GunLab

What is it Saturday 5-9-15

Another hard one, but it is a gun part.

Archive Photo of the Lowell Gun

Here are two pictures of a Lowell gun. It came out during the time of the Gatling, Nordenfelt and Gardener gun but at the very end of that time period. Only a few were ever made and I was lucky to photograph this one before the museum closed.

Some where in the archives I have more pictures and will post them at a later date.

From the days of 35mm photography.

Cut away Tokarev TT-33

This weeks cut away in the Tokarev Model TT-33. DSC_5019cs

Magazine manufacturing

In this post we are going to look at making a magazine. In this case a 22lr pistol magazine. This magazine was stamped out on a progressive stamping die. In a machine that would look like this.

Not for the home shop.

So lets take a look at the steps that would be required to make a magazine. Starting from a role of steel metal to the final product. The sheet steel is removed from its coil and fed into the stamping machine. The process start with the initial cut and a pilot hole or holes that serves as a locator hole for following steps in the process.

This is the stamping strip from start to finish. So lets take a closer look at the individual steps.

First step. Initial cut of the magazine and two pilot hole for locating the sheet metal for the next step.

Second step. In this step you can see that the second hole is removed as the top of the magazine is finished cut.

Third step. This starts the initial bends

Fourth step. Now we are in the pressing of the ribs of the magazine.

Fifth step. Another bend step.

Sixth step. This is a bend step for the bottom of the magazine

Seventh step. Here you can see that the slot has been punched in for the follower button.

Eight step. The folding over of the magazine

Ninth step

Tenth step. The magazine stamping is separated from the strip and being set up for welding

Eleventh step. At this point the magazine is machined welded.

Twelfth step. The tab are now cut off and for all practical purposes the magazine body is complete

All that is required after this to verify fit and do your quality control inspection

Updates for the last two weekends.

Last Sunday was a much easier day. It was a large amount of fixing things as well as shop work.

The A/C went out in the house so testing was conducted and it was found that the evaporator fan went out. Time was spent on removing it to get a replacement today. Then the bad luck just continued. Both a/c’s went out in the machine shop and had to be repaired. I finished the electrical to the spot welder and got them running.

Also finished the insulating and putting on wood covers to the spot welder room doors, this should cut down the heat load through the doors a great deal.

Because of some missing parts we went through the machine shop, the metal storage room, the 20′ container and the 40′ container with a fine tooth comb. I mean to say that every cabinet, box, container, plastic bag and drawer was gone through, not once but three times by three different people. This has been an on going project which reached a head this last week with no work being done other then looking for the missing parts. We moved desks, cabinets and work benches. So by the time this was all done everything was a disaster. Saturday was spent putting to 40′ container back together again. Here are a few before pictures.

This is a lot of cabinets to go through.

After we finished going through and cleaning up and putting away everything this is what it looks like now.

All the cabinets have been labeled.

I made bottoms for the library index card cabinets so they are now being used from odd parts, like the barrel for an Astra 400 or the bolt from a Winchester 73 bolt and feed ramp, any parts that did not require a large cabinet to store them in.

We fixed a problem with the table saw and then cut a 3/4 mdf board for the cnc router.

I also finished the air system in the fab shop. Done and I am quitting for the weekend.

Just a quick update on the VG1-5 project 5-2-15

All the firing pins for the VG1-5, the Star pistol and the M1930 Sauer have been sent to heat treat. The buffer pins are there as well. The spot welder have been wired up and the coolant system will be finished this weekend. The first rifle was sent a while ago to Greg who took it to the first testing facility for ATFE approval. The second one will be out when the parts come back from heat treat. We will be spot welding the receivers together soon and all the material for the bolts is here and going on the lathe for the first op in the near future.

My work load has dropped of a little which helps and I hope to be back making regular posts soon.

This weekend is full of mandatory maintenance projects to get the shop back in order.

That is all for now.

Making the 1930 Sauer firing pins

I went to do a little shooting on a few weapons in my collection that I have never fired only to find out that the firing pins were broken. In this case the pistol that I had taken out was a Sauer model 1930 32acp pistol. For some odd reason I happen to have three of these cute little pistols and two of them had broken firing pins. Now it was off to the computer to design up a new firing pin. Getting into this project it was determined that with three of the same pistols that there were 2 different sizes of firing pins. This is a video of the making of the firing pins.

Here is a picture of the firing pin prior to milling it.

This is a solid works look of the part.

The firing pin after completion in the milling machine.

More on the AR-16

As we were putting books, files and magazines up in the new library I came across a few interesting concept pictures on the AR-16. The rifle was design to be convertible to different calibers.

This first picture is from an old magazine showing a line drawing of the concept.

This concept will work because the pivot point between the upper and lower receiver is behind the magazine and not in front of the magazine.

This last picture actually came from a pile of Armalite documents. It shows the notes concerning the various caliber conversions.

Up dates to the shop

Life at the shop has changed a bit since our last shop up date. We now have a wire EDM as well as a sinker EDM. I priced out wire EDM work and for the cost of a few pieces I could buy an older unit. It was working on the shop floor prior to them disassembling it and moving it to the warehouse for storage. Now the problem is to get it back together again. I am currently looking for manuals to do this and get it running in my shop. It is not a large EDM but the right size for the space I have . In addition I also obtained a second spot welder. We have modified the first one for certain projects on the VG1-5 and with the second one I can set up for the second op on the rifle.

Now all this new equipment means that changes have to be made to the shops. Room being as scarce as it is in the shop means moving tools.

The first thing was to make room for the new tools that were coming in. This meant moving the manual vertical mill and pantograph out to the fab shop. With the backhoe still down, due to diesel fuel in the oil system, we now had to move everything the good old fashion hard way. No pictures of this fun period were taken as I did not want proof of how stupid I can be.

They are in the fab shop and will be moved into place this weekend.

A path needed to be made through the shop. However the space between the punch press and the vise was not large enough.

So I cleared out on the other side of the posts.

Jacketed up the milling machine and put my small set of skates under it to start the move.

A close up of the skates.

It did not take long before I changed out to the larger skates.

At the 1/2 way point and at the turn. 2 hours into the move.

Finally at it’s new home. I will be starting on the new concrete slab in a couple of weeks.

Another view, the grinder will be moving when the slab gets in.

The easy part was moving the pantograph.

Now came the real fun. Trying to move 25 pounds of stuff in a 5 pound bag and getting it set up.

The first step is to turn the EDM around 180 degrees and position it in the shop to allow access to all the panels and hook up points while not taking all the room in the shop up.

In this photo the EDM is in the wrong direction and as always there is stuff in the way.

I needed to move it into the shop but still more stuff in the way.

Finally the EDM was in place and all the support equipment was set next to it.

Now it was time to move the two spot welders

They are in there new home.

With the majority of the moving completed I needed one other small project to end the day with. So Insulation was glued to the steel door. Ran out of material and will finish next weekend.

Enough for Saturday. I will fill you in on Sundays progress tomorrow.

Sunday answer 4-12-15

Sorry for the late answer to this Saturday what is it.

It is the brreechblock from a Sauer & Sohn model 1930 pistol. This is a copy from NRA firearms assembly 2, A book you should have in your library, showing the components of the pistol. It is part number 7.

This picture shows the pistol down to it’s basic field stripping.

This shows how the breechblock fits into the slide

To assembly the pistol the slide goes over the main spring and barrel, then the breechblock is slide in from the back and the slide cap is screwed on.

A couple of views of the assembled pistol

This whole project started because I just received a second pistol but the firing pin was missing. Having a shop and a second pistol I decided to make a new firing pin. Same model pistol with only a few hundred difference in serial number range. However the firing pin from my first pistol is to large for the second pistol. In fact there a number of parts that will not interchange between the pistols. Still the firing pins turned out nice and I will change the necessary dimensions to make new ones for the second pistol.

Recent Posts

Categories