's cutter?