Induction Annealer

Pete Wass

Pete Wass

Well-known member
not long ago I saw a thread on these forums with some pictures from a fellow who had made an electric or electronic induction heating device work for annealing cases. I am wondering what his progress is with it? It sure is a nice clean and easier way to deal with annealing, IMHO.
 
Pete, There is a thread on 6mmBR forums with a guy (Gearheadpyro) dated 11/4/09 making an induction annealer,has some good video too.
 
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Pete, What he's using is something I sell to mechanics to place around a lugnut that is crossthreaded or just plain rusted on a wheel stud (usually trailers) to get the lugnut RED hot so they can remove the nut without causing damage to the rim.
 
Here's a link to the unit he's using -> Mini-Ductor.

By adding the timer, like he did, it looks pretty foolproof. Certainly not inexpensive, though.


Jerry
 
In my opinion, it is worth more then the Ken Light because one doesn't have to deal with Rings, water or gas and adjustments of gas. Much cleaner and simpler; potentially
 
I like the idea. I just wonder how long the coils would last with the on/off cycleing style of brass annealing. The cycle times are quite short compared to a torch.
 
I have a mini-ductor which works just fine by itself if you are doing a few cases--less than 100-- It works better on the traditional long cases like .30-30 or .30-06 than it does on ppc or BR cases. You really need to get the coils formed so that they fit very closely around the neck. I think it's the relatively short necks and proximity of the mass of metal making up the rest of the case that causes the induction to work more slowly on those cases. Also I have my coil twisted up to do the best job I can get on .22 to .30 caliber case necks. Still, it works almost instantly on .223 rem necks and seems to take forever (comparatively) to do .22BR necks........Possibly it would work better if I had multiple coils set up for different types of cases.. When the coil is set right you'd be amazed at how exactly you can anneal a case neck--and you can anneal pistol cases. I do 8 cases at a time on a pizza stone for a heat sink, which may not be needed, and let the tool rest for the same amount of time it took me to do the 8 necks. After 4 or 5 sets of 8 The tool begins to feel hot. This of course depends upon whether I am doing cases that anneal quickly or slowly. When it feels hot I let it rest until it is fairly cool and then continue. I've done a lot of cases with it and I have to say it works better than ANY propane torch system I have used or seen so far. I gave my KL to my son.

The mini-ductor is made by Induction Innovations and is available through internet retailers. I got mine from Tool Time? Tool Source? It's been a while since I bought it. The last time I talked to GHP he had decided to use a different machine for his automated inductor--I'll have to go take a look at what he has going now........

The tool
coilsize.jpg


.30-30 case annealed just so

Control.jpg
 
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The machine seems to work best if I am annealing a neck that just barely fits inside the coils and I can get at least 2 coils on the neck. However, .223 rem cases do not fit that criteria and they anneal quite quickly. I think that may be the mass of metal in the case body issue again. The machine comes with one preformed coil which is way too big, one user formable coil, and a limp wire that I am told is for use on large bearings and such. I tried reforming the preformed coil to do .30 caliber necks, but I was afraid of breaking the wire so I only went so far as to be able to do .44 .45 cal handgun case mouths with it. I had to settle for one coil to do .30 and below. The sloppier clearance does no harm and does anneal the case, it's just slower, which brings the up undesirable issues we find in most flame annealing. At the time I bought my tool you could get more coils only in a kit which included a lot of stuff I did not want. Possibly you can buy single user formable coils now. I shoot mainly 6 and 30 BR these days and have a pretty good setup for doing those cases quickly, so I am not in a hurry to buy any new coils.
 
My Thinking:

One should focus the heat on the shoulder area and allow heat to flow upward to do the necks. The shoulder is as or more important to soften up as the neck.
 
For what it's worth: After talking with another mini-ductor owner at the range this morning I was inspired to wind my user formable coil around a 6mm dowel. My coil is pretty well used and some of the insulation flaked off when I did that, but that did not seem to affect the operation of the tool. I just tried it this afternoon and it definitely works better on 6 BR cases. I did some 22BR cases as well and they heated up quicker too.

Peter-- the nice thing about the induction coil is that you can form it to heat where you want. I suppose if you wanted to, you could form the coil to do both shoulder and neck at one time--much more quickly and precisely than with a propane torch. It's been my experience that heating the necks to the point where a color change is seen in the alloy also does all I need in the shoulder area. I am not suddenly stopping the process by dropping the cases in water. The .30-30 case neck annealing was mainly done just to see how precise you could be with the tool.
 
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