Inside Doc's Machine Shop

[DocsMachine]

Most of you here know I frequently make Freak backs, especially for those older or less common markers that either never got a factory back, or for whom SP/GOG hasn't made a back in years. Several of you also know there's some markers that can't take a typical Freak back- the way the marker is laid out, there's no way to properly retain the insert.

A common one is Carter pumps, but there are similar issues with Blazers, Raptors, Cobras and a few other guns.

The "big trick" here is that, for a conventional Freak back, there's a common, off-the-shelf heavywall tubing that already has the proper bore size, as supplied. This is a big help to making these things- it keeps me from having to drill out solid bar, or pay for a big run of expensive custom extrusion. The trick to that is, for those guns that need to retain the insert, there's no easy way to add that step, without adding on an extra piece, welding, or drilling the part from solid bar.

I've pondered this issue for some time, and with a little thought and some advice from the Internet At Large® I came up with a solution: Since the end with the step needs to be fully machined anyway, what if I swaged the end of the tube down ? Basically just squished it in a controlled manner to a smaller OD and ID, and then turned the features into it.

A fellow over on HSM posted a pic of a shop-made guillotine swage that I thought would work. I really need to get moving on these parts, if I'm going to do anything with them, so I took some time this morning to build my own version. TL/DR version? It works perfectly.

I started with a hunk of old I-beam out of the scrap piles...



That got ground, sanded and brushed down...



And then bandsawed into pieces.



For guides, I dug two chunks of 1" hot-rolled out of the same pile, and slotted each one to fit the web of the I-beam.



A little bit of fine-tuning with the belt-grinder and a smidge o' TIG, and voila!



That goes into the mill and the operative bore... er, bored.



Bit of guesswork there: I wanted to reduce the bore by about .075", so the ID of the dies were cut to about .075" less than the OD of the tubing. The exact number was irrelevant, as long as there was enough material to turn it to the final dimension.

After a little deburring and smoothing, it was time to give it a try. I had some scrap barrels to try it on, so with a little bit of oil brushed on, I stuck the whole mess in the press and gave 'er a squish.



And that, actually, turned out just perfectly.



It's not an even squash, I may try going most of the way, turning the tube 90 degrees, and squishing the rest, but even still, that right there is 100% usable.

The bore ended up football shaped, .655" (down from the original nominal .750") across the die parting lines, and .675" vertically. The finished bore needs to be between .695" and maybe .705", so that's perfect.

I chucked it up to see how it turned back to round...



And it appears to have worked perfectly. I turned the bore back to .695", and it retains the insert perfectly.



You can see just a touch of eccentricity to the left there, but taking another 5 thou or so, and maybe turning the tube 90 degrees should solve that. Might add a couple short return springs to the swage help make that go a little quicker.

Nice little win to cap off what had been a bit of a tedious week.

Doc.

[DocsMachine]

A year or two ago, I picked up a couple of rolling tool cabinets from the local Homey-Dee, to not only store the tooling for each of the CNC machines, but also to give me a work surface to set tools and generally pile crap.

A common add-on for these things is a pegboard back, except either they weren't carried locally, or had been discontinued. I could see pics online, but the local store didn't have them, nor could they find them to order any.

No big, I can DIY something.... Also at HD, I found some standard white pegboard, and some perforated angle material. A few weeks ago, while running some parts, I sliced the angle in two, and by luck, some of the holes in the long side lined up with the existing bolt holes for the side handle.



The top of the cabinet has a rolled edge, however, so I found some 60-thou aluminum sheet, and cut a couple of spacers.



That way the bolts could be tightened without distorting anything, and the uprights stayed, well, straight upright.

I got my buddy with a Festool track saw to slice up the pegboard to fit the new uprights...



after which I drilled a few attachment screw holes (of course none of the existing holes lined up ) and then sprayed it a satin black:



Partly to match the existing cabinet, and partly to seal the particle board against the inevitable smears of cutting oil. But mostly to hide the dirty fingerprints.

After that had a few hours to cure, I mocked it up on the uprights:



I think that'll work just fine, and I could use it now... but we're not done yet.

(More to come.)

Doc.

[DocsMachine]

The next step! Got out a scrap of some 1/2" sanded cabinet ply- the same stuff I used to make the collet tray for the Rivett- and cut myself some pieces. Two of them were 4" wide shelves for these pegboards. One will go on the backing for the Omniturn, the other will go on a similar backing on the cabinet for the Trak.

After some ponderment, I laid out a few places to poke holes...



And this time, I dug out my oft-neglected set of Forstner bits, and drilled a dozen 3/4" holes, and half a dozen collet holes.



That, as per established tradition, got sanded, and the edges of the holes rounded over slightly with the trim router.



Along the way- I was doing several things at once- I whipped up a makeshift fence, and ripped a couple thin strips of that same ply, on the bandsaw:



Those got glued to the back of a leftover bit of the pegboard, as a 'spacer'...



And while that glue was setting a bit, I also made a second, smaller, collet rack- which also got rounded and sanded.



After the glue had set up a bit, I drilled and countersunk four mounting holes, and then completely screwed it up.



Finally- it was about all I had the free time for today- I gave the two pieces a quick lick of stain.



In the morning, after the stain has had a chance to dry, I'll hit 'em both with some clear polyurethane.

... but we're still not done.

Doc.

[DocsMachine]

I was hoping to just be able to spray these two bits with clear varathane, and then screw 'em up later this afternoon, but it turned out the larger of the two warped slightly overnight.

So, I went ahead and sprayed the smaller one...



And attached a brace of sorts to the back of the longer one:



That required gluing, re-sanding and re-staining, so I won't be able to clear that one 'til tomorrow. But, in the meantime, I wanted to try another mod. I dug through my bins of pegboard hooks and found a few likely donors. These I cut down slightly and ground smooth:



Then, using a spare chunk of the cast-off pegboard, I TIG'd a section of 3/16" stainless TIG rod across the three of them:



That worked nicely, except...



I'm not sure I like how far out they're angled. The further they lean, the less secure the "hook" to the dovetail- and I already dropped one behind the machine when loading it the first time. I may need to put a splash guard back there, like I did on the Sheldon and Logan.

And, those were the only hooks I had of that type. I may have to play around with this idea a bit and see if I can't refine it a little.

But, that was also about all I had time for, today. Back to work!

Doc.

[DocsMachine]

Nope, doesn't look like that's gonna work. I tried a second version of the hanger, snipping off basically all of the "hook" and more or less welding the horizontal rod directly to the hook's vertical rod.



And it's a little better, but it's still way too easy to accidentally knock a block off the wire, while reaching for another. The stainless rod just doesn't provide enough contact- or maybe 'engagement'- to the dovetail.

I guess I'll fall back to the first idea I had- making a thin milled strip, probably aluminum, with a dovetail on the top edge. Only trick to that being that the easiest way to mount it is to either run the screws in from the back, or run them in from the front but have nuts and washers at the back.

But, I can make the hanger the full width of the pegboard, giving me room for at least one more block (six rather than five) and I think a matching dovetail- and basically flush with the board- should make them hang a little more securely.

On the plus side, I was able to screw up the new collet rack.



Doc.

[DocsMachine]

The Varathane was of course dry this morning, so all that remained was to... well, screw it up.



Now, that is, of course, by no means "done", nor is it anything like the final configuration. That's the whole point of pegboard- to be able to shift things as needed. As I get more tooling, and/or the tooling needs change, I'll be adding and altering for a while. The wood rack was the key, though- a secure place to put the collets between uses (the tabletop has no lip to keep them from rolling off) and a more convenient place to store the bar tools.

It opens up quite a bit of space in the drawers, as well as giving me a place to put things rather than just toss them on the worktop.

As I said, we're not done yet. I still have mods in mind for the uprights, a couple of ideas for custom hooks for the pegboards, and a few other things. But, that was about all the spare time I could... er, spare, at at the moment. It was worth the expenditure because both of these machines are very frequently used, and I have a ton more work coming up to feed 'em both. A bit of time spent now will hopefully make that later work smoother and maybe a little more pleasant.

For those curious: The upright things at the lower left are bar-mounted indexible cutters, the staple of any "gang tooled" machine. They mount in blocks like the long one at the far left, and stick out like the teeth of a comb to engage the workpiece in turn.

The silver things at the lower right are 5C collets- five of my nine lathes take 5C, and I have a ton of them.

Top left is a cheap squeegee used to clear oil and chips off the door of the Omni's enclosure, next to that is a 5C wrench, used to hold the collet while you install a collet stop. The collet next to the yellow-handled screwdriver has a stop- you can see it sticking out the back. Upper right is a cheap adjustable square, I use that for setting the depth of parts in the collet, if there's no other shoulder or stop in use.

The three long silver things with barely-seen black tops, are 5/8" shank ER collet holders, typically used for holding drills, and which mount to the same tool block. Directly to the right of those is the nearly-invisible wrench for those holders, then a big Sharpie, and finally another collet stop.

Doc.

[XEMON]

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