Experimenting with a heated cake cutter
I use Carnuba Red primarily and got tired of guessing the temperature of the lube to allow perfect (not messy) cutting. I always ended up with having to clean the cutter or boolits of lube residue often and if you use CR, you know it ain't coming off very easily once it cools. heh
I use a Waxmeister cutter but the way I made it can be adapted to any home made cutter and is removable.
Parts:
40w 12v ceramic cartridge heater (from my 3D printer project) They are about $5-10 each if you buy one.. I bought 10 off amazon for $20 shipped.
Cake Cutter
Heating Ring - I shoot 45acp and my cutter uses a 45-70 shell. I used some .50AE brass from my Desert Eagle and cut it down. Fit perfect.
12v PWM motor controller - I originally connected the heating element directly to 12v.. the element got so hot it glowed so I added a pwm to dial in the temperature and also now can be turned off.
12v DC power supply - I had one from another project, you can probably get away with using a spare 12v power brick or similar instead depending on heating element used.
Where I'm at now is how to attach the heating element to the heating ring.. currently I'm using some gold kapton tape (good for about 500deg) and held in place with some aluminum flue tape. Works ok but the adhesive get's slick when real hot. (maybe I should just crank it up and burn it off?) If I use a tie strap to hold the wire, it's fine and isn't going anywhere. I am thinking of trying some thermal adhesive next.
Also the barrel of the cutter gets a little warm and can get hot if I crank it up. I may wrap it in paracord just so I don't end up burning my hands. This might not be an issue with other homemade cutters.
So what did this all get me? I can lube up pans and pans of boolits with CR .. then cut them out when I damn well feel like it.I'll try and get a video up of the process... it literally cuts through cold CR like hot butter. You can also see it melt the lube residue right off the cutter once the boolit is popped out. All I do then is dab the cutter on a napkin and it's clean!
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
|
   
   
|
|
Reply With Quote
