Inside Doc's Machine Shop

[DocsMachine]

I saw we had this section for "Airsmiths on MCB", and one day, it struck me like a wet sock: I'm an Airsmith on MCB!

What better way, I thought, to pander to my favorite group of stockers, strokers, pumpers and general mayo-eaters than show you photos of of the nitty-gritty sausage-making end of things!

I can't show you everything- I signed an NDA with the underage Vietnamese sweatshop kids- and of course I won't have time to post each and every part, mod or job, but as regular readers of the Tinker's Guild know, I'm pretty regularly coming up with something interesting to see.

Current works are geared a little more towards getting my actual manufacturing up and running, than the individual custom guns. I have several of those in the works, too, but I also have a lot of parts that need to be fed through some expensive and haven't-yet-started-paying-for-themselves CNC machines, so I try to fit in what I can, as time and schedules allow.

The first two things to light us off: Towards the end of last year, I had an order for some of my Delrin Splatmaster Speedwheels. I've been making these for quite a while, but they only tend to trickle out the door- Splatties, as you might imagine, aren't exactly the hot n' happenin' new marker.

The order would have taken most of my existing inventory, so I got out the chainsaw, hoof-rasp and wood chisels, and made a fresh batch:

I made enough to fill the order- for six- and another 25 for my inventory. (Which is about a three-year supply. )



The other was I got some last-minute orders for my aluminum VM-68 side plates. Those, too, only occasionally trickle out the door, but I got three orders in the space of a couple of days. Presumably somebody posted them on the FB VM board or something.

Unfortunately, as I had them both in my online store and on eBay, my count was off, and I had to refund the last one- which was a prominent MCB'er.

I was just getting ready to send another batch of various parts in for anodizing, so I picked up some material, and whipped up another batch.









Those and some other bits are off at the anno shop as we speak, and with a little luck, I'll have them back in a couple of weeks.

The two sets of "blems", by the way, I didn't send off. The "blemish" is mainly slightly misdrilled screw holes. Doesn't affect installation or use, and can't be seen when installed, but I still wasn't going to sell them as new. if anyone's interested in those- maybe with a little custom milling or polishing to match your custom VM, just let me know.

And stand by, more cool stuff is (hopefully) on the way!

Doc.

[Jordan]

Will there be pics of a certain 007 being Freak-ed featured here?

[DocsMachine]

That one will be a YT video.

Doc.

[DocsMachine]

Some of you may remember a post I made last spring, entitled Freaking the Unfreakable.

The idea there was that a few markers can't be conventionally Freaked. Two notable examples being the WGP Ranger, and many Carter pumps. This is because there's no 'firewall' that the barrel seats against, as it does in a 'Cocker. Because of that, and the fact the bolt actually enters the barrel a bit, the insert can slide rearward, preventing the gun from chambering another ball.

In that thread, I mentioned an idea I came up with- in no small part simply to use up some otherwise scrapped parts I ended up with in some of my recent production runs for conventional Freak backs. I simply spliced on a new back half, that included a 'step' so the insert was retained from going backwards. The insert slips in from the front and is locked in by the tip.

I wanted to get this little project out of the way- and, incidentally, empty out some of the scrap baskets - so I dug out the bin of potential donors...



Bandsawed 'em off 'bout 'thar...



And ended up with a bin of usables, and one of pure scrap.



For these, I wrote a new program for my CNC turning center, chucked 'em up...



Turned 'em to shape...



Which resulted in this.



The more intelligent- and likely handsomer- of you may recognize that from the 'Unfreakable' thread.

When it was all said and done, that gave me fourteen usable tip ends.



Next up, the other half!

Doc.

[1snowridr]

Hey Doc, was the Blazer and Pyre on your list for these?

[DocsMachine]

The next day, I pulled a stick of 1" solid round out of my racks, and, using a precision Sharpie line scrawled on the bandsaw table, proceeded to lop the whole bar into itty-bitty pieces.



Stop me if I'm getting too technical.

Those pieces got carried over to the Sheldon, and one end faced and lightly chamfered. This will be our reference face.



That remainder bar was enough for 28 blanks, plenty to cover the number of tips, plus a few for other, similar mods.



And, since I had a 1" collet with a depth stop already set up in the big turret lathe, it just took a few minutes to tool that up with some big drills...



To make those blanks lighter by about 65%.



Why didn't I use the CNC to drill them? It can't take drills that big. I'd have had to run three smaller drills in, and then bore the rest of the way. Not impossible, of course, but it only took a few minutes to tool up the turret, and was only maybe two to two and a half minutes per part, including loading and unloading time, and doing both ends.



Up next: The Final Solution!

Doc.

[DocsMachine]

And finally, today, I wrote yet another program for the turning center, which parted off the blanks to length (opposite the reference face, so they're a consistent length) then bored and threaded it for the female end to match the tips.



As the French say, et voila`! Which I believe loosely translates to "Hey, check this s**t out!"



And, with an insert and a spare 'bull barrel' tip I had laying about, that gives us basically a complete barrel:







It is, of course, still just a 'blank'. The two back halves will get Loctited together, since there's really no reason for them to ever come apart, and then I'll turn it all in one setting, so it all looks like one piece. The seam won't be "invisible", but it will be at least hard to see.

Then, they can be threaded for any marker that needs it- Rangers, Carters, Raptors, the BE Cobra, even Model 98s. This first batch will be by order- I'll probably make a few in standard 'Cocker thread and include them in my next anno run, since those should fit most Carters and of course Rangers. But the rest will be fit-to-order.

What'cha think?

Doc.

[BOOSH]

I'm sending you a PM.

[Olsson]

I can't decide whether it is magnificently brilliant, or brilliantly magnificent.

[DocsMachine]

Why can't it be both?

Doc.

[Alexndl]

I would assume it could fit on a SL68?

[DocsMachine]

No. The seams where the parts match up, particularly where the standard Freak tips screw in, are too big to fit through the SL pump. I'm working on a couple of ideas for an SL, but no hard info yet.

Doc.

[Trbo323]

Random question doc on stuff like those speed Wheels where you are only making them three years or so how do you keep track of the working process? I would assume you have something like blueprints to refer to but the only go off of those or do you keep something like a step-by-step process so you don't forget anything important the next time you have to make them?

Sent from my motorola edge 5G UW (2021) using Tapatalk

[The Hobbit]

This is cool stuff, please continue with the peeks inside a small scale fab/machine shop.

[DocsMachine]

Random question doc on stuff like those speed Wheels where you are only making them three years or so how do you keep track of the working process? I would assume you have something like blueprints to refer to but the only go off of those or do you keep something like a step-by-step process so you don't forget anything important the next time you have to make them?

-First and foremost, I'm an old-fashioned machinist, and on a lot of this stuff, I'm fitting the part or prototype to the actual marker. (Or grip frame, body, regulator, whatever.) In the case of those speedwheels, I had a Splatty and a Rapide on hand, so I could physically measure the original part, and fit the new part to the gun.

Second, yes, I have extensive files full of notes and drawings. The majority of them are little more than the stereotypical "cocktail napkin sketch", but there's enough data there to get me by, especially if it's not a particularly complex part. Although, I had already started producing more or less proper dimensioned drawings, like this:



... Before I ever got my CNC machines, now that I'm using those more and more, I'm slowly turning some of those "cocktail napkins" into just that sort of drawing.

I haven't actually fooled around much with proper CAD, up until recently the 'napkins' have been more than sufficient. I've played around some with F360, and a few of my things properly modeled, and hope to dive a lot deeper into it this coming year.

And, third, yes, I take a LOT of photographs of the process. I really started leaning into doing photo posts of build processes back in '08 or '09 (like the barrel, above) and there have been more than a few times I've gone back to those, or my extensive collection of raw photos, to see how I did something the last time.

As for the actual process, generally speaking, there's a definite order to which a part has to be made, of course. On that speedwheel, I couldn't, for example, cut the threads before I did the OD profiling. And I chose to do the notches on the knob before I did the full profiling, just to make it easier and more secure to hold the part- but, those notches could have been done as a last step, too. Or even a first step, really.

And, of course, you have to remember that I've been doing all this as a full-time day job for over twenty-five years now. I have a little experience at it.

Doc.

[Chuck E Ducky]

When we going to see the video on how to make the Sheridan quick change knobs? (Pokes 🐻)

[Drcemento]

These posts are always appreciated and enjoyed! going to add to the noise about an SL barrel - I have 3 SL's in really nice condition and while a usable freak system would be the holy grail of awesomeness, a well made smaller bore barrel (say .684) would make me just as happy and I would imagine many others - doesn't even need to be ported! what about palmers style wedgits in the sleeve portion of the barrel? so far a well placed dab of epoxy or nail polish has been the only thing that sort of works for awhile, and that's essentially a wedgit....

[Funsi00]

Drcemento the additional cost includes a longer pump arm. To replace existing one. To make space for barrel adapter.

[Drcemento]

OK about to order... though kinda back to the subject here have you had the bolt pull the freak insert out? for deadly winds part I find it interesting they have not done what docs doing here since the adapter part could be used to lock in the freak. I dug out my SL and slid the pump over the barrel - its sloppy but doable. since it is carbon fiber i wonder if a homebrew sleave could be glued on to fatten it up and take the slop out.

[Funsi00]

Insert is held captive inside barrel. Bolt will not touch insert like traditional freak bore barrels. Sure, you could come up with barrel sleeve to take up gap between barrel and inside pump handle.

[DocsMachine]

After some other fiddling around, including finding out my lathe rather desperately needs a good servicing, I was able to get back to these. It took more hand-fitting than I'd hoped, but after deburring, the occasional bit of filing, some additional boring, and just miscellaneous fettling, I got each part both cleaned up, and fitted into "pairs"



These I took in the house and scrubbed thoroughly with hot water and soap (no pic, you people have seen a sink full of hot water before ) all while trying to keep each "pair" together. That way the bores and ODs of each one match as best as they can be- there's always minor manufacturing differences.

Once they were good and dry, back in the shop I dolloped each one with a dab of red Loctite, and snugged each pair together with a wrench.



Things like this, by-the-by, are the only times you should use red Loctite in a paintball... well, anything. When there is absolutely no reason for it to ever come apart.

In this case, there's no reason for the two halves to come apart, pretty much ever. Really, something like this should have been made in one piece, I only did it this way to try and re-use otherwise scrapped parts.

Once everything- including the ones I'd made earlier this summer- were cleaned up, scrubbed, deburred, fitted and Loctited, I had 20 backs. One's already threaded to 'Cocker, the other 19 are blank.



And, once those had a few hours to cure, I turned the OD down to a consistent diameter:



And there we go, a fair handful of specialty Freak backs, that retain the insert from sliding out of the breech.



These are now available for anyone who needs this style, cut to fit, by order. Let me know what you need it to fit, and if I have one on hand, or have the measurements on hand, I'll cut it and send it off. I'm also planning hopefully at least two more batches of black anno before the end of the month, so if you want them done, just let me know and I can add them in. Or, of course, you can have it plain so you can get it match annoed to your gun.

Due to all the handwork involved, and the low numbers, these will be $120 each, including threading to fit your gun. Add $10 for anno, if I can get it thrown in with the batches I'm already setting up.

I can also set you up with custom tips, with or without porting, and so on.

(As a reminder- this specific lot is for these "retained insert" barrel backs. If you want a back for something that can take a conventional one- 'Cocker, Shocker, Ion, ICD, Angel, etc.- I also have those, and for less than the cost of these handmade beauties. )

If you're interested, let me know by the usual PM, email, smoke signals, carrier pigeon, or AOL Instant Messenger, if you have access to a time machine, and can convince teenaged me to actually get AIM.

Doc.

[DocsMachine]

If Doc would offer wedgits I'd mail him barrels tomorrow. Since hearing that paint has (somehow) gotten worse during my break, I know wedgits would be incredibly useful for the closed-bolt crowd.

-I've been thinking about exactly this.

I have no idea how Craig 'installed' (or perhaps "applied", to be a little pedantic ) the originals, but I have a couple of ideas on how I'd do it. I've been meaning to make up some trial tooling and see what I can do.

I'm not sure how I'd do it on a fixed barrel- PGP or PMI-1, say- but I think I have a good idea how I'd do it on a removable barrel.

Doc.

[Funsi00]

Craig had two procedures. A jig of some sort for new barrels. To press in 2-3 wedgits. On a pgp, those were hand punched. You can see the difference in shape of wedgit.