Flame shrinking a sizing die

[Buck Neck It]

Homemade sizing die, 1018 cold rolled, 1inch od, .3598 id. Wanted .359.

I am thinking that I could flame-shrink it with a rose bud and a quick quench in water. I have never tried this before, is someone up to speed on this process?

Do I heat the circumference and quench, or do I heat the hole and quench? One should make it larger, the other smaller, but I can't get my head around which is which. I have straightened beams many times with heat and quench.

Thanks for your help.

[MBTcustom]

I ran heat treat ovens for three years.
While what you say can sometimes be true, I wonder how you plan to polish out the decarburization while maintaining a precisely smaller diameter? (oh and it's got to be relatively round too).
Unless you have an atmospherically purged oven with automatic quench, I don't see how this will be accomplished.
If the inside of the die is not polished out afterward, its going to be like pushing your boolits through a sewer pipe.

[C. Latch]

<---not a machinist.

Any chance of having it chrome-plated instead?

[Cane_man]

you can case hardened 1018 with "Kasenit" and add perhaps 0.01 to it, then polish it out to open it up some...

[Buck Neck It]

This isn't that big of a deal. I just thought that if there was a quick and simple shop trick for shrinking an oversized hole, people would be using it for sure, and I would like to know how to do it.

FWIW, jumping up and down and shouting at it with harsh, vulgar English doesn't work.

This was a simple project made of forgiving material, seemed like a good one to practice on before I moved on to swaging dies.

It worked just dandy the way it is, straightened out a pile of lee bullets in short order. However, the best fix is to just buy the proper reamers and make another one that is right.

[tiger762]

Maybe have it hard-chromed? Might pick up a few ten-thousandths and make it last a LONG time.

[arclight]

If you decide to make another one, you could bore it slightly oversize, then use a floating hone to take it down the last few tenths/sub-.001" to final dimension. You could also dip a lead bullet in clover lapping compound and polish it out.

Arclight