Building an automated brass annealing machine

Measure where you want the cut to be, make some lines on the pan and then run some painters tape around it using the edge for the cut line.

Grinder with a cutoff wheel should make quick work out of it. Just take your time, lining everything up, the cut will come out fine.

It's either that or find someone with a large band saw.

I make mine so zero extra parts are needed to anneal cases from .17 Hornet-50 BMG, just adjustments in torch height and dwell time.



A number of ways to tackle your pan cutting though, what kind of tools do you have?

Pic looks very similar to the Annealease machine I have. It works quite well. Hope your design works out.

I suggest a shallower pan, as the rolled edge really stiffens the lip. FleaBay. . .

If you can't do that, a cutoff wheel in a drill press is what I'd use.

I vote for table saw. Leaves you controlling the pan and not the saw.

Hrbie22 said:

I vote for table saw. Leaves you controlling the pan and not the saw.

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Good way to lose fingers or worse.

jmorris said:

I make mine so zero extra parts are needed to anneal cases from .17 Hornet-50 BMG, just adjustments in torch height and dwell time.

View attachment 980027

A number of ways to tackle your pan cutting though, what kind of tools do you have?

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Nice setup

Use a pair of tin snips or avation snips. Take a bite out of the lip with a grinder and cut in with the snips spiraling down to the mark then follow it. I am right handed and would use the green snips and hold the piece being cut off. I Do the same thing for galvanized flue or vent pipe all the time. To get your mark use a marker and build up the block it is setting on to get what you want. Set pan on table and rotate it making the mark. It will be even.

My vote is your plan with pan mounted to motor and cut with dremmel cutting disks. If you had a lathe or pipe threader this would be easier.. But if you could secure a low speed drill to a bench it would probably work..
The cake pan is going to flex with very little pressure and you are asking for trouble if it binds and pinches a cut-off in an angle grinder. The tin snip idea might work, but also likely to deform the pan some.
The table saw is an absolutely BAD idea.

GravelRider said:

I'm gathering parts to put together an automated brass annealing machine similar to this (random picture found on the internet):

View attachment 980025

The concept is fairly straightforward, and this doesn't look to be a very difficult build... But the thing I'm struggling with right now is how I'm going to cut the cake pan. I've got a 6" diameter 2" high cake pan. I need to trim it down to about 1" high. I could fairly easily do it with a dremel or angle grinder with cutting wheel, but I don't think the cut will come out very clean.

My current plan is to mount the pan on the motor, turn it on, and keep the dremel in a mount that can be placed against the pan, and just let it spin and cut itself, if that makes sense.

Anyone else have a better plan? Or if anyone has done a similar build, share how you did yours?

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I think your method would work better than a saw blade. With a saw blade, once the strength of the pan lip is being taken away, the uneven pressure of teeth of blades could cause the thin metal to snag and bend easier. For more stability, I would add a piece of plywood with a hole that mates with your pans hole. Acts as a large washer.

GravelRider said:

I've got dremels, angle grinder, chop saws, table saws, hand saws, jig saw, reciprocating saws, and probably a couple I'm forgetting. The chop saws could be a possibility... But I value my fingers too much to give that a go. I'm leaning toward the dremel at this point. The angle grinder is good at making fast cuts, but I find precision cuts like this to be very difficult. Maybe the jig saw, but I don't see myself making better cuts than a slow work with the dremel.

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You can get cutting wheels designed for aluminum and other non ferrous metals. Stones and some disks don’t play well with aluminum.

https://www.amazon.com/25-Pack-Aluminum-Cutting-Wheels/dp/B07BQG1XPX

Having it spin with the motor, will depend a lot on how ridged it is and how well you can hold the cutting disk in place.

I think, with the above tools, I would cut a circle out of wood, the height you want the edges of the pan and set it inside. Now start slightly high and let the flat portion of the cutoff wheel ride on the top of the wood, setting your height off the bottom, of the cut.

I made one of those machines and after a little tweaking it works quite well. I used a dremel to cut my cake pan. I clamped the pan in a vise and went slowly around it. The cut doesn't have to be perfect and the cut edge can be dressed up a bit afterwards.

Where are you guys finding plans to build these? Seems like a fun project and I have a lot of mil .30-06 brass that could use annealing before I load it.

Anything with teeth will deform that thin pan metal.

Neat machines y'all have!

The cake pan design works, but you need to have a slight tilt backwards or the cases won't stay put......and you have to stack all those cases just so.

jmorris's works well too, and a little faster using two torches. It has the added advantage that you can use a case collator/feeder that will just keep feeding. (Lot easier to just dump cases in a collator than to stack them nice and neat. I think jmorris still has a video or two of it working with such a case feeder, unless they were casualties in the last photo hosting debacle.

I bought jmorris's "saw blade" from him to build me one, quite a while ago then got sidetracked with heath problems, and other more pressing projects.....and never got back to it. Now that I have a 3D printer and have built 3 collators already, I'm thinking this summer is the perfect time to get back on that project....definitely will feed it with a 3D printed collator!

You guys are way better than me.

GravelRider said:

The concept is fairly straightforward, and this doesn't look to be a very difficult build... But the thing I'm struggling with right now is how I'm going to cut the cake pan. I've got a 6" diameter 2" high cake pan. I need to trim it down to about 1" high. I could fairly easily do it with a dremel or angle grinder with cutting wheel, but I don't think the cut will come out very clean.

My current plan is to mount the pan on the motor, turn it on, and keep the dremel in a mount that can be placed against the pan, and just let it spin and cut itself, if that makes sense.

Anyone else have a better plan? Or if anyone has done a similar build, share how you did yours?

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You'll need to use what you have access to but I would probably do it on a lathe. Chuck on the inside of the cake pan to drill the center hole perfectly centered then after attaching an axle in the center chuck in the lathe to turn off the outside the depth needed.

OP, you can follow this link and do some research https://www.ar15.com/forums/Armory/DIY-Annealing-Machine/42-434088/?page=1

There's 15 pages and a lot of ideas/info on doing the same annealer as you want to build. Might give you some ideas to make things easier. Different motors, timers, pans, torch set up....

Here's a couple of my designs:

I caught this bug back in November, and with a friend, we ended up here:
We played with the usual ideas, and went with a 12volt motor, and timing belts to keep things lined up.
It will do 223 through the BR cases and up to 300WM all without changing anything.
So far, it works really well

This is where I bought my motors and some other components:

https://www.servocity.com/mini-econ-spur-gear-motors/