Muffle furnace for annealing

[Guardian]

I was helping my mother-in-law clean out my father-in-law's lapidary shop this weekend. She gave me several items from the workshop that she had no use for and hadn't been able to sell. Among other things, I wound up with a muffle furnace. After rewiring it, it's putting out heat. The chamber is about 4-in W x 8-in L x 4-in H and gets hot enough to melt glass. It's 110V and 18.5 amps, so 2,000 ish watts. While the chamber is a little small, it seems like it will make a good annealing unit for 22 brass/jackets, after I come up with a basket/tray for it.

Anyone using such a device for annealing? Any pointers besides the typical annealing info in the stickies?

[Rumrunner64]

Can you st the temperature on it?
I use a small kiln all the time the camber is 5 1/2 x 5 1/2 x 8. I just found a pot that fit's, set the temp at 800 and let them sit in it for a hour.

[marten]

Have a larger kiln, upgraded the controller to a PID works a treat for annealing!

[ReloaderFred]

I use a ceramics kiln for annealing. Works great, but I set my temperature at 1,125 degrees F., since that's what Starline uses for annealing their brass. I figure they probably put a lot of research into their procedure, so I'll just take advantage of that and shamelessly copy them.

I put my cores in the brass, bring them up to temperature, and then turn the kiln off and let it "soak" overnight. The cores are then bonded to the jackets without the use of flux, but this is with pistol caliber bullets made from cartridge casings. It may not work as well for making .224" bullets from .22 LR cases.

Hope this helps.

Fred

[Guardian]

Thanks guys! Yes, the temperature is adjustable. Technically, the heating cycle is adjustable. There is a built in thermometer, but I have no idea how accurate it is. I'll have to test it out and compare it to a casting thermometer, the highest reading thermometer I have.

Hopefully I'll have a setup for 40 from 9 soon. Also have 308 and 264 setups on the way. I may need a jig of some sort to hold the 308 and 264 vertical for bonding, but it should be relatively easy to accomplish. Might even try the 224, just to see what happens.

Thanks!

[Theditchman]

I have a muffle furnace made by thermodyne..I stole one of my wifes French fry stainless baskets and cut to size....if you have an old one the temp setting controls are hard to get accurate so upgrade to PED digital..get the controller and relay from ebay ..I will post a cpl pics of mine later so you can see..I anneal .22 at 1200 for 20 mins I can do about 2500 at a time then soak them in lemishine for about 10 minites

[Guardian]

I ran it for an hour last night and the temperature indicator only got up to 250. I'm pretty sure that was well below actual. I've been planning to get a PID anyway, so I'll just order it.