Paintball

[Menace]

Has anyone over here ever dealt with the issue of filling in the grip frame of the Pro/Am with aluminum in order to reprofile and add a bottomline?

I'm completely ignorant about welding in general, so is this perhaps something I could solve by picking up some stock, cutting it to shape and taking it to a welder and have done?

Or what?

Thanks much.

[snaparen]

I am no welder but...
IIrc that is a cast aluminum frame, may even be a aluminum/magnesium alloy. I have always been told that welding cast metals is difficult at best.

We do have some very knowledgeable welders on here so bump your thread for a few days and someone who knows more than I will come and give you a better answer.

Might even move it to ask the experts forum for more traffic.

[Chappy]

If your main goal is simply a bottomline, you could swap a procarb gripframe on without any modification.

[snaparen]

Originally Posted by Chappy

If your main goal is simply a bottomline, you could swap a procarb gripframe on without any modification.

He is correct about that.
Prolite/Procarb frame compatability

[Menace]

I was aware about the Pro carb grip frame compatibility, but this is part of a little project for a friend, and he REALLY wants to keep the original all-metal grip, and polish it.

It certainly would be highly unusual, but would require filling in of all that material.

Obviously if it is nigh impossible I'll go the pro carb route, but this is MCB, which means nothing is impossible except owning only one marker.

[Chappy]

Certainly understandable Have you considered filling the bottom with quicksteel or similar and drilling and tapping that? Not sure how well that stuff works, but in this instance it seems like it might.

[Menace]

I had momentarily thought of it, but that would both look nasty and be much weaker than having metal welded in there properly.

So it's pretty much weld or replace, and I really want weld.

So . . . . Any welders with knowledge of how troublesome this might be?

[IrishRedneck86]

Well your in luck man I am a welder by trade and have lots of experience with Aluminum. So it I understand what your talking about you want to take and old all stock pro/am and smooth out the gripframe for polish and a bottom line right.

Heres what ya need to do from what I can see.
1 First you have to completely clean all the black coating off the gripframe and sand it a little more once its all remove otherwise your doomed from the start cause aluminum depends on cleanliness especially for cast

2 you have to cut off the protruding thread cup so it is flush or just under flush

3 Make an aluminum plug to use the remaining threads in the grip but its gonna have to have a V taper so it has a nice groove around the plug so a good bead can be laid in sealing it all together as one piece

4 Then you just lay a bead into the groves on the sides of the frame after it is cool to the touch

5 Then you just have to take a peatgrinder with sanding disks and smooth it out going from 60-220 will give ya a nice smooth finish

6 most important part is it has to be TIG welded and nice and slow so everything ties in since it is cast also you must use 5356 ALUMINUM ROD it has special alloys for welding cast aluminum which cuts down on porosity and worm holes in the welds since cast is so porous

Sorri for the bad paint pics but it gives you the general idea
Start


Middle


Finish

[shives]

Wow, I thought I was the only freak that was thinking about adding a bottomline to the original cast aluminum grip. I had talked to a couple of people about it, but not gone further. My suggestion was a bit different.

I was going to have a plug milled that would fit into the hole at the bottom of the grip. It would be short enough to leave the original hose/ASA in place. I though of using a couple of pins run through the grip and plug to hold it all in place. Then, just put holes in the plug for a bottomline.

If you like my idea, and can find someone to do it reasonably, let me know.

Shives

[Menace]

Irish,

As I don't weld ( ), any idea how much it would cost to have this done?