GunLab

Changes to Gun Lab

I have decided to make a few changes to the way gun lab works. I personally can watch machining videos and look at solid models and guns all day. I guess that is because it is what I enjoy. I mean I take my vacations to go to factories to watch things being made Plastic factories, pottery factories, machine shops, museums to look at weapons and my wife goes along with me. However, I understand that most people want to see other things as well. So here are a list of the changes that I would like to make to the site.

Weekend followup Monday

Monday will be for an update of what went on during the weekend. A basic run down of everything that happen in or around the shop. This is to give an idea of everything that has to go on to keep things running.

Shop Tuesday

Tuesday will be for showing the part that has been made. The solid model that was worked on or the program that was written. Anything that went into making the parts that we make.

Random info Wednesday

Wednesday will be for information that we have come across that would help. Where we buy material, people and companies who have helped us, new products, videos that we find dealing with gun or parts making. I want to do a segment on people that are in the industry. Anything that I feel like taking about. Classes that we are taking, talking about the shop equipment that we have and use. Talking about firearms that we are interested in making in the future, general discussions on manufacturing or weapons, interviews when possible.

Book review Thursday.

There a large number of books in the reference library here at gun lab. Machining books, gun books, manufacturing books, information that is helpful in every aspect of what we do. I want to do a basic run down of the book and where to obtain it. In some cases a sales commission is give if you buy the book through our link. All money from this will be donated to the wounded warrior project. Having served in the military and coming from a family of military people I feel strongly toward this cause. I hope that you do too.

Video Friday

This will be the day that I post videos of the parts or equipment that we have made.

Guess this part Saturday

I have a 40′ container of misc parts. Saturday will be for taking pictures of parts so you can test your knowledge of small arms.

Answer Sunday

This will be the follow up day that answers Saturday’s question.

I want to add a library to the site dealing with information pertaining to gun lab.

Please feel free to comment about the changes and any recommendations that you have. We are looking to involve our viewers to improve gun lab to become the best site possible.

FG-42 first model rear sight button

This post is about making the rear sight button for the FG-42 first model. To give you an idea of the complexity of this part I am adding a picture from “Death From Above” . This is a component break down of the parts for the first model FG-42 rear sight.

There is also a picture of it installed on the rifle.

The important information on these pictures is the angle of the button that holds it together and the design of the sight post. This post is about the lathe operation for part A 26. This is the button that holds the entire sight together. If you compare this sight with a later model Fg-42 you will notice the differences in the angle and the thickness of the part. The internals however are inter changeable.

With the part we are making in this post we are dealing with the button that holds it together.

This picture will give you a slightly different view.

Now that we have finished the lathe op for this part we will start designing the tools and fixture necessary to complete the mill operations.

Video on finishing machining the FG-42 rear sight base

In the last video concerning the FG-42 rear sight base we showed you the lathe work required to complete the first op. This video will show you the rest of the work required to complete the rear sight base on the machining center.

Again just a reminder of the part we are making is solid model form.

In this video we will take it from a turned part.

To a final part ready for assembly.

So Lets start.

The total milling time for this part is 10 minutes. Hope you enjoyed the video.

Update on work around Gun Lab.

Not everything is fun and games around here. There is always maintenance to accomplish as well building projects not related to guns to perform. This Sunday was one of those days. My boss, wife, deemed that the doors needed painting as well as the door frames. So all the doors except the big steel doors at the shot were painted. That is a total of 14 doors and frames that were painted ( house, guest house,shops and metal storage room) as well a new insulation cover built and painted for the walk in cooler I built.

In addition a friend dropped of his wacker to compact the soil for the addition at the fab shop. At my age I am just to old to play with this stuff, but I did it any way. The good news is that task is complete the bad news is that I feel it, big time.

However with the compacting completed finished I am ready for the next task.

It was also time to clean up the fab shop. It has gotten a little out of order and impossible to work in.

So a major clean up was in order. My better half and I finished it late Sunday. What a job.Next I finished installing the lights I had on hand and wired them up and installed light bulbs.

The excitement was that hootie showed back up and stayed around for a few glamor shots.

He is great for dealing with the mouse problem. That’s all for this Sunday and I am already back at work on gun stuff.

Need a Little Help

I have finished the lower receiver for the Sudanese AR-10. I would now like to make some of the other parts for it and the Portuguese AR-10. I am really looking for Drawings and parts. If anyone could help it would be greatly appreciated.

More updates on the Sudanese AR-10

We have finally finished the solid model of the Sudanese lower receiver. The total time that has been spent making the solid model is 60 hours. Considering that there were no engineering drawings that were readable and the receiver we had to work with is cut up, I do not feel that is was excessive. We are still working on the tool list , programing and fixtures that are necessary to make it, that will be in the next post. The material for two test receivers is here and we are working toward the next phase.

So here are the solid model updates. We have gone through an corrected some of the radius on the inside and out side of the receiver.

With the final model they blend better and look like the original rifle.

We have also started the lettering on the side of the receiver.

The next update was to add the logo we are going to use on our receivers. Being that Armalite is copyrighted as is AR-10 we had to made a few changed as you can see. this is an original rifle.

This is our version.

The full auto trip sear was removed from the model and stops for the selector were added.

The original Sudanese selector was different the all the rest.

Which means that we going to now have to change that as well.

The changes have been made and the lower receiver should be correct. Comments are appreciated.

Machining the FG-42 bi-pod leg female stamping die

This post is about machining the stamping die for the bi-pod leg on a first model FG-42. This will be the third stamping die out of a set of 5 dies. It is also one of the more complex of the dies in the set. I will start with the solid model that was drawn up in solid works after being scanned.

Here are a few pictures of an original bi-pod leg

Here are a few still pictures of the female die.

To give you an idea of the time required to do this die it took a week of design time to take the 3-d scans and convert them into usable solid models. It took another day to write the master cam program. The total time to set up the machine and run the die 5 hours. The material cost was $ 65.00. Tooling cost was $120.00.

We are working on the matching male die and will have a post about that soon. Hope you enjoyed the video and understand the time required to complete a project

FG-42 rear sight base machining video

I posted the still pictures a little while back on making this part. Here is the lathe video on machining the first op.

Just as a quick refresher on the part being made, this is the solid model of the part.

After the first op, which is the lathe op, this is what the part looks like.

I hope you enjoyed the video.

FG-42 first model rear sight

We have been working on the rear sight for the FG-42 first model. The first picture that is a solid model of the entire sight assembly.

The next picture is a picture of the component parts.

The part we are currently working on is the base of the sight.

So now that you have seen the solid model it is now time to show you what the actual machined parts look like and the process that it takes to do it. The first step is to run it on the lathe.

After that there is 5 ops to complete the part.

so now back to step one on the lathe.

Not only is it turned but also drilled the the proper size on the inside.

The next step(op 2) is to cut the flats on the side of the base.

Then op 3 cuts the notches on the other end.

another picture from a slightly different angle.

With op 4 we cut the grove that allows the sight to slide up and down.

Another view.Then the pivot hole is drilled and a slight bevel is cut into one side.

A better shot of the bevel.

The last and final op is to cut the bevel on the opposite side.

This is the first set to be cut.

To give you an idea of the time and money necessary to complete this one small part. The time to solid model this part from the 3-D scans was a couple of hours,time to write the lathe and mill programs and set up the machines was approximately 8 hours. Material cost was 60.00. Run time on the lathe is 5 minutes per piece and run time on the mill is 10 minutes for a total run time on this part at 100 hours. Tooling costs is 200.00. This makes a cost to make this one small part approximately 25.00 each.

I will have a video on making this part in the next week. Thanks for staying tuned in.

AR-10 Sudanese contract

A while back a close friend of mine brought over a parts kit for a Sudanese AR-10. There are no receivers available for this rifle anywhere. However, he did have a cut up receiver. In-addition another friend had sent be some drawings that had been photocopied so many time that done of the dimensions could be read. The real excitement is that I have always wanted an early style AR-10. So while I was waiting for material, tooling or fixtures to be made for the current projects I started another project. that is to design the solid model of the lower receiver. This is that story.
The first thing that was accomplished was to made large prints from the files that were sent of the lower receiver.

Once I had that I started adding dimensions based upon measurement of the cut up one.

You can see the measurement in red on the drawing.

This is the start of the solid model, day one in the process.

The following pictures are the progression of solid modelling the receiver. Keep in mind that this project was only worked on on weekends after we shut down the machines or in the evenings.
A few more pictures of the work after the first day.

This is the model after the second session at the computer.

And again after the third opportunity I had to work on it.

This is after the forth session.

And a cut away of it to show inside dimensions.

This last set of pictures is the final version.

I will be going over every radius, angle,hole and dimension again this weekend to verify that everything is correct with this solid model. I will also be making the changes to make this a semi auto receiver only. The tool list has been generated and I hope to be working on the fixtures and programs soon. Let me know what you think.

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