The Hearsch Angocoellum Rifle: A functional Steam/Cyber Punk Rifle

Step 5 Slotting your cut blank

after a last look at the device she pressed into the slot
it fit perfectly and soon a whir and buzz filled their ears
from the workings of many tiny gears

This is possibly the most tedious part(unless you hate sanding like my friend does . . .) and the one with the most need of precision.

Materials:

• your cut out blank

Tools:

• various spade style drill bits (or the kind seen in my pictures work really well too) that match the size you need for your slot (not a coin slot thankfully)
• chisels
• mallet for chiseling
• pencil
• square
• electrical or masking tape
• drill press with hobby vise
• rotary tool and sanding bit
• safety glasses (I use paintball goggles since they also keep dust out of my eyes)

The first thing you want to do is get the width of your elbow and drill a hole where it's going to stick out deep enough to center your barrel in the channel we'll cut later. To do that we need to know where the center of the stock is so measure the width and mark the center in at least 3 places and then draw a dark pencil line down the whole top (or at least wherever any cuts, slots or holes will be). Next drill the hole for the elbow but to keep it looking nice don't go all the way through.

After this place marks along the top where depth differences occur for the trigger slot and where it begins and ends. then connect these vertical lines with horizontal ones centered over the middle line and equal to the width of your blowgun.

Darken the resulting box and get a drill bit the right diameter to match the width of your slot. Take your tape and wrap it around the bit to mark the depth you want so that while drilling you can stop when the correct depth is reached. Clamp the stock in the drill press and line up the bit and drill a line of connected holes at the right deptsh to make your slot. Then don some goggles instead of safety glasses (to keep dust out of your eyes) and whip out the ole demmel tool and take out the little ridges left by the roundness of the drill.
The fit can easily be checked by inserting the blowgun . . .if it's too tight sand out some more!

My design included holes for the tubes to run through the gun so I drilled these by hand at this point.

After this slot was finished it was time to cut the little cubbies for my little gizmos and fiddly bits. I used a huge bit to get most of it out and then consecutively smaller ones to go out to the sides (round would have been easier but I wanted a shape that complimented the shape of the gun) and dremmel out the new resulting ridges and smooth the sides . . .this will take a long time so be patient and get it right!

Comments

[sonofstone]

it's lovely to see that you chisel all of the edges away instead of dremelling them, in my point of view that just stands for craftsmanship