Re: Giraud annealer questions
I own a Giraud annealer and while it nicely automates the processing once you have set it up and dialed in the flame length, distance, and ramp speed (flame dwell time), tuning those parameters takes time and unless you develop a much more methodical way of putting everything away than I do, you'll be performing all three steps each time (and verifying with Tempilaq).
The most finicky is setting the flame length itself; as you no doubt have read elsewhere, when Doug says that a propane bottle will last a long, long time, he means it; it takes the barest minimum opening of the knob to get a flame of the proper size he documents in the instructions, just enough to keep it from sputtering out, at least with the bottle I'm using.
The ramp speed/dwell time is probably the easiest to record and restore, but since it interacts with the temperature of the flame to deliver the overall amount of heat over time, unless you are content to keep a constant speed and tweak the flame only, you will be playing with this one a bit each time. And tweaking the flame is not trivial or really even practical for minor adjustments.
The same could be said for distance of the flame from the case on the ramp. Easy to tweak, but since it interacts with the flame setting and the dwell time to impact heat delivered, it's yet another independent variable that you will need to play with.
So, to do it right - and to know that you have done so - requires tempilaq each time. I probably spend half an hour messing with everything when I set it up, but then of course it's all automatic from there.
One final area of attention are the bearings on the ramp carrier (or whatever it's called that slides down the oh-so-subtle incline to start the brass-rolling ramp back at the bottom of its cycle). Somehow, the overall setup here gets a little too much friction from time to time, and Giraud recommends graphite or some other dry lube - but it's not easy to apply.
If there were two areas that could stand to be improved, I'd say #1 is the gas delivery - something that would very deterministically regulate the same gas flow every time - and #2 is the ramp 'stickiness' mentioned above. If #1 were fixed, then all of the need to monkey with the other settings and re-verify with Tempilaq would go away - until you change calibers of course! (better if if you own multiple calibers and are a religious every-time-you-reload annealer it may be mentally worth it just to buy more than one, just like the trimmer...)
