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    A month of brass!

    This one'll be a bit scattershot, it's a project I've been working on basically just as time permits, for a little over a month now. I didn't always get pics, so bear with me.

    Back in March, an MCB'er asked if anyone had made a brass 'Freak' barrel back. To the best of my knowledge no one had, but I had already been thinking about trying it. There's no reason to, other than just to have brass on your marker.

    I looked around, four some ideally suitable material, and, because I have all the business acumen of a potato, I bought some.

    Brass, in case you haven't looked recently, is really friggin' expensive. This...



    ... is six hundred dollars worth.

    Anyway, after taking a few preorders just to make sure I wasn't flushing all that money down the loo, and after setting up a fresh array of tooling in the Omni (another forthcoming tale) I wrote a fresh program and started cutting some chips.





    Typical 'Freak' threading- an internal 16 pitch, 32 TPI double-lead thread. I used to cut these by hand.

    A quick test-fit...



    And then a fresh program to cut the breech threads. A quick scuff with some 800 grit, and we had some ready to go, for those of you that wanted a classic straight-sided back.



    I offered the option of profiling the back, both for looks and a touch of weight reduction, so we moved over to the CNC Logan, and cut even more chips.



    These too got scuffed, using a cheap wood lathe as a "spinner", to make sanding batches of parts easier and quicker. A little WD-40, some 800 grit wet-or-dry paper, and a chunk of stiff foam sanding pad.



    Wiped down and washed in hot soap & water, and ready to go! (The right-hand-most is polished.)



    Now, because I'm a custom shop, I was asked for threading to fit Phantoms. Kind of an odd request, I thought, but hey, I've made my living off of odd requests.

    So, cut down slightly and threaded- 14 TPI "stub" ACME, by the way...



    Then the rest of the body profiled down...



    Sanded, as usual...





    And done!



    (Not shown is an hour spent grinding an ACME point in a chunk of HSS so I can cut the dang threads in the first place. )

    And, both of those ready to ship out in the morning!



    Kind of a fun little side project, brass is always fun to machine. I've had some other brass projects on the list for some time, maybe I ought to move those up...

    Doc.​
    Doc's Machine & Airsmith Services: Creating the Strange and Wonderful since 1998!
    The Whiteboard: Daily, occasionally paintball-related webcomic mayhem!
    Paintball in the Movies!

    Comment


    • Cal440

      Cal440

      commented
      Editing a comment
      They look great Doc 👍

    • XEMON

      XEMON

      commented
      Editing a comment
      Now you have an ACME thread cutter, could you do a batch of tanto for the phantom? 😁

    • DocsMachine

      DocsMachine

      commented
      Editing a comment
      I've always been able to do ACME, it's just been so long since I last did some, that I probably re-ground the cutter for something else.

      The issue with the Tantos has been the drilling, not the threading.

      But I'm workin' on it.

      Doc.

    By request: Making a super-minimalist paintball barrel.

    We start by bandsawing off some heavywall aluminum tubing:



    This gets faced square at one end, and both IDs deburred:



    Boot up the homebrew CNC, which was already configured for a straight OD turn between centers, and cut the OD down to 1" even:



    This also makes the ID concentric to the OD, which will become important in a moment.

    The turned blank then gets squished in my recently-made crimping die:



    That squeezes the end down, reducing the ID to about .665" or so.



    That then goes into the soft jaws on the Sheldon, and the crimped end faced back to square, and bored out to about .700".



    With the OD and ID concentric, that new short ID section is still concentric to the rest of the bore.

    To finish it off, the ID is reamed back to size, leaving a short "step" at the end to retain the insert.



    Then, as I'd miscalculated how long the blank needed to be, I parted off about an inch, and carefully faced it a touch past that to get the insert depth correct.



    Switching back to the regular 3-jaw, I chucked up a chunk of 7/8" round stock from the junk bins, and turned a short cone on the end.



    That becomes a new center, so the piece of tubing can be turned between centers again, to reduce the OD even further.



    Switching back- again- to the soft jaws (they're bored-in-place, and thus more exactly concentric to the spindle axis than the typical 3-jaw) I turned a short step...



    And then threaded it to 14 TPI stub ACME.



    A little deburring and a quick test- and it fits!



    And there we have it- three of pretty much the absolute most minimalist paintball gun barrels possible.



    Doc.​
    Doc's Machine & Airsmith Services: Creating the Strange and Wonderful since 1998!
    The Whiteboard: Daily, occasionally paintball-related webcomic mayhem!
    Paintball in the Movies!

    Comment


    • Cal440

      Cal440

      commented
      Editing a comment
      Thanks for the show and tell Doc, that just shows how much is involved in a job like that. Keep them coming.

    • Impactfour

      Impactfour

      commented
      Editing a comment
      I reread this post trying to follow the procedure the best I could about 3 times before deciding this was one of the better reminders that you don't just pay for materials and time, but for knowledge and experience as well. Awesome stuff as always!

    • DocsMachine

      DocsMachine

      commented
      Editing a comment
      As they say, "The gunfighter doesn't charge by the bullet".

      Doc.

    Finally got that insert caddy/tray thingie from a month and a half ago done!

    Buddy of mine helped me with the woodworking- he has actual woodworking tools- and was kind enough to... er, critique some of my design choices. Suffice it to say that I am not conversant in how a wood project like this is supposed be designed and assembled, and so there was some conflict between "how I thought it should go" and "doing it the right way".

    Doing a few mid-project but thankfully minor design changes didn't help much, either.

    Anyway, he attempted to recycle some of my parts and my general concept, and came up with this:



    And yes, every glitch and weehaw on there is because I didn't know how to do it the 'right' way.

    But, it's 100% functional, and just a tool-drawer organizer, not a friggin' heirloom armoire, okay? Anyway, that got slathered with stain, without bothering to try and remove or sand off some of the excess glue- see previous statement- and left to dry.



    And hey, it's just cheap craft ply anyway.

    Once dry, I gave it two thick and kinda runny coats of clear poly, and set that aside to cure for several days. And finally, earlier today I slipped it into the drawer and did a kind of preliminary load of the goodies:



    Seven rows of insert boxes, potentially three deep on each, and then seven pockets for whatever else- allen keys, Torx keys, some drills, some still-packaged taps, a small handful of used inserts (most of which still have at least one good edge- the actual scrap-carbide tin is in the other room) and the baggie of spare insert screws.

    It may not look like it, but that's actually a pretty good improvement in the old drawer, and between it and the pegboard, has notably improved storage and ease-of-use here at the Machine.

    Doc.​
    Doc's Machine & Airsmith Services: Creating the Strange and Wonderful since 1998!
    The Whiteboard: Daily, occasionally paintball-related webcomic mayhem!
    Paintball in the Movies!

    Comment


      The Thing begins!

      Alaska's absurdly short summer has started, and I have several projects I've been wanting to get done. Unfortunately, jamming the shop full of machine tools means that some things need to be done outside, whether for reasons of space, or dirtiness (welding, grinding) or whatever (painting, cutting wood, etc.)

      This particular one I've been wanting to do for at least three years now, for reasons of storage and organization. Best I'll be able to do is the usual- sneak in a few minutes here and there, but this won't be a very complex build so hopefully it won't take long.

      I started by getting out some bits and remnants of some 1" square tubing, 1/8" wall, and bandsawing the bejeebers out of it.



      Each one of those, I ran through the mill, to give them a perfect miter and uniform lengths.



      Like so:



      Those get clamped, one pair at a time, to the welding table...



      And, this is the tricky part that will stun and amaze you, I welded them together!



      Repeat as necessary, and we all of a sudden, we have two... rectangular frame thingies.



      That was, unfortunately, all the time I had for this project today. Everything else was 'bulk' work, drilling a basketful of parts, deburring a different basket, etc.

      More to come!

      Doc.​
      Doc's Machine & Airsmith Services: Creating the Strange and Wonderful since 1998!
      The Whiteboard: Daily, occasionally paintball-related webcomic mayhem!
      Paintball in the Movies!

      Comment


        Today's bite at the elephant:

        Cut two more pieces of square tubing, and milled the ends flat n' square:



        And those got TIG'd into what will become the bottom frame:



        Which was pretty much the sum total of what I could do for the frame, until I can get more material. The only other thing I could do, is get out the chunk of plywood I'd been saving for this exact project, since I'd bought it in '22 or '23, and now that I had the frame dimensions, I was able to cut one of the decks to size:



        And that, too, became the end of what I could do on this job, today. I need a second chunk of ply for the other deck, and I need to get a job off the drill press first, then use that to drill a bunch more holes.

        But, time was limited anyway, and I had other tasks to do. More to come!

        Doc.​
        Doc's Machine & Airsmith Services: Creating the Strange and Wonderful since 1998!
        The Whiteboard: Daily, occasionally paintball-related webcomic mayhem!
        Paintball in the Movies!

        Comment


          Haven't forgotten about you guys, nor have I been snoozing. A lot of what I've been doing is either catch-up work, or just the preliminaries for some bulk-run parts.

          But, the thingamadoojobber shown above, is finally done! It's a cart that goes to the big turret lathe, both to store the spare chucks, and mainly to store and organize all the collets.



          It rolls on six urethane inline-skate wheels, and has room for up to 98 collets:



          That's a huge improvement for me. The collets had previously been more or less randomly scattered in three different boxes (including the milk crate in the first pic ) and it was hard to find the right size, or often enough, even tell what I had. Now I can find the one I need at a glance.

          And, the whole thing rolls like a drawer under the lathe, and has room for the spare chucks, and finally a place to put the collet cap assembly, rather than just leaving it all in the drip tray.



          That's already given me some of my floor back, and if I can just get those baskets of parts done, that'll give me even more.

          As always, plenty still to come!

          Doc.
          Doc's Machine & Airsmith Services: Creating the Strange and Wonderful since 1998!
          The Whiteboard: Daily, occasionally paintball-related webcomic mayhem!
          Paintball in the Movies!

          Comment


            Haven't been entirely neglecting my duties... but they may have slipped a bit- Hey, it's summer in Alaska, and we only get 37 minutes of it!

            So today, I looked at my stash of CNC stuff, picked a likely next task, and programmed that to use my new tool setup. Took me a little over an hour to get the program sorted, though a bit longer to sort out a chatter issue that, best I can guess, was just stupid programming. I brute-forced a fix by cutting in the opposite direction, but the first few pieces I ran will need minor second-op cleanup to get rid of the chatter. (Which is just cosmetic.)



            And, by the by, I lucked out in finding another identical tool block on eBay for less than half of new. I also bought some bar stock, and when I have fifteen or twenty seconds in a row, I plan to make at least one special block. Something that uses a combination of 1/2", 5/8" and 3/4" tooling, and has room for the big parting tool.

            Anyway, after running a basketful of those parts, I chopped some stock into blanks- I chopped a LOT of stock into blanks- and got all my mismatched baskets of random bits together to see what I had, and get a fresh idea of the forthcoming order of battle.

            Nine baskets on the welding table...



            A bucket over by the turret...



            And five more stacked on the Exacto, waiting their turn through the Logan CNC, which is immediately to the left of that pic.



            The sixth trayful is waiting for a trip through the green mill, where I have the fixture already set up.

            Tryin' to balance work and play- and indoor and outdoor work, since the outdoor requires the cooperation of fickle Alaskan weather- during a really, really short summer.

            Doc.​
            Doc's Machine & Airsmith Services: Creating the Strange and Wonderful since 1998!
            The Whiteboard: Daily, occasionally paintball-related webcomic mayhem!
            Paintball in the Movies!

            Comment


            • piton_buns

              piton_buns

              commented
              Editing a comment
              gotta love the 6" excello quit. very cool machines.

            Kickin' a couple customer projects off the table: Here's one I haven't done in a while, modding an 'unrebuildable' A1 ram.

            For those just tuning in, the Angels were great guns, and there's still a ton of them out there, but one questionable design choice of the later models was that the ram was not rebuildable. The factory, in their infinite wisdom, crimped them shut, so if the O-rings wore or started to leak... well, tough noogies.

            But, some clever people, years ago, figured out a way to fix the unfixable, and over the years, I've done my share.

            I haven't done one in a while, though, when a customer hit me up- his ram was already modded, but wanted the kinda rough mod cleaned up, and the plastic ring- a section of sliced off poly tubing- replaced with one of my machined brass rings. (Click that link- it explains the process.)

            So, I opened this thing up, cleaned up the original cut, drilled and tapped for some setscrews...



            Fabbed up the custom-fit ring (which is tiny, fiddly and of close tolerance, took me the better part of an hour)...



            And cleaned, greased and reassembled.



            Nothing big or complex, but still kind of a fun revisit- and one of three more projects I got off the table today. Makin' progress!

            Doc.​
            Doc's Machine & Airsmith Services: Creating the Strange and Wonderful since 1998!
            The Whiteboard: Daily, occasionally paintball-related webcomic mayhem!
            Paintball in the Movies!

            Comment


              I was running some more barrel backs through the CNC this afternoon, and while setting up for a different thread, I ended up with a couple unusable blanks. I hate wasting material- though it's the nature of the business- and the tip thread end was perfect. As I was running the proper parts, I got another one of my absolutely brilliant ideas.

              I already have some barrels that take XL inserts but "classic" tips... why not make one that takes "classic" inserts and XL tips?







              Any of you nutballs want one? I made a few, since I had the material and the machine was set up, call it $25 each shipped to your door.

              Doc.
              Doc's Machine & Airsmith Services: Creating the Strange and Wonderful since 1998!
              The Whiteboard: Daily, occasionally paintball-related webcomic mayhem!
              Paintball in the Movies!

              Comment


              • sonixr7
                sonixr7 commented
                Editing a comment
                I’ll take 2. I assume Cocker threading.

              • DocsMachine

                DocsMachine

                commented
                Editing a comment
                Yep, WGP thread. I'd actually been running some first-gen Angel backs at the time, but the breech on those is so long it wouldn't fit on this stubby little thing. The tip threading and the breech threading would have overlapped.

                Doc.

              • StaticShocked
                StaticShocked commented
                Editing a comment
                Do you happen to have any of these left? I would like one as well, please. I can mix and match my sets!

              Tallied up all the bins, boxes and baskets in which I have my various parts, either in the process of, or about to be fed through the CNCs. The shop is littered with them, and with everything that's been going on, I have to admit I've been kind of losing track of some of them.

              But, wrangled 'em into some semblance of order- I need a rack or shelf arrangement I can organize these on, but I have zero room for such a thing. Anyway, turned out to be a nice, even twenty, totaling just over 550 parts. Some were nearly finished, some are just roughed blanks. (And one, I'm... not entirely sure just what I cut those for. ) The smallest is six parts, the largest is four bins holding seventy-eight.

              Not counting the two 12-foot sticks out on the apron, or the eight six-footers stacked behind the machines, all of which also needs to be cut up and turned as well.

              But, I was reminded of two bins of nearly-complete parts, so after getting a couple other tasks done today, I lit up the Logan homebrew CNC and finished 'em off.

              Just starting...



              Roughed....



              Profiling....



              And done. Simple cut, just over two minutes cycle time, and just to add a little flair.



              Finally, buffed to 800 grit, washed in the ultrasonic, dried, and ready to pack up for anno.



              With luck, I can have that box filled and shipped off by Friday.

              Doc.​
              Doc's Machine & Airsmith Services: Creating the Strange and Wonderful since 1998!
              The Whiteboard: Daily, occasionally paintball-related webcomic mayhem!
              Paintball in the Movies!

              Comment


                Right on Doc, Kicking some serious ass.

                Those look amazing!!

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