Turning up a Lyman/RCBS style lubesizer die

[Four Fingers of Death]

Not really gunsmithing, but 'smithing' none the less (please move if I'm in the wrong forum).

I have seen a few articles on making Lee type dies and reaming them, etc, but I have never seen anything about making one of the 'normal' lubesizer dies.

To me that would indicate that it must be very hard to do. I would have thought that the hardening was the only thing that a decent machinist would have problems with (but what do I know?? :D ).

It would be handy to be able to custom make your own (I just paid $AU40 for one today, and I could do with a heap more).

[deltaenterprizes]

Turning the profile,drilling the lube holes and sizing portion and then reaming to size and then fitting the ejector pin may take the better part of a day. Compared to that $AU40 is cheap, would you work for $AU5/ hr?
Most machine shops start at $60U/hr
It is hard to beat CNC machines for production with manual machines.

A decent lathe costs $1500-2000, a mill $2000-4000, tooling $2000-4000 and about 3 years to learn how to use them after 2 years of schooling.

[JIMinPHX]

Aside from getting the bore right, it's not that tough to make one. Post #97 in this thread shows a drawing - http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=48453&highlight=die&page=5 You don't need to harden them. I've made them out of annealed O-1. I've made them out of a grade 8 bolt & I've made them out of plain old 1018 cold roll. They all work fine.

I can make one in about an hour & a half. If I do a bunch at one time, I can do better than that on the production rate.

Lately, I've been messing around with adding O-rings on the center pin. That seems to be working out well. I'll write that up with pictures when I get a chance.

[deltaenterprizes]

That still makes it $100 @ $60/hr shop rate.

[Casting Timmy]

I say go for making your own! It's all part of having fun with the hobby.

If it's casting bullets, or making something for casting or shooting and I get to keep it.....I'll do it for free. That's why it's called a hobby, you enjoy it.

I actually would like to start making my own too. Also modify a couple that I already have. I agree with above about not needing hardened tool steel. You've sizing a lead bullet, which is soft compared to most steels.

Looking forward to seeing more posts on how it goes for you.

[jmsj]

Four Fingers,
I agree w/ JIMinPHX and Casting Timmy. The prints from JIMinPHX are really good and are what I have been using to make mine (thanks again JIMinPHX). I have made mine from 4140 annealed and 1018 w/o hardenening and they have worked well so far.
Making my own tools is a big part of the attraction to this hobby. One of the reasons I reload is I like the satisfaction of doing things for myself. So far I have built 3 smelters, 4 ingot molds, a large ladle for pouring ingots, a small ladle for pouring bullet molds and 2 sizing dies.
When things slow down at work I am going to try to make gas check makers in .44 and .45.
Good luck. jmsj

[deltaenterprizes]

To me it does not sound like he was going to make them himself, but wanted someone to make them for him.
If the tools are available go for it.

[Four Fingers of Death]

I appreciate how dollar wise, it is better to just go and buy them, however some sizes aren't available it would seem.

Years ago I was dreaming of buying a lathe and I wanted big and awesome fo rfitting barrels, etc. Over the years I am more aware of my limitations and my interest has turned more to small die and tool making, etc. I am also interested in pistol smithing, especially with Single Action Revolvers, so my dream lathe has changed somewhat.

I ended up buying my mate's 30's vintage Great Scott lathe.

My query came about because I had never heard anyone talk about making your own lubesizer (yeah, I know I should have done a seach, I usually do :( ).

$400 would see you with pretty much any die you wanted, but it seemed like a nice project for a retired guy to tinker with. Not enough to make a business out of but maybe the odd case of beer or a bit of diesel fuel or in exchange for a bit of bar or tube stock for a custom die.

My brother has access to CNC machinery in a training facility for high schoolers and unemployed young adults and is always looking for meaningful projects. I could supply the metal and he could turn out undersize dies for me to ream and turn up a piston (and fit the O'Ring, a job I am capable of even now!).

[Ernest]

Very cool very fun project. Just wish I had the time.

[JIMinPHX]

That still makes it $100 @ $60/hr shop rate.

If I charged full shop rate for anything that I sell here on the board here, it would all be a lot more expensive.

Also, sometimes, I want one with the lube holes in a different position for a boolit of a specific length or I want one with lube holes at strange spacings to match the lube grooves on a particular boolit, or I want one with a strange diameter, or I want one that I don't have that I want the same day. In all those situations I just make one. Yes, standard sizes are cheaper to just buy from the guys that mass produce then & do a good job of it.

[Four Fingers of Death]

The idea of having the grease holes in the same place as the grooves sounds like a good one.

I fancy making a die with one row of holes (maybe even a bit larger than usual) opposite the grease groove on the Mav Dutchman and Snake Bite Big Lube Boolits.

[deltaenterprizes]

If you get the blanks done on a CNC lathe and target the "unobtanium" market you may be able to do a little business on this board and maybe The Cast Bullet Association.
I just realized where you are located so saving on the shipping would be in your favor also for local sales.

[JIMinPHX]

I think that Buckshot has the unobtanium market pretty well covered for folks here on this board. He's tooled up with some real nice hones & he has a reputation for top quality work at very reasonable prices.

I don't know about the CBA. I've never ventured into their territory.

[JIMinPHX]

So far I have built 3 smelters, 4 ingot molds, a large ladle for pouring ingots, a small ladle for pouring bullet molds and 2 sizing dies.

Is there any chance that you might post pictures of the ladles? I'd like to see how you did them.

[jmsj]

JIMinPHX,
Here are some pictures of the large ladle I built a while back and posted as a picture test.
The bowl was made from an acetlylene cylinder cap w/ stripped out threads. I cut it down w/ a parting tool on a lathe, filled in the vent holes heated and forged a pour spout in it and built a socket to attach the handle.
The sliding handle was built from a piece of 1" 6061 aluminum that was grooved and knurled. I built the handle endcaps out of 1 1/2" 1018.
The back handle was made from a solid piece of 1 1/2" aluminum. It was grooved, knurled and a eye bolt installed.
I am very fortunate to have access to the tools in the maintenance shop and scrap bin at work. All the materials for the tools and smelters I have built have come from the scrap bin. jmsj

[deltaenterprizes]

Great work and you are recycling too! I like making useful items from scrap also.

[Four Fingers of Death]

Good work!

[Four Fingers of Death]

I think that Buckshot has the unobtanium market pretty well covered for folks here on this board. He's tooled up with some real nice hones & he has a reputation for top quality work at very reasonable prices.

I don't know about the CBA. I've never ventured into their territory.

He sure has and rightly so, he does brilliant work and I would not consider thying to compete with him. Just mainly trying to get a good tinkering project going for myself.

I would imagine the CBA has someone like buckshot turning these out as well.

[ricksplace]

I have had my lathe for about 15 years. 4 foot bed, 11" swing, belt drive Moody (1945). For me it's a hobby. A very addictive hobby...

[Four Fingers of Death]

I'm 62 and my lathe is about 10-15 years older than me. Cog swapping to change threads, etc. It is all there and was in reasonably regular use and well cared for when I bought it. It is mothballed at the moment. Now all I gotta do is clean up the garage so I can fit it in and get tinkering.

[Buckshot]

.............The hard, and time consuming part of making a Lyman, RCBS, or Lee die (or any other actually) is honing it to size. Making one for yourself might not be such a big deal as you know 'Whence it came". If you're making them for sale to others, that's an entirely different thing. My tolerance is nominal to +.0003" proofed with a WW alloy slug, or a customer supplied slug. You get a proof slug with the die.

http://www.fototime.com/37F8EF0616265BF/standard.jpg

If you're going to make them for others then you need to make a bunch of die blanks. A lathe with an automatic bar feeder and turret is cool, but I suffer with a manual 5C setup and no turret. I have one I've just never bothered setting it up. I use 36" bars of .750" O-1 steel and generally will run 4 sticks through the lathe.

http://www.fototime.com/6A7B4820DA9AEED/standard.jpg

These are the tools set up in their blocks and indexed. They're in order of their use, from front to rear. 1st is the facing tool, 2nd is the turning tool. The Lyman/RCBS die is .720" at the O ring end then goes to nominal .700" + .002". So once you engage the powerfeed you're dialed in to remove .030", then infeed another .020" for 1.560" in length. 3rd is the infeed tool to cut the sealing bevel on the bottom of the die.

http://www.fototime.com/AC67BD08BC34BC3/standard.jpg

This is the first step (Facing) after parting off the previous body.

http://www.fototime.com/2BD3B326BC7EEC5/standard.jpg

In this photo the parting tool was used to cut a groove at the correct length (1.560") and then the bevel has been cut. The next tool up is the O ring cutting tool. Normally I do not cut the old stype setscrew groove unless the customer needs it for the old style Lyman press, otherwise it's worthless. With the o ring groove cut you're back to the cutoff blade to part the die body off. Then you open the collet, advance the bar and begin again. You'll get about 21 die bodies out of a 3' stick. That puts your material cost at .60¢ each, plus maybe 5 minutes of time.

http://www.fototime.com/0981DBC601F263C/standard.jpg

Here's a bunch of Lee and Lyman die bodies waiting to be honed. You can see the desired sizes marked on them. We live in hope! :-)

Once you have all the blanks made up you have further work to create an actual die. You need GOOD drill bit sets of fractional, Letter, Number, and Metric size to help cover as many bases as possible. I prefer parabolics to stab the hole straight on through the die body with no peck drilling.

http://www.fototime.com/9AFEDA0136AFB4C/standard.jpg

This is a 135º split point Tin coated colbalt Guhring, and I guess when I took this photo this bit had probably seen somewhere between 30 to 50 feet of steel. I do NOT use any of these bits in, nor are they intended for use in your 3/8 De Walt! They're fairly spendy and this 1/4" bit is $14 so it's not your .98¢ hardware store bit. You can imagine what the various sets cost:veryconfu

You know the size you want to end up with and your further ops are to drill, ream and then bore, leaving about a thousandth for honing. After drilling to a size comensurate with reaming, you drill the lube passage holes through the die body. I have a fixture I use in the drill press for that. Once that is done you then ream the hole in the lathe. This opens the hole and makes it round and ready for boring. I like to leave 10-15 thou after reaming, and then bore leaving that last thousandth for honing to final size.

So far as additional tooling goes, like the drill bits you'll need a set of fractional, Letter, Number, Metric, and as many 'in between size' reamers as possible. Like the drill bits, you want them to last and to be right. Getting them from the Happy Cherry Blossom People's Reamer Factory #56 in Changsha, China ain't gonna do it. Pretty much anyway.

http://www.fototime.com/281DC4AAE46A319/standard.jpg

This is actually getting ready to taper ream the leade in a Lee die. The reamer will be flooded with cutting oil. The taper reamer has to be watched close as it is not like a straight reamer which only cuts on the end. A taper reamer once it begins to cut, will cut over the entire length of it's body that's advanced into the hole, so it can get stressed.

http://www.fototime.com/5021F858C13FB93/standard.jpg

The next to final machine op is to bore to about a thousandth short of the desired ID. Again this is a Lee die but the op is the same. The boring bar is a solid carbide bar taking carbide inserts. With light cuts a carbide bar with stand about twice the 'stickout' a steel bar will handle. The smallest carbide bar I have is 3/16" OD and it does go the whole 1.560" of a Lyman die so that's about 8X it's OD. Your last machine operation after boring is to cut the tapered leade in the die.

Now after you've performed all those operations you've now reached the MAKE OR BREAK point ............... honing to final size. If you screw it up you can salvage the die for a larger size but for the size you NEED, you have no choice but to start over! Happy day, eh?

.................Buckshot

[mtnman31]

Buckshot's write up is fantastic and the photos do a great job of helping tell the story.
I have played with making some Lyman style sizers myself. My biggest hurdle was not having the proper tooling. As he mentioned, quality drills and boring bars are essential and will save you some heartache. Sure it may take me two or three hours to make a 20$ part for myself but for many of us on this board, the allure is being able to do it for yourself. Give it a shot at making your own sizer; you'll either learn a new skill or have a better appreciation for the work that someone else (or something, i.e. CNC machine) has done to provide that 20$ part.

[jmsj]

Buckshot,
great tutorial on making sizer dies !!
mtnman31,
You expressed my sentiments exactly. jmsj

[Four Fingers of Death]

You the Man Buckshot!

[jmh54738]

Four Fingers, I love vintage machines and would love getting greasy just checking out that Great Scot lathe. I have one similar, a 14x40 Reed Prentice. I've made many g,h,i, dies. The standard lube hole placement, four holes on one axis, and three holes on the other axis, are all overlapping, so that the bullet gets lube where ever the grooves are located. As stated, sizing the ID is the most tedious part of the operation. I usually make up a split lap to get the ID where I want it and with a good finish. You can do it, perhaps I better help clean your garage and set up the lathe.
John

[cr17]

Buckshot : thanks for that very clear explanation. I have played around with the making dies but with a different sequence - drill, bore, drill grease holes, ream and hone. don't you find that trying to bore after drillng grease holes problematic ? or is there a trick to this?

Thanks again

[454PB]

My home made sizing dies aren't nearly as purdy as Buckshot's, but then I'm not obligated to please anyone but myself ("whence it came"). Since I own two lyman sizers, a Star, and an old Herters (a Saeco clone), I have quite a variety of dies.

Since they are all for my own use, I've done some things as shortcuts. My Star dies are now flangeless, which allows me to use smaller bar stock and saves a lot of "chips".

I don't even machine the O-ring groove in my Lyman/RCBS dies, if they fit correctly, they don't leak.

Saeco dies have a threaded area at the bottom to retain the die within the sizer body, I don't thread the bottom, I use a lock ring with an allen set screw.......simple, effective, and one lock ring fits them all.

When I started making mine many years ago, I did heat treating. I've since learned that plain old mild steel cold rolled will size tens of thousands of boolits with no dimensional changes.

[Four Fingers of Death]

Thanks guys for so much info.

My brother is a technical arts teacher or whatever you call it, he is on my case to come down, sort the garage, punch a hole in the wall and cement the void to make a toolroom. I can't hold him off much longer.

IN a few months I am travelling up to his place on the north coast and will be a volunteer teacher (really a student, learning how to drive a lathe and a mill) and I will be teaching high schoolers and unemployed young bloods about how uncool prison is and how to get their act together and stay the heck away from it. It should be a good week and set me up for lots of experimenting.

[jmsj]

Four Fingers,
Good for you. If Austrailian youth are like American youth, they need all positive role models they can get. The High school teacher that stands out the most in my mind is my Machine shop instructor. He was a retired United States Navy, Chief Petty Officer.
I envy you, in that you will have access all that machining equipment and your brother to teach you how to do the set ups and run the equipment.
I run some machinery but I am definitely not a machinist.
Here is a sizing die I made. Not perfect but it works well enough, sized about 1000 boolits w/ it last night.
Good luck, jmsj

[Four Fingers of Death]

jmsj, that is one fine piece of work and you must have got a lot of satisfaction making and using it.

[Buckshot]

Buckshot : thanks for that very clear explanation. I have played around with the making dies but with a different sequence - drill, bore, drill grease holes, ream and hone. don't you find that trying to bore after drillng grease holes problematic ? or is there a trick to this?

Thanks again

............There'd be a big problem in boring after drilling the lube holes if the boring bar was taking a comparatively heavy cut. I'm not. I have very few large holes in my list of reamers and can generally come to within ten thou of the desired diameter I want before boring. For each pass with the boring bar I'm only removing about .003". Actually with solid carbide bars and the distance they have to 'stick out' to make it through the die body, the 3/16" and 1/4" bars are the only ones you have to think about. The larger ones can take a fairly healthy cut without worrying about banging across the lube holes from flexing.

..................Buckshot