Repurposing die boxes

Hokie_PhD said:

Nice
We both know drill presses make bad mills, but I’m pretty sure for soft plastic like that even the safety police will agree that the risk was low.

Anyway great idea. And just another example of why I want a mill!

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Drill presses really do make for a bad mill. That is the full explanation of why a 3 jaw chuck came apart and whacked me in the chest at 1800rpm... but on a similar note the same thing happened with an actual mill using an r8 collet and 1/2” 2 flute in a big piece of delrin. The drawbar stripped inside of the collet and the collet came out of the mill.

Now I’m back to using a drillpress as a mill. But it’s a work in progress that will resemble a mill moreso than a drillpress. I have a 20” swing Clausing variable speed drill that I’m making a custom spindle for which will use collets, I’m just trying to decide what collet setup to use. I like the simplicity of R8 but I don’t like the screw thread interface. I may make a custom collet setup too with a big setscrew in simply for location rather than for holding any load.

One of these days I will spend money on a real machine. Til then, I use stuff from the junk pile.

I actually have a table top milling machine that I use to spin my case trimmers



I put the drill chuck on it to hold the WFT.

Though not reloading retaliated. I do something similar.

I’m a remodeler, so I ended up with a myriad of hard boxes that tools come in, drills, saw zalls, etc. I took an oscillating saw and cut out the supports and dividers. I used spray contact adhesive to adhere foam in them. I now have a bunch of pistol cases labeled “DeWALT” and “Bosch”. My future goal is to build an AR sbr that’ll fit in the old saw zall box.

Wyman

I need to modify my RCBS boxes so my dies with the LnL bushings fit in with out a rubber band holding them closed.
My oldes son made a nice rack to.hold his dies. I have mine all stacked up on a shelf aboves my bench and on a shelf below the bench. What a pain when you need a set f dies on the bottom of the stack.

My sons die shelf, he has two of them.

I do have my brass that I use a lot organized on shelves in Streilite tupperware like containers from walmart

I don't understand modifying the die boxes. For the dies that I store in boxes, most are Lee's, and the dies still fit fine in the boxes even with a breech-lock adapter in place. And for the die sets that I keep mounted in turrets, I still wouldn't trash the cases; raises the resale value back to almost what it cost to purchase them if they are ever sold...after I die.