GunLab

Another weekend come and gone 10-16

Every week starting on Monday I work on a list for the projects that I want to work on that following weekend.

The list this last week was as follows and in no particular order.

1) finish the router table

2) finish the second anvil

3) Do a number of videos for the site

4) Photograph a number of weapons for upcoming posts

5) finish the hydraulics for the hot forging press

6) work on the control system for the fluting machine

7) fire up the gas forge and beat some metal into submission

8) work on the kitchen and try and wrap it up

So between the excessive work load of last week, not finishing work almost every night until after 8pm and starting at 5am, I needed to write up a number of reports, still not finished. I also needed to work most of Saturday just to catch up. Still not finished with last weeks jobs and it is Sunday night.

The only project that was even started was working on the kitchen. My wife and life partner really would like it completed before the SAR show. Great strides have been taken to accomplish that.

The kitchen has been repainted now that all the moulding around the counters has been edged and finished. The last of the cabinet fronts have been installed. The sink is installed and the dish washer is hooked up, still not usable yet as the insulation blanket was shot and a new one has been ordered.

I still have a couple of false fronts to make for the stove cabinet and one set of cabinets need to be striped and re-finished. Both minor. The big thing is to make new orifices for the stove to convert it to propane from natural gas.

I guess there is always next weekend for everything else.

making and anvil for friends

This last weekend between working on the kitchen and the router table I started on a project for a couple of friends. Axel is back in country and will be here for awhile and needs some stuff for his new shop and Paul ,from the flintlock site , need an anvil as well.

I have had an old truck at the house that I gave a loan on. Well he can’t be found after a decade so a while back I decided to use it for other things. This is part of what it went to.

I had more fun then you can even imagine taking this front end apart.

Nothing came off easily. Every thing was a battle. starting with the break drum. None of the bolts would come loose without an impact wrench and heat.

The only way to get the break pads out was to cut them out.

The same goes for everything else as well.

All the bolts on the drum had to be beaten out with a sledge hammer.

At the end of the day I was left with both drums.

The cross member

And a pile of scrap to be used in forging projects.

Now came the fun part. With Axel’s help I was able top move the cross member to the band saw room and cut it into usable lengths.

Then after some time of the mill I finally cut the first one down to the rough shape necessary to work it into an anvil.

The horn still needs work but that will have to be done with a grinder.

Werndl model 67 rifle

During the Austrian Prussian in 1866 the Austrians took a heck of a beating from the Prussians due to the Dreyese needle gun. The Austrians were still using the excellently designed muzzle loading model 1854 Lorenz rifle. While at the peak of muzzle loading rifle development it was no match against the faster firing Dreyese rifle.

The Austrians decided to adopt a breach loading metallic cartridge rifle. What came about is the Werndl rifle. This weapon shown here today is a M1867 Jeager, light infantry, rifle. The rifle was design by Karel Holub and with Josef Werndl, the director of the Steyrwerks, made the rifle.

This interesting rifle uses a rotating drum action breech.

Top view of the drum.

The drum is rotated to load a cartridge.

The extractor is actuated when the drum is pushed all the way down.

Not the metal pistol grip

Brass butt plate

bayonet support

They were numbered to the rifle

On February 18,1868 the United States patent office granted a patent to J. Werndl , No. 74,737.

This the US patent for the rifle.

This is a great color plate of the Werndl, from the book listed below.

You can find this book at Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Experiment-Trial-Prototypes-International-Military/dp/B00BN6VF3Q/ref=sr_1_12?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1458488593&sr=1-12&keywords=Experiment+and+trial

This is also available at Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/The-International-Arms-Review-1/dp/B001GNZZG4/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1458488670&sr=1-2&keywords=international+arms+review

Also at Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/potpourri-single-shot-rifles-actions/dp/B0006F2FXY/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1458488764&sr=1-1&keywords=A+potpourri+of+single+shot+rifles+and+actions

This book can be found on line at:

https://books.google.com/books?id=iyosAAAAYAAJ&pg=PP9&lpg=PP9&dq=ordnance+memoranda+no.+15&source=bl&ots=5DlK5DWDmP&sig=CCd54NdO95VPFbUIyZUijtqnnkE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjUwYvE_6nJAhUH8j4KHfIrCAw4ChDoAQgjMAE#v=onepage&q=ordnance%20memoranda%20no.%2015&f=false

Update on the router table

This last weekend more work was accomplished on the router table. As with the rest of the project we recycled as much as possible. The molding was added to the cabinet. Starting with a piece of an old oak cabinet that was cut over sized and planed to the proper dimension.

With any luck the larger drawers with be installed this next weekend

Weekend update 10-2-16

If you had been at Gun Lab’s work site you would know that space in any of the shops is at a premium. And none is worse then the fab shop. Just about everything that can have wheels does. To do any kind of work in this shop you actually have to spend most of your productive work time moving stuff out of the way to do what you wanted to do.

This is what the fab shop turned into, a cluttered impossible to work in shop.

A while back, over a year now, I started working on doing a little addition to the fab shop. This added space will be a great help in the shop.

With all the supports up and the steel in place all we now need to do in add concrete.

Well this weekend the slab was finally laid.

A total of 9 yards of fun happened on Saturday.

Gun Building Site

I came across another gun builder here in the Phoenix area and made arrangements to meet up with him. What some of you may not know is that I happen to like all types of firearms, from match locks to modern machine guns. I also like to look at how firearms are made. So when I had the opportunity to do a meet up I jumped at it.

I find it amazing what can be built with nothing more then just basic hand tools.

Here are a few pictures of some underhammer weapons that he made with a drill press and files.

Underhammer shotgun he made.

A real simple fire control group.

Underhammer pistol

Close up of a couple of his fire control groups

You should check out his site. He has some very nice toys that he has made for himself.

http://idezilla.blogspot.com/2016/08/small-bore-really.html

Router Table update

I spent most of this weekend working on my router table. The VG1-5 is coming along and one of the major next steps is the stock for the rifle. I need the router table to do this. I did not have much of an opportunity to work on it last weekend, so it was full steam ahead this weekend. I finished all the drawers and built the cabinet.

The three larger drawers need drawer runners and they have not been installed yet.

I had one set of drawer runners. Now I have to actually but something for this project, 2 more sets.

Went through my pile of drawer runners and none of them are heavy duty enough.

There are enough spots for short and long 1/2 and 1/4 router bits.

Hope to have the drawer runners mounted as well as the trim put on next weekend. I still have to make the table and cut all the openings.

A great animation of a semi auto handgun

Mac, a friend of gun lab, found this on you tube and thought the viewers of gun lab would appreciate it. I hope you enjoyed the graphics and work that went into making this video as much as I did.

Timberline Hawk survival rifle

Not much is known about the company Timer Line Hawk. So this is as much of a history as I could gather. The registered agent of the company was John A. Mc Gerty and the filing date was March 29,1983. It was a company formed initially by four men to take over the assets of the old Armalite company when they closed their doors. Initially they did the warranty work for Armalite on the AR-180 and 18. What is not generally known is that they also design and built guns other than the AR180 series rifles. This article is about such a rifle. This is the 2 shot rotating barrel 22lr survival rifle.

There are a few draw backs to this rifle. The first is that the point of aim is different for the two barrels. The second is that you have to be careful when loading as it is easy to get the cartridge not properly placed to allow the action to close.

The side of the rear barrel support. You can see the pins that pinned in the barrels to the support.

The barrel release latch on the bottom of the frame.

Looking at the end you can see the machined area for the extractor.

The barrels are actually AR-7 barrel liners.

The retaining notch is cut in behind the made in USA. Looking at the machining of this notch you can see that these were prototype weapons only.

An interesting logo used by Timberline Hawk.

The storage tube that was also the stock. To be used to store survival items.

The rubber cap that acted as a butt plate

The rifle taken apart and next to it’s storage bag.

As it would be stored in the back pack.

This is a limited prototype weapon that I don’t think ever went into serious production. The number on this rifle is 42 and it is the only one that I have ever seen or heard about. There were a few spare barrels assemblies made, I have one in my collection.

This rifle came out during a time period when small light weight survival rifles were all the rage.

I want to thank Pete, a friend of Gun Lab, for letting me photograph his very rare rifle.

Weapons man has an interesting write up on the original derringer that was the initial idea for this rifle here.

http://weaponsman.com/?p=34197

VG1-5 stock making

When we made the first couple of stocks for the VG1-5 we used a fixture to hold the stock. This fixture held the wooden blank that we cut using the bandsaw and then using a hand held router we cut the radius on the out side edge of the stock.

This procedure was a little harry to say the least.

The router bit and ball bearing guide.

The fixture that the router bit would run around on using the bearing as a guide.

After doing a couple of stocks this was it has been decided by me not to do this again. I have a cnc router that I have been working on and will use it for the hand guards, but for the stock it was not going to work real well.

While at a job I saw this in a guy’s garage and knew that this would be perfect for my stock project.

This last weekend I started working on it. I managed to get all the wood cut for it and the real good news is that most of it came from my scrap pile.