Marking brass
- Thread starter Ledzep
- Start date
It's a "cheap" OMTech 30W fiber laser with the rotary axis, and a cut-off section of the shell holder from a Hornady manual case trimmer. Text is just under .08" tall right above the extractor groove. I'm going to fire/resize test a batch of them in the following weeks but from the other fired cases I have, that area should get minimal "rub" from the chamber and dies and hopefully lasts the lifetime of the case.
Otherwise it's great for caliber markings, tumblers, pet tags, Form 1 markings, slide engravings, I want to try some BDC turrets eventually, etc... So many projects so little time...
That is way cool, hands down.
But, at a match, in the dirt, how recognizable is your brass from all the waste brass?
But, at a match, in the dirt, how recognizable is your brass from all the waste brass?
We have established he is no poor, so he doesnt pickup range brass like the rest of us slobs. He just loads more and engraves them to flex on us.
Couldn't say yet, I've only marked a few so far. I'm going to test around with them this week.
How deep do you guess you're engraving and how high up the case webb are you going? Theoretically too much of either could result in structural problems.
Not deep at all, maybe a thou or two. The wall is thick enough there that fired cases don't obturate that far back to seal against the chamber wall.
Sweet way to anneal the base of the the the brass.
Being able to hang a fingernail is about 3 Thou, which is also ATF min for marking.
Being able to hang a fingernail is about 3 Thou, which is also ATF min for marking.
LOLOLOL
His engraving is as shallow as it gets, just by looking at it it's in the .005" range (yes I've setup and ran laser engravers). As long as it's not on the case side walls there will be ZERO effect on structural integrity.
Annealing has a time and temperature component. That brass cross section has not had the time to get anywhere close to transition temp.
.05mm hatch (open ended one works best for rotating parts), speed was set to 2000, 100% power, 5 passes, frequency at 70.I like it, but I’m going to need your settings. Freq and power, hatch and passes?
Rotation is set at 3mm spacing. Text is 2mm tall, and length of the text block is 2mm less than circumference of the case.
It's not the cleanest engraving ever-- set up for speed not for pretty. With part changes its about 10s each.
Cases aren't warm to the touch when they come off, the annealing gradient is a negligible percentage of the wall thickness, and again, it is where it is specifically because that surface is never under enough stress to obturate and touch the chamber wall.
Sounds retarded, but if you offered a service of like, $10 per 100 cases, and $20 "one off setup fee", to make a drawing, text, punisher skull*, for new drawings, you would do well.
*If you do punisher skull, ill stab you in the dick hole with the large end of a 50bmg cartridge. Just dont.
*If you do punisher skull, ill stab you in the dick hole with the large end of a 50bmg cartridge. Just dont.
For sure, I'm playing with the idea of offering it as a service. I'm going to test it out for myself for a while and make sure it's durable enough, but I'm sure there are a few folks out there that would pay $0.15-0.20 a case (about the ballpark I need to make it worth my time) to never have to do the sharpie crap again. I'm pretty sure I can even sequentially number the cases for the OCD types, or put a phone number if someone finds the case after the match and wants to hook a dude up.
Im autist as balls. Not even i serialise my cases.. yet.
Thanks. You just ruined my life..
Hook a dude up. Nohomo..
Thanks. You just ruined my life..
Hook a dude up. Nohomo..
