GunLab

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I know you are all hoping to hear about what happen in the shop today. How we got the Japanese type 99 stamping dies to work or the Fg-42 receivers are finished or that the last of the VG1-5 parts are completed. Well that is not the case. Today’s post is about what is not completed and why.

My wife went to the next doors neighbors house to let his 4 hound out ,as we have every day for the last 4 weeks. Only this time a number of events happened at the same time. This time our dog followed my wife up. this time the gate did not latch properly, this time I was not with her, this time the dogs did not get to know each other as all the other times. So the chain of events went really wrong. This time our neighbors dogs felt threaten by our dog and what happen afterwords was a total disaster. So instead of working on the projects I took our dog to the emergency vet clinic, one of his dogs to the vet clinic and my wife to the emergency room.

Everyone is fine now. My wife spent a number of hours in the hospital getting the dog bites taken care of. our dog has a large number of bites that are stitched up and should be able to walk on his own soon and hopefully one of my neighbors expensive hunting dogs will not lose his sight. All in all it was not a great day. The only good thing about today is that no one died or was hurt beyond repair. Tomorrow is another day and will be better.

The FG-42 butt plate

In this video I show the making of the FG-42 first model butt plate from the making of the dies to the first pressing. This a picture of the before and after of stamping.

http://youtu.be/1Zv2A4J1Od8

I hope you enjoy the video.

This week update.

Once again time has gotten away from me. We are in the shop 7 days a week working on the projects and stuff actually gets accomplished. The updates this week will show the good and the bad that we have had in the last couple of weeks.

First will be the really bad and that is stamping the Japanese type 99 magazine. Our biggest mistake was trying to accomplish to much with a single die. It did not work. Instead of pressing the sheet metal it sheared it instead.

So this lead to redesigning the dies and the process that we are going to use. We have gone to a multiply step process. The first set of dies will just stamp the groves, the second set will bend the sides and the third will set the angle and do the base plate edge. this is a picture of the new first set of dies.

I hope to be back at the press with the new dies this week.

Now a completed project that was fun and interesting. We had a UZi that was brought in for repair. It is a dealer sample converted weapon that would just not work. The first thing we needed to do was machine out the bolt to fit properly.

However with this type of boring bar the chatter and movement was just to great. We changed to a stiffer bar and all was good.

With the bolt problem corrected we still had problems. It would fire one time and then run away. The problem was the excessive movement of the pistol grip. The original grip is set for an 8mm pin and the converted weapon uses a 9mm pin. Once we open the hole in the grip and installed a new proper size pin everything worked like a dream.

We are also working on the VG1-5. A great deal of work was accomplished on the upper receiver. The first 5 which are the test rifles are just about completed. we set up the fixture to all us to cut the majority of the upper receiver.

This allowed us to machine the bottom hole and the slot for the guide slot.

All the guide slots have already been machined.

This how they fit on the receiver.

The cocking handle holes have been drilled.

The rear sight dove tail slots have been cut.In addition to this we also finished the FG-42 butt plate stamping die and started stamping them. That will be the next post and I have to get back into the shop and get to work.

Machining the female die for the FG-42 first model

With this video we will take you through the machining process for making the FG-42 first model female buttstock stamping die. This is the first of a three part pressing die set for making just one side of the buttstock. The total number of dies to make the buttstock will be 8 to 10 dies depending on how the steel presses out.

Machining the first die for the FG-42 1st model butt stock

Today’s post is deal with machining the 1st die in a series of dies to make the FG-42 1st model butt stock. It will take a total of 8 stamping dies to make the complete butt stock. Enjoy the video.

Part 2 of pressing the Gerat 05 receiver

With the first stamping completed on the Gerat 05 receiver it is now time to complete the second stamping. As you could see in the photos there were a couple of items that needed to be corrected.

With the second set of dies we press in the correct angle for the magazine housing, both in the front and back of the receiver.

The angle is not great but it make a very large difference to proper magazine placement.

This what it not looks like with the magazine installed.

You can see in this picture that the magazine has proper contact through out the entire receiver.

The rest of the second stamping also bent the bottom of the receiver.

Here is a look at the second set of stamping dies.

This close up shows the new angle for the front of the dies.

So today I am back out finishing the second pressing for the second stamping op. More to come.

Pressing the Gerat 05 receiver.

In this video you will be watching us press the e receiver . We took vidoes from around the die. As you are watching it you can see the movement of the metal in the die. This is the first stamping. To finish the parts a second stamping will be performed. That will be in the next post.

Video of machining Japanese type 99 magazine male die

You can see the new video here. In this video you will see the cnc machining process to making the male stamping die.

If the flats come in this week I hope to be pressing them this weekend.

Making the Gerat 05

In the last post I showed you some of the parts that had been made for the 06, this time we will chat about the o5 and do a little more detail about the making of it.

The life of the 05 starts out like any other pressing as a water jet cut flat. The initial flat were made with my band saw and file until it is some what close to what I need. Then they were stamped and checked.

Then drawings are made up based upon our findings and 10 flats are water jetted out. They are pressed and cut to determine if the metal is moving properly in the die. The final pressings are checked and measured to see if it correct. Then the drawings are again changed and 10 more flats ordered and re-stamped and the process is started all over again. Some where between the 8th and 12th time we finally have a product that we want. Once we have the flats are correct and we feel that they are ready I determine the number that I am going to make. In the case of the 05 I want to make 50 complete rifles with the possibility of making 100 total if they sell. So I order 120 flats. In theory that should make 60 receivers. However, if truth be know I am hoping to get 50 complete rifles at of that number. With each step that we take, fixtures have to be made, milling has to completed, welding set ups need to be design and tested so by the time I get to the final product a certain number of them will be reduced to scrap.

In this picture you can see one of the test sets that we stamped a year ago. This is 3 out of 4 receivers that we made. All of them have problems of one sort or another. On the center one the cut for the mag housing was to far back and the lower on has a similar problem but to close to the mag housing. There was also a tearing problem on them as well. the top of the mad well was not pressing correctly and we changed the design and dimensions of the front angle piece. At the end of this process we though we had a correct design, that was not to be correct.

These 5 receiver flat are the latest batch of test pieces that we made. This group came after doing a series of test pieces were we changed the flat design and the stamping dies. There are also major problems with every one of the flats. All but the last one tore and they all had problems with the upper corner of the magazine housing.

This picture shows the tearing.

Another problem was the design of the flat.

This one shows that the flat design was not correct and would have to be changed as it left to much metal up close to the barrel extension.

In addition to the visible problems we have to cut a few of them to check metal thickness after stamping.

The dies were changed again to insure the proper metal thickness.

A few more pictures of the same stampings before and after modifying the dies.

So now with the stampings checked and re-checked we are ready to stamp out the right side receiver. From start to finish the process has taken about a year and over 100 bad stampings have been made. The good news is with the right side completed we can now used that knowledge to reduce the number of bad stampings on the left side of the receiver. Until next time.