Swaging Accessories

[DukeInFlorida]

One of the enterprising members of this forum had created and sold a vibratory accessory for filling Dillon (and other) primer tubes. I was one of dozens and dozens of people who bought one. When I asked if it was made using a 3D printer, he said yes, it was. I hope the guy made money on it. He soon quit, however. My guess was that he wore out the printer, and the replacement was too expensive to keep making the parts. You have to factor the life expectancy of the printer into the price.

This was the primer filler buy:
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...ube-filler-buy

picture of the thing is on page 2:

[ricklaut]

One of the enterprising members of this forum had created and sold a vibratory accessory for filling Dillon (and other) primer tubes. I was one of dozens and dozens of people who bought one. When I asked if it was made using a 3D printer, he said yes, it was. I hope the guy made money on it. He soon quit, however. My guess was that he wore out the printer, and the replacement was too expensive to keep making the parts. You have to factor the life expectancy of the printer into the price.

This was the primer filler buy:
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...ube-filler-buy

picture of the thing is on page 2:

Ah, I hadn't put two & two together to realize those were 3D printed.

You're right, though - life expectancy of the printer is one of many things I'm going to have to think through if I offer stuff like this stuff up for sale. I've got my eye on doing it, but I want to be sure I can live up to fulfilling orders, have the right quality and manage expectations on delivery.

It isn't fast. The cup part of the derim assembly took a little over 4 hours to print, and the base took about an hour and a half. The good news... unlike BT's products, I'm not slaving away at the computer for all of that time. Also, I've got a full time career, so between all of those factors this clearly wouldn't be an endeavor where I could fulfill a deluge of orders quickly.

I have been building out a web site that could potentially help with this. I get asked a lot of questions by friends about reloading & swaging, so the site can be a place where I can point them. They're also interested in the printing... (I have friends that know about it and need Lego adapters made, another that wants some carpentry guides) so I'm trying to insert info about what I'm learning as I do this stuff. Since I had an eye on maybe doing something with reloading accessories, I was thinking about that when I was grabbing a domain name - I got 'reloadingcreations.com'. It's sparse - I'm trying to fill in gaps in my spare time (Ha!). But again, as far as selling stuff, I'm not there yet - still trying to get my arms around all the pieces first.

[ricklaut]

That's wayyy awesome! Plus one on what Williamwaco said! If you could make a primer catcher that you could attach a tube to for the Rockchucker I think you'd be rich!

I've got one printing now...

[ricklaut]

...and here's the result:





I'll try to find some time to decap some brass this weekend, but it definitely appears to be a huge improvement from the stock primer catcher!

So, to recap, I downloaded the files this morning, prepared them for my printer before I left the house and came home to a completed part. It looks like it took just over 4 hours to print. How cool is that?!?

Edited to add: It works as advertised! In a few spare moments between working on other CAD drawings, I decapped a few .480 Ruger brass that I had sitting nearby. Each of them dropped right into the hose I attached. The one difference is that the front of the part that surrounds the ram sits high, so I had to load & unload the shell holder with the ram raised about 1/4 inch. Easy enough - I'd get used to the slightly different press stroke fast.

[R.Ph. 380]

Ricklaut,

I want one, if you're of a mind, how much would you need for that one. I am so fed up with the primer catcher on my Rockchucker, I could throw it out the garage door. Save me, sell me one.................

Bill

[ricklaut]

Ricklaut,

I want one, if you're of a mind, how much would you need for that one. I am so fed up with the primer catcher on my Rockchucker, I could throw it out the garage door. Save me, sell me one.................

Bill

Bill -
Let me check with Lon (the original designer of that one that posted in here) & make sure he gets first right of refusal. If he doesn't want to, I'll work it out with you.

[lcecil]

Rick -
Good to see my Thingiverse posting printed and running on a press.

The ring around the ram is a balancing act in design. Too small is very weak and snaps off in handling; too high and it interferes with loading brass into shellholder. In next version, it will be reduced to a short ramp. The ring is uses to assure the vertical section rides close to the ram and seals in the primer bits. Not sure if you caught the comment about shoving a spent 22 casing into the hole near the nozzle. That will also hold it in place.

Please work with Bill and get one in his hands! My printing for the next couple of weeks is tied up in some other development work.

[ricklaut]

Rick -
...Please work with Bill and get one in his hands! My printing for the next couple of weeks is tied up in some other development work.

Will do. Bill - Look for a PM in a few minutes.

[ricklaut]

New twist on an old saying - now it's 'measure twice, print once'. That was a huge waste of 5 hours and a bunch of ABS!

I was hoping to show off the catch tray I'd mentioned earlier, but that will be tomorrow (after it prints again). This tray is designed to ride on the bottom bar of the BT Sniper auto-eject system and catch the cores / bullets as they fall out of the die.

[R.Ph. 380]

New twist on an old saying - now it's 'measure twice, print once'. That was a huge waste of 5 hours and a bunch of ABS!

I was hoping to show off the catch tray I'd mentioned earlier, but that will be tomorrow (after it prints again). This tray is designed to ride on the bottom bar of the BT Sniper auto-eject system and catch the cores / bullets as they fall out of the die.

If you can fix the curling/heating problems, that's one I'll be interested in too. In fact, just think of me as your friendly Beta Tester.......................hehehe

Bill

[ricklaut]

New milestone... Bill's the first beta tester!
I think this catch tray is going to come out pretty good. The out-of-spec version of it looked good, and although it had a slight lift on two of the corners, that isn't a critical dimension on this (compared to the core shaker). I'll know for sure tomorrow morning (or actually about 11:30 PM, but I need some beauty rest tonight so I'm going to try real hard to ignore it & let the machine rest a bit).

A little earlier I checked the stats on my machine - it has 53 print hours on it. That's quite a bit considering at that point I'd had it for 96 hours!

[ricklaut]

The catch tray wrapped up overnight and looks good! As demonstrated in the video, this rides on the BT Sniper ejection system, following the punch up near the die. The core (or presumably finished bullet) drops into the tray. There are cutouts on both sides of the front for easy access to the punch.

Again, not a super complex design but this is what I needed to catch the cores more reliably than my other methods. I obviously haven't put a lot of cores through it yet, but you just watched each one that I have tried fall into the tray. Prior to this, my other designs - a sheetmetal tray and then a cardboard box that both sat below the press - missed a large number of them because the pieces bounced off the bar or off the punch.



To keep pressure off the plastic, I used shims created out of copper pipe. ABS is pretty brittle, so I didn't want to chance breaking it. The top nut from the ejection system tightens against that shim:


There is a slight warp in the bottom as shown below. It's much less of a warp than with some of the other parts I tested, hopefully demonstrating that some of my changes are helping. But, after reading up on this on various 3D printing forums, some warping with ABS plastic seems to be a fact of life. It helps that on this part, the warping doesn't affect any critical dimensions. There is another type of plastic - PLA - that doesn't warp so readily. I don't have any yet, but do want to test that as well. One of the primary problems with PLA, though, is that it gets soft at pretty low temperatures. So much so that people are cautioning me about not using it for things that may be left in the car in the Las Vegas heat (!).



So, time to print another one and send one off to Bill for beta testing! I'm leaning towards selling these 3D printed items, but am trying to take an informed, cautious approach. More to come... In the mean time, I'll start an interest list. if you're interested in anything you see here, PM me. That will help me figure out what I'm in for... While I'm not sending parts out to anyone other than Bill yet, I may be in a position to do so soon (know that I'm traveling this coming week though - I won't be able to frequent the forum as much...). I do want to put a little more time on a couple of these things first (i.e. the derim cup), so there could still be some tweaks between what I see and what Bill sees.

As I say that - just to level set expectations - this wouldn't be a full time endeavor for me. I have a fantastic career that pays the bills. And, as you've seen in some of my posts, these things take a while to print. Add to that bandwidth for additional items I'm testing (some of which may take 12 - 14 hours each to finish), a few things for local friends (one who wants some specialized Lego pieces, another that wants drill jigs / templates for cabinet making), and throughput will therefore be a bit limited.

Rick

[ricklaut]

One more thing from yesterday evening. As printed, you can see the fine lines that make up each layer of the part. ABS can be sanded & finished, but it can also be smoothed:



This was done using vaporized acetone. The acetone is put into a jar; the part sits on a tray in the jar that elevates and keeps it out of the liquid. The jar is heated (it doesn't take much - right between low & medium on a hot plate is what I used) and the vapor melts & smooths the exposed layers of ABS. It kind of looks injection molded, but not quite (although I may be able to tweak it for better results). The photo shows the result after about 5 minutes in the vapor.

I kind of like the more raw look (function over form), but this definitely has its place. I would need a larger container for some of my parts (i.e. the catch tray). For comparison, here's a photo I took before the acetone treatment:

[lcecil]

Rick, updated to Version 11 and eliminated the ring around the ram. Requires you stick a spent 22 casing in the hole next to the hose fitting, but most reloaders have a few of those around the bench. Seems to work nearly as well and is easier to install/remove. Will PM you the STL file.

[R.Ph. 380]

I'll be testing the spent primer catcher and the swage catch tray this next week. I will post reviews in this same thread and let everyone know. I'm excited about both these accessories. Number one because I'm fed up with having to repeatedly take the stock primer catcher off my Rock Chucker with the usual spillage that entails and stepping on primers in bare feet usually.(ouch) and Number two, because I'm too old and lazy to bend over to pick up all the swaged cores, core swaged jackets and finally finished .224 bullets. The tray riding on the auto eject seems to be a good answer.

These will soon be even more important, as soon as my 40S&W to 45 acp dies come in, I'll be spending a lot more time at the loading bench than even now. Then I'll be ordering my 30 cal dies from Brian. there's more time at the bench. Sure am going to miss the wife.....................................hehehe


Bill

[BT Sniper]

Good looking stuff! Been off the forums for a few days hard at work, now there is all sorts of new cool stuff to look at. Technology is so cool now days! Some sort of "catch system" is a MUCH NEEDED accessory with my die sets. I haven't had time to do much R&D for anything like this and from the looks of it, what you got there looks to be very good. I'm sure many customers would be very happy with some simple yet professional looking swage accessories like this. Keep at it! We will all be very interested in your results.

Good shooting and swage on!

BT

[ricklaut]

Lon - Thanks so much for your continued support & assistance! I'll print one of your latest versions when I'm home from this trip.

Bill - You should be getting stuff from both Lon and I soon! Looking forward to your thoughts!

BT - Glad you could chime in! Thanks!

So... Lon made a suggestion for the catch tray (sloped bottom) that I'm implementing; I also realized it would be helpful to have an easy way to push the cores / bullets out of the tray without having to pick them all up (and without disassembling the ejection system). After this trip, I'll have a design done that includes a door on the back wall to push the contents into a container, and if Bill has other feedback I'll be able to consider that as well.

So much to do, so little time... .

[ricklaut]

I printed one of Lon's revised decap primer trays - it looks fantastic and seems like it will work great. I'm not going to have a chance to really test it for a while, but I'm sure Bill will give his viewpoint on both versions when he's able.

[lcecil]

Little off-topic for thread, but had couple of PM comments and questions about reducing plastic in the printed item. This shot is the honeycomb pattern that I use in the depriming tray device. Really more air than plastic! But still quite a bit of strength. Have not discovered how to include computer files into PM, yet.....

[ricklaut]

I have dies that I use often enough that I want them handy, but don't want to have to dig them out of the box. I don't use them on my progressive press, so they're not screwed into a die plate. So, one of the things I drew up early on and just had a chance to print is a die holder:



It fits into my drawer, so I can keep everything nice and organized:



Again, not a breakthrough design, but a simple part to solve a simple problem.