Finally made something swaging related

[guywitha3006]

I finally had the time to work on something and finish it on my mini lathe. I had a piece of 3/4" A6 in the drawer and decided to turn it into an expander spud for opening the necks on 5.7x28 brass prior to drawing them down. The spud drops into the lee universal expander die. So far it seems to work well expanding before annealing but it I will try both ways. The only thing is I'm not sure how the heat treat went I turned the lights off and heated it with a torch until the spud portion was between cherry and red orange.

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[clodhopper]

That looks real nice.
I was using a little A6 for something, it was sure hard on the bandsaw blade cutting it off.
That blue color looks like something happened in the heat treat.

[guywitha3006]

The whole spud was colorful but I gave it a final polish with flitz and that took off the color. I am hoping even if it didn't fully heat treat steel vs brass should last a long time.

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[Nueces]

Making 'stuff' is fun, but making tools to make stuff is sublime.

[midnight]

You might want to try case hardening. I case harden all the punches and spuds I make using a product called "Cherry Red". To use it just darken the room a bit and heat the punch cherry red with a propane torch and immediately plunge it into the can of "Cherry Red". Let it cool, wipe off the clinging product and polish with Flitz. This carburizes the surface a few thousandths deep so the punch will wear well.

Bob

[lead chucker]

Expand before you anneal you will crush a lot of cases if you anneal first. Use lots of lube. Its fun making things on the lathe. I have my little mini lathe about wore out.

[guywitha3006]

Lead chucker, what do you use for lube and what is your method to apply it?

[lead chucker]

I use a 50/50 lanolin and caster oil mix. I wipe it on the expander each time i expand the case neck. You will have less case neck splits and case necks collapsing. That's been my experience any way. This is the one i made it works good. It works kind of like the RCBS primer pocket swager.

[lead chucker]

There is some kind of coating in these cases so when you anneal them make sure they flash off when you heat them up. I have a small kiln a friend let me borrow. I heat them to around 900 F for 20 minutes. It burns all that stuff off then i run them through my SS pin tumbler to clean them up before i draw them down. You can make a draw die on your lathe.