My "Trim-It" and "Trim-It II" Reviews: The Good, Bad and the Ugly

[BigBronco]

I will soon be working to set up chuck to mount mine on a motor base. I have an old champion juicer that should put out a good rpm.

[klewan]

They need to drill an undersize hole in the body and then ream the hole to get an accurate sized hole. Until they do that, it's either shim the offset away, or drill and tap another hole 180 degrees opposite from the original one, and then adjust the screws to center the cutter...same kind of idea as Jon Road King mentioned earlier.

Myself, I'm going to DIY the Forester 3 way trimmer head. Just need to cut a .125" slot for the cutter blades in a chunk of 3/4" rod stock, drill and tap for the set screws, and grind some HSS cut off blades to make the actual cutter blades. Holes in front for the pilot, hole in the back for the trimmer shaft and it's done. About $1 for the set screws, everything else I already have.

If you have a small lathe, you can make your own Heli-coils. Say you strip a 6mm threaded hole. Look up the next larger SAE screw, 5/16". Drill and tap your stripped hole for the 5/16" bolt, then cut the head off a 5/16" bolt, chuck it in the lathe and drill and tap the center of it for the 6mm bolt. Cut it to length and blue locktite it in. Last time I did this was a cylinder hold down stud stripped out of a Kawasaki 500 triple. It was 8mm and found the SAE bolt that would fit and machined that. You don't have to buy the special drills and taps that Heli-coils use, so lots cheaper, and you already have what you need if you're tooled up...

[ar15barrels]

They need to drill an undersize hole in the body and then ream the hole to get an accurate sized hole. Until they do that, it's either shim the offset away, or drill and tap another hole 180 degrees opposite from the original one, and then adjust the screws to center the cutter...

If you have a lathe, its also possible to bore out the hole and then press in an appropriate sized drill bushing.
This will give you a much tighter fit and correct the misalignment assuming you chuck the trimmer body straight during boring.

http://www.mcmaster.com/#8491a664/=um7lrc

[klewan]

If you have a lathe, its also possible to bore out the hole and then press in an appropriate sized drill bushing.
This will give you a much tighter fit and correct the misalignment assuming you chuck the trimmer body straight during boring.

http://www.mcmaster.com/#8491a664/=um7lrc

Yep, more than one way to fix it; just have to be tooled up to do something with precision....

[ChamberCheck]

Hmmm. It kind of looks like I may have "jumped the gun" in getting the second generation tool...don't know, but that's the way I'm reading this thread. I originally bought it with the anticipation of starting to reload some time down the road. Did I waste my money?

Or, can it be used like the original too to trim only? Sorry for the questions, but I don't have the experience to draw from yet. Thanks and regards.

Dave

[Eljay]

It comes with both the old and the new cutting head. I'm thinking I'm going to use the flat cutting head for most applications since it's clean enough it doesn't need deburring (especially after a wet tumble) and a chamfer isn't important if you're loading boat tail bullets. I'll only fight with the three way cutter if it seems worthwhile.

[ChamberCheck]

Thanks Eljay. Like I said, I really haven't had a chance to look at it...let alone use it. But, at least your reply tells me that I can still use it as a regular trimmer...until a good workaround for the 3 way head gets dialed in. Thanks for the help.

Dave

[BigJ]

+1 What Eljay said. I think you'll be more than pleased with the results off the flat cutter.

[Rbutler]

any updates to the tri cutter?

[BigBronco]

any updates to the tri cutter?

About a month ago I had a chat with Troy at Trim-it about the short comings in the tolerances for three way cutting. I have been told last week the batch in progress has had the tolerances tightened up. I will be getting one to try out and see the differences.

There are some changes coming with the new year on their marketing. First there will be a general price increase.

Next you will not be buying the unit with everything included. They are moving to an ala-carte type ordering. Buying the body separate from the cutters and ordering the inserts that you need.

This being said I still have a couple flat cutting trim-It trimmers left for any one that wants to beat the new year price increase, and the last few at the group buy price.