Originally Posted by
BlondeBimbo
Hi,
New to the forum, in fact it was this thread which “made” me join!
Lurked for quite a bit, but now having decided to build this press, we thought we would join, and ask a couple of questions and thank those whom contributed/designed this press – in the UK getting swaging presses is neigh impossible!
So, the problems in building in the UK is the odd – very old fashioned imperial sizes, clearly we can cut the material to any length/size etc. but obtaining imperial sized stock means specialist suppliers, and if we go for the UNC/UNF threads the price just goes out of this world - the raw materials look to be around £350 – about 560 dollars along of course with a long delivery time. (Plus tax at 20%)
Using modern metric, this cost becomes around £140 – 220 dollar, (including taxes) but a reasonable compromise is circa £160 – which is mainly metric – stock and fixings etc., but with UNF sizing in critical areas. Unfortunately this means re-designing the press for metric sizing, so before we re-design we thought we would ask those who have built the press if there are any changes which would improve the design
So….
The press appears very high – the guide rods are 12” long – is this really necessary? Would reducing this to 11” or 10” impact its use – does it really need to be so big – even for 50BMG dies?
The width of the press – mainly dictated by the centres between guide rods – resulting in a 3” gap between the rods – does the press/dies need to be so wide? – I would have thought the dies would be less than 2” dia, so could the 4” between centres be reduced to say 3 ½” – giving a more compact design?
The guide plate is 3” wide, is there any issue with this being 4” wide – I can’t see an issue, but concerned I may have missed something – but basically using the same size material as the top plate would save around £30 - or quite some time milling it down to size!
Any other points/changes which would help the design – obviously as time goes on every design can be improved, so no disrespect to the original design, just the more a design is established, the more improvements come along.
Thanks all
BB