Hello everyone,
Since I've found Dadio project (viewtopic.php?f=13&t=19011), I hope it will worth posting my own conversion, as it was made at home, with no milling or heavy welding. The donor gun is chinese-made ZB-26 (a cheap one, not a CNC Rock ZB-26).
What and how have been done:
1. The set of drawings was acquired on e-bay ("armourer's sheets") and Ian Skennerton's SAIS book.
2. The buttstock drawing was re-scanned, re-sized and then printed to fit actual ZB-26 butt mounting.
3. The buttstock was sawn from 3 parts of furniture wood, with central part cut for a battery chamber, and fitted with ZB-26 furniture (buttplate, lock etc), then painted
4. The barrel was fixed in an ad hoc milling machine: a hand drill + vice, and all Ñooling ribs were removed with sand paper. Those to be left were filled with resin/epoxy putty. The same was made with flash hider: lots of putty to fill the holes, sand paper to remove the nut.
5. The low frame was cut from profiled ([]-kind) steel tube
6. A new front part for the body was made from steel and attached to the gas tube (unpainted aluminium on ZB-26) by two steel bolts and then filled with epoxy resin.
7. The gas selector was acquired on e-bay, and a new chamber was re-modelled, 3D-printed and then copied in resin.
8. A sketch of magazine was drawn and re-sized according to the actual size of ZB-26. Now I have two prototype magazines: one is an ex-ZB-26 bunker, another one is basen on MP-5 mid-cap mechanical.
So, here's my baby now:
A "general image of Bren Gun", a mixture of Mk.1 hull, Mk.2 barrel and chinese-made bipod 
I hope to improve it in the future (especially, backsight), though. But it works, it has no realsteel parts (well...sling hooks are, actually), and it took weekends from October to March to be done.
If anyone will need more information, feel free to ask for more photos.
With best regards,
Alexey (Tankgunner)
Weapons: Mosin44, Mosin38, DT-29, Nagant, Bren gun, Enfield No.4 Mk.1, Webley
Looking great. Hopefully my conversion will look just as good. How did you manage to make the magazines?
Regards,
Ralph
Looking great. Hopefully my conversion will look just as good. How did you manage to make the magazines?
Thanks,
3D printing. I'm new to this kind of technologies, so it's an overall model of the magazine (made by my colleague, good with SolidWorks), modified by me in SketchUp and exported to STL. Here's the version for inserting MP5 mag inside.
I had to cut it in two parts, because the available printer is too small to print it as a whole. Parts are filled with epoxy and connected on two steel pins.
PS The wooden prototype with a cut for MP5 mag insert, on a gun in progress 
Have I not laid my hands on 3D, I planned to fit two steel sides to it.
With best regards,
Alexey (Tankgunner)
Weapons: Mosin44, Mosin38, DT-29, Nagant, Bren gun, Enfield No.4 Mk.1, Webley
Really good work, and that mag setup is ingenious!
Looks amazing, really well done! 
On a side note, the ZB26 is actually perfect for making into an early Mk1 "dovetail" Bren due to where the original ZB26 rear sight mount is, if you add a more correct rear site further to the rear of the receiver the original ZB26 sight mount becomes the "dovetail" sight mount on the Bren*, which was used to mount an optical sight for when the Bren was used on a tripod.
[EDIT] *With a bit of filing and epoxy.
I'm impressed by the 3d printing work. Looks great.
Regards,
Ralph
I'm impressed by the 3d printing work. Looks great.
Not so good at close look - the drawback is you can't get rid of "textures" without much effort, and the seam is visible.
I'll try to slice the next verson in vertical projection.
Moss, Mattywheels - thank you!
With best regards,
Alexey (Tankgunner)
Weapons: Mosin44, Mosin38, DT-29, Nagant, Bren gun, Enfield No.4 Mk.1, Webley
Looks fantastic, comrade! I wish I had the tech to pull these kind of jobs off.
'ABSIT OMEN'
So far after 4 years of playing my old PLA magazines got cracks and wearings, and I've decided to remake them.
Here's 2.0 version, of PETG plastic, with solid infill of down side and a ready-made place for MP5 insert.
The file is here
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4343655
The video is here https://youtu.be/Dg8HCVS1VOM
With best regards,
Alexey (Tankgunner)
Weapons: Mosin44, Mosin38, DT-29, Nagant, Bren gun, Enfield No.4 Mk.1, Webley
You can get 5 Real bren mags over here for £10,but they would be a different fit in the magwell so that would be difficult to modify.
Great conversion on the ZB, looks really good, I particularly like the mag conversion with the plywood, that’s my type of solution, love it!
Keep us posted on how the 3D printed ones go as well.
Andy
