DIY brass annealing setup?
- Thread starter bigHUN
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No, not really, it's not something I ever considered.
If it does, I'm not sure it really matters. As discussed below, ammonia and related nitrogen compounds are so common it doesn't matter much if you get rid of them today, they will be back tomorrow.
No, it's do-able for some people, but it would be tough to have certainty, so it now just makes sense to me to make sure my bottlenecked rounds are annealed.
The basic idea is that stress-corrosion cracking (SCC) depends on the trio of material, corrosive environment, and stress. Take any one of these away and you will not get cracking.
As long as we are talking brass cases, the material is fixed. So the variables we have to try to control are the environment, or the stress. The problem with tackling the environment is just how common the culpable compounds are. People associate cracking of brass with ammonia, but the fact is a large range of similar nitrogen compounds will also cause cracking. Ammonia is present in the urine of many animals, but in the article by Moor, Beckinsale and Mallinson that Ex3dy referenced above it was found to be coming from a wood stove burning green wood in a warehouse. In fact, many early reports of cracked drawn brass were linked to the products of combusting fuels in air.
My own experience with this was when I bought the house I live in now. When I moved in in the fall, I decided that the best place to put my ammo cabinet was in my utility room. I was astonished next spring when the first time I went to the range with an AR15 and bunch of 5.56mm reloads I had neck cracks in over half of the rounds fired. But as spring turned to summer the problem went away and I could load and shoot a case a half dozen times with no problem. I figured that brass must have used quite a lot more than I had thought. But then winter came, and ammo once again sat in the cabinet for a while, and when spring came they all cracked again. It was only several years later, when I was doing serious reading and experiments with case cracking and annealing, that I put it all together: the ammo cabinet sits in the utility room right beside a natural gas furnace that runs frequently all winter. Trace combustion products of natural gas in air, probably NO2, were sufficient to cause cracking in stressed case necks after a period of months.
So, is it possible to mitigate cracking by limiting the environment? Sure, maybe, and this I'm sure is why I see some people claiming to have never had a cracked neck in years of reloading despite never annealing. But for many people living near animals or industrialized environments it would not be a realistic option. Annealing is a much more reliable bet.
Just looked at my coil for 6.5x55. It has six wraps not four. There is no formula for the diameter of the coil. I make it wide enough so my shaky hands don’t have the coil touch the brass when heating. If you use a bigger diameter coil, it will take a little longer to heat the brass to annealer it. No big deal. As for the spacing between the coils, I separate the coils so they aren’t touching. You may have to adjust from time to time as you use the coils. I make my coils from 10 gauge electrical wire. It does not have the white wrap. It is bare wire.
Watch the second video and follow the instructions. You will be fine. If you mess it up the worst that will happen is you ruin a piece of brass or you burn up one of your coils.
Watch the second video and follow the instructions. You will be fine. If you mess it up the worst that will happen is you ruin a piece of brass or you burn up one of your coils.
Really appreciate the insight; my thought process was along the lines of burnt powder residues, barrel solvents and brass cleaning medium being impregnated or entrained into the brass during the sizing process rather than purely atmospheric environmental conditions. My theory is that the abrasive nature of sizing both breaks any factory applied passivation layer and any abrasive debris may cause localized stresses. The type of brass cleaning ritual used by the reloader would have varying influence on what substances may be present during the sizing process. Being that Moor, Beckinsale and Mallinson were dealing with new production ammunition this was likely not a significant consideration for them.
If I had one tip for the annealer it would be that right after annealing your cases will be very dry, try to keep the cases dry because moisture is a major catalyst for corrosion.
There are a lot of variables that go into winding the correct coil. Any coil could work, but if you do the math you will have one that works really efficiently. I have no problem helping you spec it out once your ZVS board arrives and we can get the specs off the capacitors. You have a 3D printer right? You can print a jig, makes winding the tube super easy and fool proof.
I got all aliexpress parts in-house today, wooow fast shipping - and it was in a piece price included.
8 calendar day's total from ordering and I don't think canadapost have seen it... I think aliexpress has their own courier network here in GTA, someone drive three times to my porch to deliver. The Uber services in my neighbourhood is huge.
The copper coil is well oversized, I will need to replace that for sure, but that is a project for tomorrow or somewhere next after.
8 calendar day's total from ordering and I don't think canadapost have seen it... I think aliexpress has their own courier network here in GTA, someone drive three times to my porch to deliver. The Uber services in my neighbourhood is huge.
The copper coil is well oversized, I will need to replace that for sure, but that is a project for tomorrow or somewhere next after.
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I’m interested in these HOMEMADE. Annealers you guys are Cooking up 
please send pics on the makings of these units 
please send pics on the makings of these units 
I’m interested in these HOMEMADE. Annealers you guys are Cooking up
This is the breakdown and list of parts
Awesome! If you can get eyes on the capacitors and let me know the qty and capacitance of them, I suspect 6 x 0.33uF, I'll get back to you with the correct dimensions for a coil. I'll check back either tomorrow or someday next week, hoping to get out target shooting on Sunday so with any luck I won't be around the forum much this weekend! Cheers
Thanks,
I made a coil around a smaller spark plug socket, I think it is ID 21mm, that gives me clearance of total 10 mm on a W308 brass.
I connected the power supply - count down timer (test programmed) - coil board today just to test the integrity.
I broke the old PC water pump nipple trying to disconnect the original black hose from radiator, ordered a new from amazon. That will be a project itself to attach the water cooling... I will need to fabricate now an extra 12V power source for this alone.
Next I need to start chopping some wood plate, I could not find any smaller suitable PC box at canadacomputers.
For now it will be an open space design.
Oh btw, the black thingies on the coil board the letters so small I will try to make some pics.
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As much I can read, yes, 0.33uF, SH 50 KHz. I think there are only 3x these black thingies on my board.
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The shortest ideal coil you'll be able to make with a 21mm ID is 16 turns at 54mm in height, it will take a little over 4' of tubing to make that (42" in the coil, and 6" per leg roughly, for about 4' 4").
I took a video of my unit annealing some 8mm Mauser brass, I'll upload it and post it when I have a minute!
This is the video of mine. You can see how little time the brass is spending at red hot. The timer at the front is controlling the drop solenoid, timer at the back is controlling the ZVS board. The brass was a little too high in the coil here, but I only had to anneal 14 pieces and it made seeing the glow easier. Aim for having the top of the brass just below the middle coil, maybe 2 or 3 turns from middle, it will give you the happiest current draw. If you have the brass too high in the coil it will draw excessive current and may trip the PSU safeties.
Great thread. That fancy "analizer" unit is rediculously overkill. For sure there are differences in brass composition but you can probably eliminate any issues by sorting your brass. Probably wouldn't be difficult to set up a pull test to figure out how long you need to anneal each case to get the correct hardness.
You can build the induction heater with an old microwave transformer. The timer relay setup is a great idea.
You can build the induction heater with an old microwave transformer. The timer relay setup is a great idea.
I'll take a video explaining the setup later if I remember. I'll write an explanation with some rough diagrams to help explain.
The PSU outputs to 3 devices: The 48v to 12v Stepdown, a Positive Lead to the SSR, and a Negative lead to the ZVS board. A positive lead connects the SSR to the ZVS board.
The stepdown outputs to 2 bolts on the plywood, these are my "Breaker Bars". The stepdown is powering basically everything else on the board, hence why the yellow and thinner black indicators are a disaster. A Positive lead goes from the stepdown to the button, and a positive leads go from the button to each timer. 2 Negative Leads and 1 Positive lead go from the stepdown to both timers. And then finally a Positive Negative pair go from the timers to what they control: the SSR, and the drop solenoid. A positive and negative lead connect to a molex connector to power the fan controller. The fan controller powers the 3 fans and the pump, cables not shown because the diagram is messy enough.
The pump system is simple, a picture is worth a thousand words situation here. The pump pushes water from: Pump to Rad, Rad to Coil, Coil back to pump. The water is just bottled water and a shot of water wetter (prevents algae, helps with surface tension). I attached the nylon tubing to the coil with compression fittings and threaded barb fittings. Getting the coil to stop leaking at the compression fittings was the most difficult part of the water cooling section, took about 4 attempts to get it leak free.
The drop solenoid trap door system was available on thingiverse. I had to remix it a little to work with the solenoid I got, and I added the holes so I could attach it to plywood instead of a Z-Axis.
If there's anything specific you want to know feel free to ask!
Finally got the water pump this evening. I am also having some brainstorming now with the stupid water system.
The ZVS original copper tube OD is 5mm.... I don't want to solder another 1/4" tube over a 5mm to build up a wall thickness for a silicon tube because a stupid water radiator barb is 8mm. My plumbing soldering skills are pure basics only.
I will go tomorrow to a plumbing store or HD if I can find - a plastic - inline barb fitting, not really inclined to have another metal piece between wires.
For now I will finish this my brass annealing ZVS project with a count down timer what I currently have, of course same all components mounted on a piece of plywood sheet.
When time comes to move all to a enclosure, I have in my plans to control the annealing not by timer but buy IR/laser Temp controller.
Set the Temp for let say 400 C or 450 C or 500 C where the controller will cut ... and that can give a best samples to compare the material.
The ZVS original copper tube OD is 5mm.... I don't want to solder another 1/4" tube over a 5mm to build up a wall thickness for a silicon tube because a stupid water radiator barb is 8mm. My plumbing soldering skills are pure basics only.
I will go tomorrow to a plumbing store or HD if I can find - a plastic - inline barb fitting, not really inclined to have another metal piece between wires.
For now I will finish this my brass annealing ZVS project with a count down timer what I currently have, of course same all components mounted on a piece of plywood sheet.
When time comes to move all to a enclosure, I have in my plans to control the annealing not by timer but buy IR/laser Temp controller.
Set the Temp for let say 400 C or 450 C or 500 C where the controller will cut ... and that can give a best samples to compare the material.
