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A complicated fantasy firearm, moving parts and lots of metal in a small apartment? What could go wrong?
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Signing UpStep 1The Concept
As mentioned in my previous Instructable, this was a non-firing replica of a weapon that never was; the heroic and dangerous 45mm double-barreled break-open grenade launcher carried by 1930's pulp adventurer Mr. Fury.
The original concept was to make use of the growing technology of 3d printing; to model the complete weapon in 3d and print out the parts that linked several military surplus parts that looked cool for the project.
It ended up with me doing serious metal working in my apartment, with inadequate tools. The biggest tool I had was a budget, bench top drill press from Harbor Freight. Most of the serious cutting was done with a hacksaw!
I also made some serious errors, such as being misled by my experiences with welding steel to think I could braze multiple brass parts together in the same way. In the end, the thing was as much epoxy and other glues as it was metal, and in hindsight we really could have printed more of it, done a lot less metal work, and saved ourselves much time and money.
The original concept was to make use of the growing technology of 3d printing; to model the complete weapon in 3d and print out the parts that linked several military surplus parts that looked cool for the project.
It ended up with me doing serious metal working in my apartment, with inadequate tools. The biggest tool I had was a budget, bench top drill press from Harbor Freight. Most of the serious cutting was done with a hacksaw!
I also made some serious errors, such as being misled by my experiences with welding steel to think I could braze multiple brass parts together in the same way. In the end, the thing was as much epoxy and other glues as it was metal, and in hindsight we really could have printed more of it, done a lot less metal work, and saved ourselves much time and money.
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Though I must say it looks amazing.... (What got you into using really parts from other real firearms?)
That said, the whole point of my Instructable was about making do with far too little. I admit freely I finally broke down and spent an hour at my brother's wonderful shop. Would that I could go there more often...in addition to 15" cold saw, MIG welder, and power bender, he owns his own 4' x 8' ShopBot!
But I could have done the welds elsewhere, or paid a local sheet metal company a few hundred bucks to do them. Everything else was marginal tools...mostly a single Dremel...and hand-sculpting with such wonder materials as Apoxie Sculpt and 3d-printed Alumide and Stainless Steel.
If I had to quantify the things that really made it possible, it would be patience, planning, long experience with hand tools, and my theater-trained sense of where and how to fake it (when you couldn't do it right).
It is really those new materials and new forms of access -- such as Tech Shop, the rental tool place -- that make it possible for us amateurs to make things we didn't think were possible. All I can say is start small, have a plan, and embrace failure -- it is from failure that one learns. If you are afraid of failure you will never start anything. But if you fail enough you learn how to turn it into just part of the creative process.
Hrm. I think I have another blog entry there. So...thank you again!
http://www.freewebs.com/grog/
'Grog', evidently has reloading data for 'home-brew' exotic munitions. I haven't ordered his 'disc' yet, but I've been thinking about it, as it would save a lot in 'trial and error'.
http://www.longmountain.com/store/machine-gun-parts/Chatellerault-1924-29/
We're hoping to take some proper pictures of the final thing this week.
You'd have to ask my client/friend, the gun nut, about where he came up with the basic design. It is extrapolation from period arms; there are 30mm flare guns in the period, including a Japanese over-and-under double barrel pistol. The 45mm shaped charge is similar to actual rifle grenade rounds. Where he thought of firing basically one out the other, I don't know! The rest of the design evolved from the premise, particularly, that it had to both break open to reload, and slide backwards against a strong spring to take up some of the recoil of pushing a 45mm shell down range.
Since I'm not a gun expert by any means, there were quite a few emails and luncheon sketch sessions where he'd say "Make up some part for here," I'd make up a part, and he'd say "No real gun ever did it THAT way. Here's a sketch of what those really look like." So it evolved cross-wise. I am happiest that we made very few compromises based on what we COULD build as opposed to what we WANTED it to look like. The trunnion leans furthest in that direction; the design of the trunnion is entirely based on the kinds of shapes I could achieve with materials at hand that could take the forces involved.
Still, I finished the project with a strong desire to make a laser pistol carved from a single block of wood, with NO moving parts, and no metal. (Unfortunately, what I've done since then is experiment with a mess of electronics I've now got to somehow fit INTO that proposed wooden shell!)