ADA: Ask Doc Anything!

[Indeed]

"I'm a one-man band trying to keep my small business afloat on a tattered shoestring. It ain't always easy, and there's never enough hours in a day."


Idk if I'm supposed to care?

If you completed work you would have been paid in full. You're not the only one working there arse off out there.

Congratulations you ran a manual mill at 23. I started tig welding at 11. We can go back and forth all night long. If you didn't already ship the solenoids please don't bother. I'd hate to have the 8 bucks break your shoestring business. 🤷♂️

[DocsMachine]

Gang away. You guys aren't the first, likely won't be the last. I wasn't blowing smoke when I said there's plenty of people out there that aren't happy with whatever I did, was supposed to do or tried to do for them. Ask around, I'm sure most of the tales will be entertaining, and some of them may even be true.

And, you'll note, at no point did I say I was infallible or entirely blameless. I many of those cases I did, in fact, screw up, in some cases rather badly. In your case I can't point to a particular thing or event, it was simply a case of, for want of a better term, 'falling through the cracks'. I'm a one-man band trying to keep my small business afloat on a tattered shoestring. It ain't always easy, and there's never enough hours in a day.

In my defense, in that same eight-month period, I made over 1,200 parts, packed and shipped over 500 packages, and probably replied to close to 4,000 emails, PMs and other messages.

I'm sorry I couldn't help you out, and regret disappointing you. But when I hear people saying I "couldn't be bothered" to do something- usually after I've already spent eight to ten hours in the shop, made two trips to the Post Office and am still staring at four hours' worth of unanswered inbox- yeah, I get a little goddam indignant.

Doc.

[Indeed]

Doc your condescension is laughable. Yep I remember the early days too when I started playing pump with my cousin in 1992. Wanna continue a pissing contest? Your business management is terrible. Your communication since September when I mailed the parts has been zero without me posting in this forum. There have been weeks separating the attempts in contacts never requiring you to pay constant attention. Check you pm and see the dates if you like. A simple pm back saying hey your number 40 in line expect a 6 month wait would have been acceptable. You have never sent me an any type estimate for labor or materials. Super happy that you posted they way you did. It let's your future customers see just exactly who you are.

[Surf2Live]

Hey Doc... it may seem like everyone is ganging up on you, but it says something that there are enough people upset with your business practices and communication that they have to address you in an open forum to get a response. I've had conversations recently with multiple members that have shared similar stories. Indeed isn't the first, and unless you recognize this kind of criticism as an opportunity to better your business and yourself he won't be the last. I once attempted to be your customer for 8 months before I gave up...

Remember last year before the 2.0 hack when you had just made a bunch of new L and P stocks? They looked great and I decided I could use a couple to finish some projects. We exchanged a couple of PMs and I ordered 2x L stocks, 1x P stock, and 2x sets of tank rings; all raw, all complete and in stock except for the tank rings. That was ~April time frame if I recall correctly. After the site went down I did the leg work to email you with my username and the order we agreed on to make sure the parts would still be held for me. You replied and acknowledged everything was ready except the tank rings. Over the next 8 months I sent numerous emails and you replied to only two of them, MONTHS apart, and each time told me you would be ready to ship them later that week and would invoice me promptly. In December I sent one final email telling you I was done trying to send you hundreds of dollars for parts that you had already made, but couldn't be bothered to send a Paypal invoice and ship; no response.

Your indignation is misplaced and unwelcome.

[DocsMachine]

-I cut the original prototype in aluminum, on a worn-out mill-drill, using a cheap mill-drill tilting vise, in two hours, some twenty years ago.

-And before anyone calls BS on that one, there's a photo of the original prototype linked on this page, which hasn't been updated since late 2003. The LED adapter is #17 down on the list, and so was probably posted when the page was first created, in early-mid 2002.

All that was just from just the first five years I was in business.

I've now been at this twenty-three.

"Not interested"? "Not the man for the job"? Thanks, I needed a good laugh.

Doc.

[DocsMachine]

If one wanted to build a sniper, regulated, primarily to run on 12grams,
What valve/spring/config would you suggest for a target efficiency of 30+ shots at 280 fps?

-Thirty is doable, thirty-plus is pushing it.

The trick is "old style". You need an old style body with pre-2K internal volumes. The old valves with a smallish bore also help, and try to find a bolt with a small-bore port and channel up to the breech face.

Run one of those teeny CCI inline regulators, and make sure you either have a good bore match, or use a Freak, et al`, to get a good efficient fit to the ball. An XL should help a touch over a standard-length.

For the springs, go with a moderately stiff valve, and as mentioned earlier in this thread, a fairly stiff, but short hammer spring. The spring should have some oomph to it, but when the hammer is at rest on the end of the valve, there should be little pressure on the spring.

The trick is dwell time- the valve should open fast and close fast. The less residual spring pressure on the hammer the valve has to overcome, the faster it can close and the more efficient the marker will be.

Doc.

[DocsMachine]

And while I'm ranting, Indeed's little foot-stampy tirade reminds me of my early days in this biz. Considering it was the early days of the internet 20 years ago, it was, for the first time, that creators like me could access and be accessed by, customers on a very close to real-time basis. I launched the Tinker's Guild in something like mid 1999, in part to directly interact with customers- this, of course, being long before Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or even AIM.

I could also post near-daily progress; hey, check out this part I just finished!

That, unfortunately, led to the Whiny Bitches. I'd post some bit I just finished, and inevitably, the first response was "that's cool, but why are you working on that instead of mine?" or "Yah, so where's mine?" or some such supercillious nonsense.

For a while there I'd try to keep the Bitches informed- theirs may have been next, or I was still waiting on a tool, or whatever. But there's always more bitches than there are me's, and they'd wear me down. So I'd taper off posting new stuff simply because I didn't want to deal with their hassle.

That made it worse- like Indeed here, no response is worse. That means I'm out screwing off rather than in the shop where I belong, working on their- and ONLY their- stuff.

Now, you have to keep in mind that there's basically zero money in airsmithing. The vast majority of 'airsmiths' do it part time, in the evenings or on weekends, and do it for beer money. I was doing it full time, and still only earning beer money- and having a to fight ones way through a flock of Whiny Bitches in order to do my day job, for basically no real pay, tends to make one wonder, "Why am I still doing this, again?"

I told myself fifteen years ago I wasn't going to let idiots like that bother me. I'm doing this job because it's fun, it lets me be creative, it lets me set my own hours. I go WAY out of my way to help as many people as I can, and I expect to keep doing so as long as I can.

But I'm also not going to give myself a stroke worrying about guys like Indeed. I wanted to help, I wasn't fast enough and subsurvient enough for him, fine. He wants to take my idea and produce it himself? No big. I invent this stuff faster than people can steal my ideas.

Doc.

[JeepDVLZ45]

Ugh....I’m terrible with decisions!

I’m all about immediate gratification, but I’ll wait impatiently for the anno. 😁

Thanks Doc!

[RedLeaderSB]

If one wanted to build a sniper, regulated, primarily to run on 12grams,
What valve/spring/config would you suggest for a target efficiency of 30+ shots at 280 fps?

[DocsMachine]

Any chance you’re planning another run of your Carter L-stocks anytime soon? I missed out on the last one.

-Got a batch out at anno as we speak, though all of them are currently spoken for. I have a second batch on the table, plus more tank rings, waiting to go out, but I need to finish up two more small batches to send off with them.

If you want plain/unannoed, I can get you one today. If you're looking for black, those are still 4-6 weeks out.

Doc.

[DocsMachine]

-Oh aren't you cute. I love it when people try their best passive-aggressiveness on me. Stamp those feet!

Hundreds of dollars in materials? You must seriously overpay for aluminum.

-Oy. It's blindingly clear you've never manufactured a single thing in your entire life. You, like most modern kids, have not the least concept how real products are actually made.

A twelve-foot stick of 1-1/4" aluminum round. That's 12' at $5.40 a foot local price. There's $65. No big so far, right? I cut that bar into approximately 56 pieces roughly 2-1/2" long. These are my blanks, and that took me roughly an hour. I have a faster saw, but it produces a wider kerf, and I'd have only been able to get 52 pieces out of the same bar.

Each one was then faced in the lathe to give me a consistent length, First one end, then the other, an unfortunate requirement when using manual machines. That's 56 pieces each loaded twice and faced in separate operations. That all took me about another three hours.

So that's $65 in the actual raw material, and another $300 or so in labor INTO the material.

I'm am definitely not the only one considering the pm I have received since my last post.

-I'm not surprised. Ask around, you'll find a TON of people that think I either screwed them over, didn't do the job right, charged them too much, took too long, or like you, largely just thought I was insufficiently obsequious. You do anything long enough, and somebody will find fault with you, your product or your attitude.

I'm glad your time has value but mine does not.

-Your time is worthless?

Lol my guy 3d printed a prototype to test fit and cut them on his from aluminum on his cnc in 4 hours.

-I cut the original prototype in aluminum, on a worn-out mill-drill, using a cheap mill-drill tilting vise, in two hours, some twenty years ago.

Thats from drawing to production.

-I made no drawings at all when I made my first one. Pure brainpower, baby!

Maybe your just not as good as you think.

-Entirely possible. I do know for a fact I'm also not as good as I'd like to be.

Better yet don't even worry about a measly 80 bucks in parts I sent you. Keep them.

-There's the peak passive-agressiveness that tatstes so sweet. Your solenoids went out yesterday, DC# 9405511899560339583427, like I said they would, along with an extra goodie or two. You'll likely just toss them- oh, ick! A free thing from somebody I don't like!- but I included it anyway. Us money-grubbing assholes do that, you know.

I just expected follow through on you word.

-No, you, like so many customers I've fired before, expected me to drop everything and work solely on your project, to the exclusion of all else. I'm deeply sorry I have more customers than just you, and more business and projects than just yours.

If 5 months isn't enough time for you to complete a job you are obviously not the guy.

-Yep. I'm only the guy that invented the thing in the first place, in a cave, with a box of scraps, while you were still in diapers.

Hope your project works out for you.

Doc.

[JeepDVLZ45]

Doc,

Any chance you’re planning another run of your Carter L-stocks anytime soon? I missed out on the last one.

Thanks!

[caylegeorge]

Thanks for the update on the pgp grips Glad they have elevated to on-the-bench status

[Indeed]

Doc, post some photos of all the work you've done on the project. Hundreds of dollars in materials? You must seriously overpay for aluminum. Frankly I don't buy it and I'm am definitely not the only one considering the pm I have received since my last post. I'm glad your time has value but mine does not. Getting the solenoids back is a moot point. There's already functional prototypes with more solenoids that you guessed it I also paid for because you can't get the job done. All these hours invested. Lol my guy 3d printed a prototype to test fit and cut them on his from aluminum on his cnc in 4 hours. Thats from drawing to production. Maybe your just not as good as you think. Better yet don't even worry about a measly 80 bucks in parts I sent you. Keep them. You obviously need the money more than I. I just expected follow through on you word. If 5 months isn't enough time for you to complete a job you are obviously not the guy.

[DocsMachine]

Hoping those PGP grip frames I sent you a while back are still in your queue and not the post office black hole?

-Yep, those are on the bench as we speak. I suppose those have been here a bit longer than a month, too, haven't they? No worries, they're in the works.

I heard back from doc in less than 48hrs recently.

-Generally speaking, I get a great deal of emails, private messages, responses from places like YouTube and Patreon, etc. I try and respond to as many as I can, but time, workload and other factors sometimes means I can't always answer in a timely manner. Or, sometimes, at all- I know I'm bad about occasionally not responding at all. Please understand that if you don't a reply, I'm not "brushing you off", I'm more likely short on time at the moment.

How hard would it be to Make a aluminum pro/carbine Front forgrip/feed neck.

-The whole foregrip arrangement? It'd take some work... It'd be easier to weld together from aluminum sheet than mill it from a block, but either way it'd be fairly expensive. Quick and kind of dirty? You're looking at at least $350.

You could try a clamp-on feed neck (which would be considerably less expensive) and maybe something like a separate wood foregrip...

Recently acquired one of your AC adapters for mags. I tried to install it in my sydarm but it feels really tight. I might be neglecting something really obvious too, so forgive me. Just want to be careful with this relic.

-Did you ever get this issue sorted out? Was it the grip-frame-tab spot-weld burr, or possibly a too-long front grip frame screw?

If you were going to do a vertical feed Brass Eagle Raptor build, what would you include in it?

-As always, it depends on how radical you want to get. The Raptor was already a fairly decent performer, so it's detail work. Maybe a Freak back to better utilize today's tiny paints, an improved ball detent for the same reason, and maybe a better bolt to help the chamber geometry to reduce chops.

How wild do you want to get?

Doc.