Custom

[SuperHiQuality87]

...IMHO. Sister post here.


Well, here she is. My "Winter Woodworking Site Project" entry. I'm not entireley sure on which way to set it up yet, but they all seem to be pretty nice. Then again, the project is focusing on the woodworking aspect, NOT relying on the bad-***-o-meter. I must admit, I did originally come up with this idea pre-woodworking project - as a personal thing. I really wanted to build somthing different into a stock (as apposed to sheridan brass or some kind of AGD). I had just won the polished vm on ebay and the cocker was malfunctioning like crazy at the time, so my natural instinct told me to go with the VM. Then Azzy posted up the idea he was throwing around for the site-wide project and that was all I needed.


Without furthur ado:





http://www.paintballcity.org/paintba.../progress1.JPG
http://www.paintballcity.org/paintba.../progress2.JPG
http://www.paintballcity.org/paintba.../progress3.JPG
http://www.paintballcity.org/paintba.../progress4.JPG
http://www.paintballcity.org/paintba...m/DSCF2176.JPG
http://www.paintballcity.org/paintba...o/jim/jim1.JPG
http://www.paintballcity.org/paintba...m/lefthand.JPG
http://www.paintballcity.org/paintba.../righthand.JPG
http://www.paintballcity.org/paintba...%20gun%201.JPG
(pictures in url form are a bit on the fat side, f.y.i.)


I originally polished my woodworking skills in a 2-year custom cabinetmaking course at a vocational-technical school a couple towns over. It was funny, I think during the entire time I was there, I must have only built like 2 cabinets. The one that they teach you in the beginning of the 1st year to introduce you to the shop; and the last one at the end of the 2nd year for the big test. Everything else had to do with guitars or drums or some kind of instrument. And I built a "Sonic Youth" key rack .

I started this off by rummaging through the basement in search of some wood scraps that were big enough for my idea. I had a KP stock at the time that I actually traced the basic shape with. The big diffrence (or modification) was that I made the stock full-sized. I'm kind of a big guy and the KP stock always felt a bit toyish to me. In fact, I ended up trimming off the last inch and a half from the butt-end (after paint) because I ended up making it too long. The other modification was that I did some right-handed contouring as well as shaping it to allow for the Thompson(?) style trigger guard. You might (or might not) be surprised, but fitting the VM in a wood stock was really not that complicated. The basic mechanics only involved me removing the plastic side-plates, the grip lug, and the hand guard; and then slicing off the end of the trigger with a grinder and again cutting a slot for an old-wire-hanger linkage. One reason why that is pure awesome is because it allowed me to shorten up the trigger pull a little. The new trigger is a 1/8" plate of aluminum I hack-sawed and hand-filed and then hung from a portion of phenolic that I turned down in a mini-lathe to replace the stock lower plug and slotted with the belowmentioned "drill press/2-axis clamp/wood milling bits" trio. The feel is quite nice; the big thing to watch out for was making the wire-hangar loops nice and snug as too cut down on slack. The trigger guard and shoe are both brass. The wire hangar is steel. The two screws and bushings that hold the stock to the VM and the screw that acts as the axle for the new trigger are SS.

The actual wood is a half-and-half mix of a grotty old treated two by four and a piece of pale maple. I never did get around to finding a better specimen, but have since secured some nice birch ply for when I build another one. I'd like to give a shout-out to my homies at Elmers glue and Behlen wood-fil. I was actually kind of dissapointed that the biggest piece of wood I could find was that old 2x4...It forced me to have to work with not only an uneven surface but also a highly-unreliable one. Hence the white paint and filler. Personally I would have preffered a DARK reddish stain over a light birch wood with about 15-20 light coats of gloss with high grit paper in between the first 10-15 coats.

All of the construction took place with a ~5" tablesaw converted from an old craftsman circular-saw; a 30-odd-year old craftsman jigsaw, a 4"belt/6"disk table sander; a small selection of chisels and a ~4lb hammer; and a 60-odd-year old industrial drill press with a bolt-on 2-axis clamp and several shapes of wood milling bits. All that took place in the old basement. Also, there was a pile of neumerous grit sandpaper (hand powered ) that was utilized in front of the television during nights off and after night school.


Cheers;
III

[Titus]

Awesome job on that man, how does she "feel" while shooting her? Kickback at all?

[Chaos]

That's pretty slick...very nice job

[Chris Mader]

That is one of the best looking VMs I've seen in a while. Nice work!

[SuperHiQuality87]

Originally Posted by Titus

Awesome job on that man, how does she "feel" while shooting her? Kickback at all?

Thank you! And yes, I must admit another bonus to using the VM is the kickback effect. Originally I started using maximizer internals but then decided that since I wasn't neseccarily going for efficiency (by using the VM in the first place) that I would go stock for that full punch effect.

Originally Posted by Chris Mader

That is one of the best looking VMs I've seen in a while. Nice work!

Thats great hearing it from you Chris! If you want, you can pick a handful of what you think looks good and use them on the site. Do you want me to write a condensed version for the site or would you like to?


III

[Azzy]

Pics arent working for me.. might be my firewall.

[SuperHiQuality87]

Originally Posted by Azzy

Pics arent working for me.. might be my firewall.

Might be, I can still see em fine...

FYI I have them all hosted on Paintballcity.org.


III

[Grendel]

That is pretty cool and definitely some custom work. I love the idea of using a VM for the same reasons you stated recoil and sound. How much does it weigh and how is the balance?

[Havocx]

love the brass trigger guard

[Chris Mader]

Originally Posted by SuperHiQuality87

Do you want me to write a condensed version for the site or would you like to?

That'd be great if you could. Just PM it to me.