GunLab (KnownHost) » metal casting

Weekend update for 8-7-16

Chuck — Tue, 09 Aug 2016 08:00:36 +0000

Like every other weekend here at Gun Lab it was another one of to much work and not enough fun stuff.

The exciting news is that I finally finished putting in the A/C for the machine shop. This will really help as now you can work and keep the sweat out your eyes.

Due to the heavy storms that we have been having a few leaks showed up at the machine shop roof. So the roof was once again re-coated and sealed.

The 3D printer stopped working because of the old pla that came with it. The old material would constantly break on jam up the heating nozzle and feed motor. I took apart the first nozzle and motor and cleaned them out. Wow what a job. Still need to finish the first one then it is on to the next nozzle.

I picked up a number of pounds on used brass fittings and valves, so it was time to separate, clean and store it all. I am getting ready for the up coming metal casting season.

All clean and ready to be melted.

Still need to be cleaned

Stuff to keep for other projects

Finally I needed to do so mandatory house work. Two of the toilets needed to be changed out.

Just another fun filled weekend.

Weekend update for 6-15-15

Chuck — Mon, 15 Jun 2015 13:46:23 +0000

A quick update for this last weekend. The slab was finished at the cast area. Here are a couple of views. I still need to get the gantry system up, but I am going to wait for my good friend Mac to help me with that one. He is a much better welder and fabricator then I am.

On the subject of metal casting. I was at a school that was being destroyed last week. As the building were being crushed I looked in the last one and to my surprise the shops were still equipped. The maintenance personnel were still there standing around and actually putting in stuff. The major tools had been taken out for auction, but all the support equipment was being left to be mixed in the building demo stuff and hauled away as trash. Asking if it would be okay to disappear this trash in my truck and the okay was given. It was a wood and metal shop. So off went all the casting flasks and any thing else that was useful. I also filled the back of my little truck with wood, cherry,maple,walnut and several other types.

I really hate waste and all of this will now go to a good home.

Another 20′ of trench and conduit was laid for the new phone line to the shop.

The new batteries came in for the wire EDM. They are now installed and the machine is up and running in the testing mode.I have a post coming up showing it in operation later this week.

The rest of the weekend was spent doing solid works and working on the cnc router trying to get a couple of patterns made.

Until next time.

Weekend update for 5-18-15

Chuck — Mon, 18 May 2015 08:00:51 +0000

Well it started raining on Friday and continue through Saturday morning. With everything being so muddy it was time for another game plan. I spent the first few hours doing solid works and taking pictures. Then it was out to the wood shop and spend some time with the cnc router. It was noon before we got the problems sorted out with the router, a post for tomorrow. By this time it had started to dry out and out I went for some fun in the fab shop. By the end of the day the cherry picker was back up and running.

Then both Star pistols had new firing pins and had been test fired and the third star was found to use a different size firing pin. Started working on getting the Model 1930 pistols back together, but did not finish that project, I will complete it next weekend. Sunday it was time to have fun pouring more concrete and the slab for the A/C unit was completed. But first the pad had to be prepped and the rest of the rebar set.

Then 9 80# bags later this was the finished result.

Went to the fab shop next. I needed to set up a place for my metal casting furnaces.

So more footers were dug.

Enough fun and I am done for the day.

Making the Gardner gun Part 1

Chuck — Tue, 18 Nov 2014 08:00:57 +0000

I enjoy making things, specifically guns and any thing associated with making guns. I also enjoy chatting with people who make guns or any thing dealing with that. I also love mechanical machine guns. That leads us to today’s topic.

A friend of mine really wanted a miniature Gardner gun and with none available took it upon himself to make one. In fact not only one but a number of them. He has since sold the complete operation and tooling but this is a little write up of the process it took to do it. I really wanted one of these and to complete the project, there was just a little problem, money. The amount of work required to make this weapon much less a miniature one was immense. There were no usable blue prints to work from. There were no patterns available. So to complete this project he had to first find a gun, reverse engineer it, draw it up in a modeling program ,then reduce all the components to make it in 22lr. This was a task only one person would even think of doing, Papa Joe.

The original Gardner guns were made in 577-450, 43 Spanish, 11mm dutch and just about every other military black powder cartridge and 45-70 then finally in 303 British and 6.5 Dutch, can’t remember where I saw this at. The weapon was used up to WW1 by the Dutch. It was even copied by the Nepalese in the form of the Bira Gun. It is a manually operated machine gun that came in one,two and five barrel versions.

On wheeled mounts.

A two barrel version with no jacket.

A two barrel version with a jacket.

This is what the hole in the top of a water cooled version looks like.

Then to the 5 barrel version.

A nice example.

It was a beautifully made piece of art. There are a number of varieties, as I have shown you some come with no jackets, some come with solid jackets and some come with open top water jackets. It is currently being reproduce by two different companies both as a bronze casting and as a fabricated steel one that is plated. No mater which model or style you look at they are just great. It was even made as a belt fed gun.

Papa Joe took it upon himself to make the most complicated one possible. The two barrel full jacketed water cooled version. Part 2 will continue on with this saga and go into a little more history.

Library Thursday

Chuck — Thu, 28 Aug 2014 08:00:25 +0000

First off you can see that we changed the title for the Thursday post from book review to library. This was done because I wanted to add more then just book reviews. I wanted to add information to the Gun Lab library that I thought would be useful to you.

So this first post is from a friend of mine that wants to remain anonymous. So for this post we just call him Joe. Joe had the opportunity to have every piece of brass test that he had that was attached to a weapon. This included Maxim guns, Nordenfelt weapons, Gardner guns and any thing else he could find. This is that report. I found it interesting and very useful. I hope you do to.

Bronze Composition Analysis document