Sten mkII to mkV conversion project

Can I ask how you fit the foresight on, fella? Looks crackin'!

At the moment its just slipped on but it will be locked on with a drift pin when finished ,the sight comes in three pieces ,the outer U shaped protector has a screw the tightened it to the inner part that slides over the barrel ,this inner piece has a whole through it that partially crosses where the barrel fits ,the barrel will have a notch in the top where the whole in the inner sight part croses ,yoy hammer a drift pin into the hole locking the two parts together ,its the real steel fitting method and easy enough to do .

Today I adjusted the position of the tapered section back toward the shroud by 3mm and reduced the wider section by half a mil ,doesn't sound much but it looks much better to me . I also cut the groove in the top of the barrels for the drift pin that holds the front sight on , I hate these little bits as you have to be sooo accurate or the sight will be twisted off to the right or left ,both look good n true so I'm breathing again .these little things used up over an hour but I'm pleased with the results ,now its just the bayonet lugs to make up and fit and two locking grub screws to fit and the front ends will be finished and ready for blueing and painting as appropriate ,one of the finished mk5's is to be painted and the other blue'd as customer preference but most parts will probably be blue'd initially just to prevent corrosion before painting ,pluss when the paint chipps it won't be bright steel or be as prone to rust .

One barrel complete with bayonet lugs .

Both barrels now have bayonet lugs and are blue'd so that's the front ends virtually finished ,I just have to take another fraction off the barrel shroud for the one that's to be painted to allow for the paint thickness otherwise it will ruin the paint trying to fit the front grip and I need to fit the locking grub screws to stop it all comeing loose in the field .

Fantastic stuff.

All looking very smart.

This may not look like much but it took a disproportionate amount of time and several attempts to get right . what it is is the plug connection between stock and gun , it uses mini deans plugs that mate as the stock is fitted in the normal way ,it's not much to see yet , only 4 pieces of metal but accuracy is vital to get a good mating and a rigid stock fit .the long and short pieces will be welded at a right angle once a couple of other cuts have been made for the wood grip fitting and trigger to go through but you should get the picture .

Little more done today , the lower receiver parts are welded together ,fiddly work getting it all true even as the weld cools ,cut the holes in the bottom for the grips and trigger , again it looks very little but it takes ages to get right and i had a fit of procrastination as well .The grips are held in place by a single screw and are located by the raised square in front locking into a square hole in the metal.

Trigger guards cut off the old trigger housing to be re used , the shape of the mk5 trigger guard is slightly different and has a wider radius corner at the front so they had to be modified slightly , fiddly again making two the same but it worked in the end and they are now welded on , now i have this done i can find out exactly how much shorted the front section of the trigger housing needs to be ,this all needs to be done before i make the sides , on the agm version the lobes that are screwed onto the tube are part of the front trigger housing and that's wrong ,they should come out from under as part of the rear section side panels and that's what i'll do so everything else has to be done first .

I found a couple of hours today to shorten the forward trigger housings, on the mk 5 the rear part is stretched to give space for the pistol grip and so the front must be abbreviated so it was cut ,weld and grind time .The pictures show the modified front section's in place and next to an unmodified example .
Now that this is done i can also weld in the sides above the trigger guard and grip ,there's not a whole heap to do now ,just the trigger system to move forward ,the end cap return to weld on ,the sides to weld on the trigger housing ,paint and a load of sundry things to finish off.

Nice.

Nice.

Personally I would say more like stunning!!!
With every build Gav just pulls the rabbit out of the hat and goes beyond what has been done before..
If he was working in Hong Kong just imagine what toys we would all have to play with...

The first rear trigger housing has its sides complete with the tabs that would be welded to the main receiver tube,though they will be screwed for this airsoft version as otherwise the gearbox would not be removable ,unavoidable I'm afraid but they will not be Phillips screws ! , you may notice it has two sets of tabs ,two at the front as usual and two at the rear that you only tend to see on the mk5 ,you might also see that I've cut the tabs off the front section where AGM decided to fit them ,i have no idea why they did that as it could have been done correctly with no additional effort ?

Hello again , been doing a few more little bits yesterday and today , nothing earth shattering but bits that needed doing or correcting .
I have both trigger housings welded together and all the mounting holes drilled ,countersunk and the old holes in the front section that are no longer needed welded up , so next on the list is moving the triggers forward to their new position , this meant milling out a new channel in the motor mount's and abandoning the old switch system as it cannot be moved forward as too much metal would be taken off the motor mount and the switch cannot stay where it is as it fouls the stock mounting hook , this is no bad thing as the old switch was a crappy design that used the alloy trigger to bridge out the switch contacts , so what will i use for the switch ? i have a pair of 15 amp micro switches that will be remotely fitted in front of the gearbox inside the trigger housing and operated via a rod much like the trigger on the agm mp40.
this first picture shows the old and new positions of the trigger in the motor mount.

and this second one shows the position when in place in the gun.

now i have the trigger position set i can make up the wire loop/hook looking part that would be the axle for the trigger in the real gun.

Both trigger housings now fully mounted to the receiver , at this point there is one of those design compromises , the tabs on the side of the trigger housing should be spot welded to the receiver tube but they must be screwed on in order to remove the gearbox ,I'm torn between using plain screws or countersinking them partially , the metal the tabs are made of is only 0.8mm thick so the screws wont fully countersink ,only about half way ,its a question ow witch looks worse ,I'm sure Chris will let me know how he feels .
I had a bit of a nightmare aligning the holes , i made the mistake of measuring it all up on one gun but apparently AGM has a wide tolerance on accuracy because nothing fit when i assembled the other gun for fitting ,that a gobbled up a load of time sorting out but its done .I also found the micro switches did not fit so i had to order another pair ,hope they are better , its just one of those things i guess ,some days are just all setbacks .
Anyway here's some teaser shots .

Very nice. I do like mk5.

Outstanding as always Gav

Looking awesome

Today the return lip on the rear sight bands to retain the stock .