Bren and again and again

You is a genius.

I is panicking about getting your's ready in time , I'll try and get the front sights done this weekend then other than the stock and magazines it's all just cosmetic . You might have to make do with one mag and the old stock for Tim's game but I'm hoping to get more than that done , we'll see what i can achieve , oh lordy I'm forgetting about the internals being shot ...... Ho-hum !

Faster pussycat kill kill....

front sights milled out of billet steel , just need the shrouds and welding to the barrels .

Don't panic , photobucket have started charging for 3rd party hosting and want $399 a year looking at other options .

The front sights are finished and welded to the barrels and the shrouds made and fitted also , I just ordered the metal for the cosmetic work on the main gun body , as soon as I can get another image hosting site working I'll have pictures up again .

Quite a bit done recently , front sights finished , barrels painted , some cosmetic strips made to fit the left side lower edge to correct the profile and the mag well modified to fit Bren mags .

Looks great. How are you planning on making the magazines?

Just gut the original mags and fit them in genuine gutted magazines .

Is that tab protruding from the receiver (above the front of the trigger guard) integral to keeping the gun together?

Is that tab protruding from the receiver (above the front of the trigger guard) integral to keeping the gun together?

it is structural but i might be able to get rid of it , there's a drift pin that holds the gearbox in to the trigger guard assembly that I'm hoping to replace with a bolt that goes through the receiver as well to do both jobs but its kind of badly cast so I've been hesitant ...... the screwdriver in the picture points to the drift pin and you can see how badly cast the area around it is.

Is that tab protruding from the receiver (above the front of the trigger guard) integral to keeping the gun together?

it is structural but i might be able to get rid of it , there's a drift pin that holds the gearbox in to the trigger guard assembly that I'm hoping to replace with a bolt that goes through the receiver as well to do both jobs but its kind of badly cast so I've been hesitant ...... the screwdriver in the picture points to the drift pin and you can see how badly cast the area around it is.

it bugs me as it would be much better to remove the tab and if the casting was good I'd do it in a heart beat but the guns going to have to survive in a rough world ....

A few more bits done , I've milled off some of the old rear sight base and another section near the barrel release catch , i dare not mill off the rest of the sight base as once again i found cavity's in the casting but whats left will be disguised as a scope mount . I also screwed on the bottom rails , the screws will be filled with filler (what else ) to conceal them once the rest of the work is done, and finally I've made up the top mag lip wedge shaped parts for the left side .

Here are the cavity's in the casting

I have just ordered a ZB, so now taking vary detailed notes

I have just ordered a ZB, so now taking vary detailed notes

They are frustratingly close to a bren , and unfortunately shockingly poorly cast so you find you can't change some of the things you want to for fear of weakening the main body of the gun , it was heart in my mouth every time I've had it on the mill , I guess it really depends on how close you want it to being perfect , for instance you could use epoxy filler to remodel the original barrel .
I think the biggest problem is the stock though , it really is a case of "dear god why " , they could have used an ak gearbox and not had the motor in the stock , this leaves the stock really thin , so they made the metal cocking cover in the stock part of the receiver I assume to help brace the stock , but it's too low for a bren so it either got to go or be in the wrong place ,grrrrrr it's as I said "frustratingly close to a Bren!"
Anyway rant over , feel free to take as much inspiration from this thread as you can and best of luck.

love your work, it convinced me to buy a zb26.

can you upload the old foto's,
almost all my builds are based on your work as a template and to lose those photo's is a bit of a disaster.
photobucket's update creates a lot of problems for Do it yourself airsoft makers.
almost all the old tutorials are gone,

That would be great idea, not that I will be doing a Bren, but many of the idea's and techniques transfer over to other builds!
Andy

It's a great idea to replace all the photo's in my threads ,as soon as I have a spare month I'll get right too it , seriously though it's a bit more of a nightmare to even attempt to do , my threads are rather picture heavy and for every picture I post up there are probably 3 or more that I don't use for various reasons so it's not just copy all to another sight but sort through thousands of pictures to find or guess witch I used , it's just not practical I'm afraid , it's deeply flattering though .

To my shame this thread has been dormant for some time ( family problems ) but its back now and I'm on the sprint again . One of the things I've been least looking forward to is the stock , I'm not much of a woodworker but I've recently added a 3D printer to my tool box and I've got quite obsessed with it , now how is a 3D printer of any use you ask ? well I believe they are now becoming a genuinely useful tool that can create usable products rather than the flimsy ,easily broken stuff of the past . This has been something of an Odyssey for me as I've had to learn computer aided design , slicer software and the mechanics of the printers themselves but I think I'm getting there , your still asking what has this to do with a MK1 Bren stock ? well you can print in a wood plastic mix , around 12% wood content and that means it looks , feels , smells , sands and takes wood stain just like wood !
I got a bit invested , here's a timeline of prototypes and test prints, some of them have very poor surface quality and that is because they are draft quality prints , very fast , almost hollow and only printed as dimension tests .This is not a perfect 1 to 1 copy of a MK1 stock , more of an artists impression that is compatible with the gun being converted .
First a copy of the ZB26 stock as practice .

A crude rough

A fit test piece

A more refined shape





Some more test pieces


This is the finished design but a failed print due to a blockage in the extruder nozzle , rather frustrating as it was 15 hours into a 17 hour print , you can see the top is missing , ho hum another is printing now , the first picture is as it comes off the printer with all the support material still attached .



And after a slight clean up


This one shows an internal cross piece (in red) that connects the strap fittings so it will be strong enough to use .

Finally a pile of pieces that might show the degree I've become invested in this .