I started work on the barrels over the weekend ,the barrels have a number of different diameters over their length and to make them out of one piece of metal would require a specialty ordered piece to be made with a very thick wall ,so I'm using two pieces of tube ,one will slave over the other where needed and be welded in place to give the correct diameter at the thickest parts ,the narrower tube has a 3mm wall thickness so I can reduce the diameter on the lath for the narrower diameters ,so far I have made the first section of 22mm that inserts into the flash hider and then there is a wider section that is above the gas block ,behind this section is a 23mm section that is also now complete .next weekend I should be finished with the reduced diameters and move onto the sleeved sections that go over for the wider bits .the breech ends will be made like the zb26 barrels so they are removable in the real steel way ,at the moment the airsoft barrel has to stay in place rather spoiling the effect but I'm hoping I can change that so the outer and inner barrels come off together .
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armoury
m1a1 Thompson,sten mk2,mp40,stg44,sterling,mk2 bren gun,lee Enfield no4 mk1,Mauser Kar98, Walther ppk,smith and Weston m10 and Mauser m712
Give me a big enough hammer and a place to stand and I could fix the world.
i'll kill a man in a fair fight or if i think he's going to start a fair fight or over a woman or.......
a problem shared is a problem halved ,but an advantage shared is no advantage at all
if a job's not worth doing then its certainly not worth doing well
I've just realised I've made a Bo Bo , the flash hiders I've made are for Mk2 Bren barrels and these are Mk1's , oh well back to the lath , just as well I was looking at barrels today ,I was looking at ways to get the classic chrome fromt barrel section finish and noticed the difference ,the front sight of a mk1 is a stork straight out of the barrel , not fitted on a ring arround the barrel like the mk2 ,oops !
Any way it leads to my next question for Simon and Chriss , do you want me to look into getting the barrels chromed ? I'd have to make sure they can get that dull brushed chrome finish rather having the barrels look like motorbike exhausts ,up to you guy's ,let me know .
armoury
m1a1 Thompson,sten mk2,mp40,stg44,sterling,mk2 bren gun,lee Enfield no4 mk1,Mauser Kar98, Walther ppk,smith and Weston m10 and Mauser m712
Give me a big enough hammer and a place to stand and I could fix the world.
i'll kill a man in a fair fight or if i think he's going to start a fair fight or over a woman or.......
a problem shared is a problem halved ,but an advantage shared is no advantage at all
if a job's not worth doing then its certainly not worth doing well
Sheesh ! I'm glad that's over , I just successfully modified the flash hiders , very nervous work as I had to hold a conical piece in a chuck that's not designed for it ,every pass of the cutter it could have spat the piece out ,ruining it and possibly me as well ,heh and I had to do it twice ,anyway I'm very pleased with the result .
I also finishes the smaller diameter cuts on the barrel as well ,I'll look at getting the sleeves for the larger diameter sections done tomorrow but my nerves are shot for now .
armoury
m1a1 Thompson,sten mk2,mp40,stg44,sterling,mk2 bren gun,lee Enfield no4 mk1,Mauser Kar98, Walther ppk,smith and Weston m10 and Mauser m712
Give me a big enough hammer and a place to stand and I could fix the world.
i'll kill a man in a fair fight or if i think he's going to start a fair fight or over a woman or.......
a problem shared is a problem halved ,but an advantage shared is no advantage at all
if a job's not worth doing then its certainly not worth doing well
I'm happy to go with what you suggest chief.
I'm a hero with coward's legs.
most of the detail work on the barrels is done , just the sights and gas adjuster block , all the wider sections on the barrels were finished last week ,lots of hand done concave curves and welding ,very labor intensive , today i just drew up some designs for the gas adjuster parts ,lots of measuring and head scratching ,its going to be much like my own Bren but with a few tweaks to improve it , this is rare for me but you get to see a grubby piece of paper with my scrawl on it , believe me i prefer making stuff to drawing it .
armoury
m1a1 Thompson,sten mk2,mp40,stg44,sterling,mk2 bren gun,lee Enfield no4 mk1,Mauser Kar98, Walther ppk,smith and Weston m10 and Mauser m712
Give me a big enough hammer and a place to stand and I could fix the world.
i'll kill a man in a fair fight or if i think he's going to start a fair fight or over a woman or.......
a problem shared is a problem halved ,but an advantage shared is no advantage at all
if a job's not worth doing then its certainly not worth doing well
Beautiful. Are you going to do any work on the internals?
Regards,
Ralph
Simon wants the full Lonex internal revamp .
armoury
m1a1 Thompson,sten mk2,mp40,stg44,sterling,mk2 bren gun,lee Enfield no4 mk1,Mauser Kar98, Walther ppk,smith and Weston m10 and Mauser m712
Give me a big enough hammer and a place to stand and I could fix the world.
i'll kill a man in a fair fight or if i think he's going to start a fair fight or over a woman or.......
a problem shared is a problem halved ,but an advantage shared is no advantage at all
if a job's not worth doing then its certainly not worth doing well
Brilliant. I'll be watching that with interest. I've put a few upgrades in mine and it's worked out well so far. The only real issues I had with mine was adjusting the motor height with my hight torque motor as after the first day of use it the gears started making a horrible screeching noise. Also shimming to the new motor was a bit of trouble.
Regards,
Ralph
these parts are what i was designing last week and will be the D shaped section under the barrel, there's still a bit of milling to do yet.
oh a bit of welding as well .
armoury
m1a1 Thompson,sten mk2,mp40,stg44,sterling,mk2 bren gun,lee Enfield no4 mk1,Mauser Kar98, Walther ppk,smith and Weston m10 and Mauser m712
Give me a big enough hammer and a place to stand and I could fix the world.
i'll kill a man in a fair fight or if i think he's going to start a fair fight or over a woman or.......
a problem shared is a problem halved ,but an advantage shared is no advantage at all
if a job's not worth doing then its certainly not worth doing well
This should show what the parts are a bit more clearly as I've had a chance to mill them .
armoury
m1a1 Thompson,sten mk2,mp40,stg44,sterling,mk2 bren gun,lee Enfield no4 mk1,Mauser Kar98, Walther ppk,smith and Weston m10 and Mauser m712
Give me a big enough hammer and a place to stand and I could fix the world.
i'll kill a man in a fair fight or if i think he's going to start a fair fight or over a woman or.......
a problem shared is a problem halved ,but an advantage shared is no advantage at all
if a job's not worth doing then its certainly not worth doing well
This weekend i finished the connection between the D section of the barrel and the lower gas system , next is to finish the rear end of the barrels where they lock into the breech then i can attach the D sections to the barrels and the front end will be virtually finished and its just the cosmetic changes to the receiver and make stocks
armoury
m1a1 Thompson,sten mk2,mp40,stg44,sterling,mk2 bren gun,lee Enfield no4 mk1,Mauser Kar98, Walther ppk,smith and Weston m10 and Mauser m712
Give me a big enough hammer and a place to stand and I could fix the world.
i'll kill a man in a fair fight or if i think he's going to start a fair fight or over a woman or.......
a problem shared is a problem halved ,but an advantage shared is no advantage at all
if a job's not worth doing then its certainly not worth doing well
Finally got restarted today ,i just started with a bit of finishing off a few bits .
Cut off the end of the zb barrel that locks into the breech and turned it down to fit into the new steel barrel .Cut the new steel barrel to correct length .
Finished the wingnut's that holds the D block .
Milled the second locking tongue to fit the gas block.
Cleaned the milling lines off the two alloy gas blocks .
Ordered more steel to make the front sights and to widen the barrels for the carrying handles to fit over .
Once I've finished all the work on the barrels on the lath i can weld into place the D sections under the barrel and the front sights in place but if i did that now the vibrations on the lath would be awful .
armoury
m1a1 Thompson,sten mk2,mp40,stg44,sterling,mk2 bren gun,lee Enfield no4 mk1,Mauser Kar98, Walther ppk,smith and Weston m10 and Mauser m712
Give me a big enough hammer and a place to stand and I could fix the world.
i'll kill a man in a fair fight or if i think he's going to start a fair fight or over a woman or.......
a problem shared is a problem halved ,but an advantage shared is no advantage at all
if a job's not worth doing then its certainly not worth doing well
Impressive stuff as always
Regards,
Ralph
Make me one.
Go on.
I'll be your best friend!
I made the first sleeve to go onto the barrel under the handle and i've run into a little snag ,on the zb under the handle is a narrower round tube ,this part i've replace with the larger milled aluminium section like a bren should have ,however with the handle fitted to the barrel the handle hits the aluminium underneath , I had assumed the height would be the same ,its only a couple of mm and not a disaster just a pain in the neck having to go back a few steps ,ho hum .
I also had a bit of a near miss on the lath ,I was using a half round file to make a radiused reduction in diameter or the sleeve , I should have set up a cutting tool on a rotary mount to cut the radius but its a faff to set up and takes ages ,anyway I caught the file in the lath chuck when I slipped ,wham 
! , I got off very lightly ,only a light bruze and a blood blister , it comes of being over familiar with a machine tool .
More pictures later .
armoury
m1a1 Thompson,sten mk2,mp40,stg44,sterling,mk2 bren gun,lee Enfield no4 mk1,Mauser Kar98, Walther ppk,smith and Weston m10 and Mauser m712
Give me a big enough hammer and a place to stand and I could fix the world.
i'll kill a man in a fair fight or if i think he's going to start a fair fight or over a woman or.......
a problem shared is a problem halved ,but an advantage shared is no advantage at all
if a job's not worth doing then its certainly not worth doing well
Today I rectified the clearance issue by milling down the first gas block ,I also stripped down the new carry handle supplied by Simon ,it was not locking in both positions properly ,a screw was just not fully home in the handle ,I had to make up a special tool to tighten it but its all good now.
armoury
m1a1 Thompson,sten mk2,mp40,stg44,sterling,mk2 bren gun,lee Enfield no4 mk1,Mauser Kar98, Walther ppk,smith and Weston m10 and Mauser m712
Give me a big enough hammer and a place to stand and I could fix the world.
i'll kill a man in a fair fight or if i think he's going to start a fair fight or over a woman or.......
a problem shared is a problem halved ,but an advantage shared is no advantage at all
if a job's not worth doing then its certainly not worth doing well
armoury
m1a1 Thompson,sten mk2,mp40,stg44,sterling,mk2 bren gun,lee Enfield no4 mk1,Mauser Kar98, Walther ppk,smith and Weston m10 and Mauser m712
Give me a big enough hammer and a place to stand and I could fix the world.
i'll kill a man in a fair fight or if i think he's going to start a fair fight or over a woman or.......
a problem shared is a problem halved ,but an advantage shared is no advantage at all
if a job's not worth doing then its certainly not worth doing well
a little more progress ,more than is visible at least , both the muzzle cones are welded in place as are the sleeves for the barrel handles , there's also two sleeves for the handles not just one , finally one of the D shaped gas blocks is welded and blended inn and the side pieces made for the other barrel , so little to see for the amount of time it takes .
Once i have the other D block welded and blended then its on to the sights , after the sight's its the cosmetic overhaul of the receiver and stock .
armoury
m1a1 Thompson,sten mk2,mp40,stg44,sterling,mk2 bren gun,lee Enfield no4 mk1,Mauser Kar98, Walther ppk,smith and Weston m10 and Mauser m712
Give me a big enough hammer and a place to stand and I could fix the world.
i'll kill a man in a fair fight or if i think he's going to start a fair fight or over a woman or.......
a problem shared is a problem halved ,but an advantage shared is no advantage at all
if a job's not worth doing then its certainly not worth doing well
Will you modify the receiver to also be less Czech-y?
Yes , the barrel locking area will be the biggest change , the rear sight needs moving back , cocking handle area is all wrong etc etc and finally the stock has to go .
armoury
m1a1 Thompson,sten mk2,mp40,stg44,sterling,mk2 bren gun,lee Enfield no4 mk1,Mauser Kar98, Walther ppk,smith and Weston m10 and Mauser m712
Give me a big enough hammer and a place to stand and I could fix the world.
i'll kill a man in a fair fight or if i think he's going to start a fair fight or over a woman or.......
a problem shared is a problem halved ,but an advantage shared is no advantage at all
if a job's not worth doing then its certainly not worth doing well
