GunLab

Up date on the project.

Here at Gun Lab. net we have been working on a number of projects. Quite a few videos have been made and as soon as I can get Ian down to help me correct the problems with Pinnacle studio they will be posted. Some of the projects are new stamping dies for various parts that have to be made and a number of them are the actual parts that are now completed.

I thought I would give you an up date on the rifle that we are currently working on. This next batch of pictures deals with all the parts that have been made and the various stages that they are in.

All the rear barrel supports are completed.

All the hammers are machined but not heat treated.

The cross pin for the rear barrel support is machined and threaded.

All the front barrel supports are 90% machined. the retaining notch needs to be cut and that will be done after all the upper receivers have been machined.

Misc cross pieces and been cut and stamped.

The gas pistons are machined. We just received the tap in this week. We will have it threaded this coning week.

All the rear sights are machined.

All the extractors are here, we are using H&K extractors as they are the same basic style.

All the extra extractor springs are here, again H&K.

All the rear top covers have gone through the first stamping op and 20 or so have been completed.

All the end caps for the rear top cover have been cut out,

All the barrel blanks are here. We are using MG-13 barrels are our basic blank. No they are not rusted just covered with grease and dirt.

The receivers have been stamped.

Mag catches are complete. The button and post are in the works.The triggers are completed and heat treated.

The front barrel support take down spring are finished.

The buffer springs are here as well.

All the upper receivers are cut to length and turned to the proper diameter. And the first 10 are turn on the inside. Only one has been completed and fully machined. This our test and fit sample.

The mag housings are completed.

The upper receiver guides are machined.

The test batch of the newly design primary and secondary sear and the new disconnector.

The new fire control group housing is now design and ready for testing.

All the strengthening plats are cut out and ready for bending.

The newly design receiver support has been cut out, bent and tested for proper fit.

All the safety’s are cut out and just need to be bent.

I have more pictures to take for the rest of the parts that are completed. I will update soon.

Time at the big press

Today is pressing day. We received the flats back from the water jet people and they look great.

A second picture of the pile.

So out to work to get this project back on schedule.

The first package is complete and on to the rest.

The second package is now complete. It takes 5 hits from my big press to do a single top cover.

This is it looks like after this op.

Almost done. Just one package left to complete.Well it is done. I have found the flat that I’ve been looking for all day. And would you not know it but it was hiding on the bottom of the stack. So this is the little sneaky one.

Here are a few pictures of the operation. The first is the flat in the die and centered.

This next picture is as the die starts to close.

This next photo is the die fully closed and the pressing complete.This one is what it looks like after opening the die.

Now for the picture you have been waiting for. The final flat stamped. Front and back.

This is a photo of all the flats pressed. I hope you enjoyed the day at Gun Lab I will chat with you soon.

6th op on the front barrel support.

By now I am sure you are wondering when will this front barrel support be done. Come on and lets make something else. Well, not quite yet. This is the last operation that will be completed on the cnc lathe.

Now the last step after this is the knurling and then machining the notch for the locking spring.

Update for the week ending 2-1-14

So we will start with the update on the VG1-5 project. I stamped the rear top covers.Out of the 10 that were stamped.

We found a few problems. I had to re-stamp the parts due to not getting the ribs deep enough.

This is a close up of the stamping.

Once I re stamped them they looked good for the next step. This showed us that we need to change the basic design again. I hope to have those flats this next week. It should be the last change. Once verified I will stamp all of them. I will be glade to finish these parts. I need to get on to other parts that need stamping. This is a quick picture of the top cover installed on our prototype rifle.

On to other things completed this week/weekend. We have made a new machining fixture for the hammers. The previous one had tolerance issues. We also have to re-ream the pivot hole on the hammers. They were undersized. Not a big set back, just another day reworking parts. To allow us to re-ream the hole we are using a real basic fixture that has been dialed in on the Webb mill. A pile of hammers to re-work.

This is the set up.

By using the round part of the hammer in the v portion of the vise and the flat of the hammer against the solid vise jaw I can get repeatably. This vise will set inside my kurt vise be zeroed in.

More work was completed on the fab shop. I have finished the windows and outside of the wall.

The inside which will also be covered with osb is about 50% completed.

I finished the frame for the evap cooler and hope to have it up and running before the summer season.

The Type 99 female die.

Now that the male die is complete, with only de-burring left to do, it is time to start on the female dies.

As with the male die it starts out as a large block of steel.

With this die we made it in three parts. This allowed us to machine areas that would be very completed.

At this point you will notice the alignment pin holes between the upper and lower dies.

After the lower die is completed a backing plate was made and then ground to hold the completed die together.

This is the completed die attached to the plate.

With this step completed we will be drilling the holes for attachment to the die plate. That will be this weekend. I will post about that when completed.

Moving die plates

Will Cushman asked how we moved the die plates around the shop. If my shop was in a single building or even on a the same level it would be a great deal easier.

To move the dies from under the bench to the top of the bench to work on them I use a home made swing arm with a harbor freight electric hoist.

To move them to the mill or the truck we use a foot operated lift.

Now to get them to the press I use a 3/4 ton cheve with a hydraulic lift gate. The key here is the lift gate. It allows me to adjust the height. This is important due to all the different heights I have to deal with at the different shops.

Now we off load at the fab shop and onto a working die press moveable bench.

From here I can adjust the height of the table to match the press and slide it into the press.

All the tooling and raw unstamped stock is on the moveable parts table.

Hope this answers all your questions. Chat with you soon.

The end of the weekend

Sunday night and the shop is shutdown, the machines are cleaned and the computers are off. Not a bad weekend. My next door neighbor with the help of my son finished his program and got his parts made on the webb.He completed 6 of these. David finally got the bugs worked out of his program and completed the prototype.

Me, I did my pressings to test the new design for the rear top cover.This is what it started out as.

All 9 that were stamped.

From here the stampings will be bent, formed and welded to complete the rear top cover. With any luck this will be the correct dimension.

Just another weekend at GunLab

This weekend there are 6 people here working on 15 different projects. My son is trying to get his home work completed for class and helping my next door neighbor trying to write a program in delcam for the webb mill. In addition he is working on some new forms for our company.

My neighbor,Alan, is trying to get a project programed on the webb for new drawer supports for his kitchen cabinets. I just finished the update to the air system in the shop for the new end mill sharpening setup.

After completing the air system I went to work in the fab shop to finish the lighting circuit in the fab shop so I can put a ceiling up.

We are also enclosing the fab shop and installing window. I try to do everything with recycled material if possible. So first I had to remove all the nails from the lumber.

The studs went in and then windows, I was unable to find any recycled window so I had to buy new ones.

David, a friend of mine and the machinist that use to work for me, is working on one of his projects. So he is verifying his cad program to run parts on the CNC lathe.

He then went to work on the manual lathe to turn down some 6061 and getting ready to knurl it.All this and it is just Saturday. Tomorrow I am doing pressing for the rear top cover on the VG1-5 project. We need to re-write a couple of programs and finish Alan’s project. It is never boring here at GunLab.

finishing the top part of the die plate

In our last post I showed you the bottom plate of the pressing plates. This is the completed top plate of that matching set. This first picture is with the top plate completed spot drilled.

After spot drilling the pin holes where drilled and reamed.

Then the cap screws were drilled.

And finally the cap screw holes were countered bored.

Next it is off to be de-bured, by hand, and then ready for assembly with a set of dies.

Working on stamping dies, still

I don’t want anyone to think that here at gun lab we have just been hanging around and drinking beer and accomplishing nothing. That is far from the truth.

A while back a die shop went out of business and I was able to buy a few items. One being a brand new steel die plate. This is the post about that.

To give you a better idea of the size here are a couple of close ups.

Due to the weight of this die set I wanted to make it as general purpose as possible, meaning that a large number of the new stamping dies that we are currently making will fit on the die plates. To accomplish this we now design our dies with a series of holes to attach them to the plates. The attaching holes are evenly spaced on 1″ centers with every other hole either being threaded, for a cap screw, or reamed, for a pin.

The die plate has the same arrangement.

These two photos show the die with the bottom plate completed and now with the top plate installed and getting ready for drilling. To give you an idea of size this photo shows it setting on the table of the Haas.

Today’s job is to drill and ream the holes in the top plate after it is secured. More later when we complete the task.

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