Making Star dies--My Methods

[EDK]

Hi Rick,
Yes, I'm still making Star dies, and also punches, locknuts, and locknuts with setscrews. All kinds of great and interesting stuff for Stars!
lathesmith

And all of it first class. I need to order some more stuff, but a couple of moulds tempted me...the 12X20 reloading shed is progressing along...and a million other excuses.

Thanks again for the .431 and .361 dies for my STAR. The boolits are working well in my MARLIN Cowboy rifles and VAQUEROS alike.

[RayinNH]

I think most oils will work well as a quench medium. However in a knife making book the author said he used peanut oil because it made his shop smell like he was baking cookies ...Ray

[moses]

I used to use motor oil but read about using cooking oil to quench and I think it works great! It will make your shop smell like french fries though LOL!

Question on how you grind the final ID, is the stone you are using the exact size you need i.e. .452 for a 45 cal sizer? Can you explain how you are doing the final ID.

I just made a RCBS style sizer for myself because I didn't want to wait for one and getting the final ID was a long process as I drilled to .348 then used a boring bar to get to around .355 and then used 80 grit sand paper to get to within .0005 of final ID and then polished with 400 grit to get to the final .357 size.
I used a brass jag with the slot in it to hold the sand paper.

I also used 01 tool steel and hardened it but did not temper as I do not think it will break from lead being pushed through it and I wanted it hard as possible!

I sized a few hundred boolits in it and it seems to work great!

If I ever buy a Star sizer I will save myself the pain and buy yours!

Great job!

[lathesmith]

Moses, you pretty much have it down there. The boring bar is the tool you use to get close and then you can use a tool post grinder to finish it. Of course, you rough drill first, but as you know drilled holes aren't very smooth. If you are lucky enough to have a chucking reamer that is the right size, these can sometimes work pretty good too.
lathesmith

[blikseme300]

Thanks to all the posts and pictures on this forum I managed to make my own Star sizer dies. I am frugal, I mean cheap, so I scrounged around for materials to use. We use lots of 1" shaft stock at work for conveyor belts so this was what I used. (The scraps bin is a mine.)

I initially used non-stainless as it is easier to machine, but it does not polish well. So I switched to stainless. This is substantially tougher but machines smooth and polishes well. I have not hardened my dies and don't think they need to be as my molds throw boolits that are only slightly larger than required.

Here is a link to one of my pages for those who would like to see my efforts.

http://bliksemseplek.com/boolits.html

Bliksem

[Buckshot]

.............blikseme300, you have a neat website. I enjoyed both your cast boolit articles and the fine photographs. You do good work, and I agree the dies really don't need to be hardened. I do have one suggestion having to do with the grinding, and that is you REALLY should cover the bed of your lathe as the grit will do it no good at all. Even if you have way wipers on the carriage it isn't worth the possible damage.

A good way to do it is to use aluminum foil to cover any bed surface not traversed by the carriage during the op, and to cover the foil under the chuck with an oiled rag. The oiled rag will grab any abrasive grit.

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

[lathesmith]

Nice website blik, looks like you are putting that mini-lathe to good use. The mini-mill is a good companion, and should help you in a variety of gun- and reloading- related projects.

lathesmith

[blikseme300]

Buckshot,

Thanks for your words of encouragement and advice. I switched to using collets because the grinding grit got into the 3-jaw headstock threads. Well, now I also know how to reassemble these.

The use of an oiled rag and aluminum is a neat idea, thanks. I have made up a variation of this using oiled mutton cloth and 2 bungee cords. One end of the cloth is attached to the headstock end and the other to the tool post. So as the tool post moves the bed is protected as grinding bits are trapped in the oiled cloth. I will post a pic soon on how I did this.

Warning, I use this method with the collets only as the regular 3 & 4-jaw chucks could possible pick up the cloth and do bad things! I remember having my overall sleeve being caught in a head stock many years ago. I was lucky as the cloth was old and the sleeve just ripped. This was no mini lathe either. Being a lathe pretzel is not my idea of fun.

Lathesmith,

Thanks for your words of encouragement and advice as well. Our mutual interests and passions can only feed off of each other on this forum.

Bliksem