So I got me an idea.
Anybody who has a lee turret knows about the little plastic "ratchet squares" that make the auto index feature work. They are inside the collar in there, and everybody knows all about them for one reason - they suck. You can buy them from lee, you buy ten of them, get tired of taking the collar apart and changing them out every time they strip out or get bent and won't fully index the press. So I got me an idea!
The auto index of the lee four hole is square. And what fits a square peg just happens to be a 12 point hole. What happens to have a 12 point hole are those ratcheting hand wrenches that have been out for a few years now. So the simple version is put the auto index into one of these ratchets (it has to be a ratchet so it ratchets on the upstroke to not move the collar and stays put on the downstroke to make it rotate) and make a mount to secure that to the ram to make it move up and down with it.
My first question for all you fellas with a lee turret is - anybody try this? With what success? And have you come up with any other solutions besides what I'm throwing out here?
My idea for a mount was to make it out of wood or hard rubber - something formable and that you can screw and nail and hammer and all of that. drill out the part for the ram, and cut off one side so you can make a cuff out of metal strapping, pipe clamp, whatever to hold it tight to the ram. The other side would be a cut out in the side to slide the handle of the wrench in - one to hold it in place, and two to keep it from twisting and making resistance on the index rod. Maybe even use two pieces of plywood on the top and bottom of the wrench handle, with two bolts running straight down through the wood and the wrench handle - that would hold very tight. Cut out the plywood with a boring bit just a little big bigger than the ram and cut off about 1/3 of the hole to give room for a strap - then wrap the ram with some thin rubber or some electrical tape to give it good grip, slide the wood down over it, and put two metal straps with screws through them into the wood to hold it right to the ram.
That would mess up the prime cycle.... but I usually prime separately. I guess if you wanted to use the auto prime, you could use the same idea, but instead of metal straps and clamps on the side, you could put a bolt through the back side of the wood, splitting the wood down the middle so it would act like a clamp. - kind of like the design of the current plastic clamp.... if you wanted to do it that way, you could probably only fit one strong piece of plywood on the wrench so it would fit on the collar it was designed for... anyways.... this project is out a couple weeks so I was just wondering if there were any ideas out there...
