A bit o' Titanium

[DocsMachine]

A few months ago, one of the regulars over on the Tinker's Guild sent me a small packet of 5/16" Titanium bolts. I have no idea what alloy, but I figured I could put 'em to use.

I had a bit of a hectic day today, and not everything went quite right. I needed a bit of relaxation. And the question of cutting Ti came up just a few days ago in another thread, so I figured why not? I'd robbed the custom turned aluminum pull pin off of one of my personal 'Cockers a year or two ago, for a local player who needed one on short notice, but hadn't gotten around to replacing it yet.

The Titanium bolts were just perfect for something like that. I chucked one up and turned it down to .252"...



And turned the head down to a smooth round cap.



And it fits my custom Delrin bolt like usual:



I haven't tried actually polishing it yet. I'm not at all sure how Ti polishes, I'll have to do some experimenting. But naturally enough, it works great. (I mean, how could it not? )



I also haven't gotten around to weighing it- I'm not sure I have a scale that goes that low. But it's notably lighter than a standard WGP stainless steel pin.

Just a fun little distraction for the evening.

Doc.

[Axel]

They say that Michaelangelo's talent was the ability to look at a block of marble and see the shape already hidden within

[OpusX]

Goodness I do like titanium. Needs a bit of anodizing.

[Shaftski]

Ti looks OK polished, but doesn't have as good a natural luster as other metals IMO. Anodized looks awesome, especially some of the damascus rods you see out there for sale. Those can be really wild.

[DocsMachine]

Probably not going to try anodizing it. The gun's pretty plain-jane, literally a junk-box build I put together the night before a local game when I didn't really have anything else to shoot. It's got some fun parts- Rock, Tornado, Eclipse swing (which has been on there since before they were collectible) and a rare 14" Longshot- but it's all stock black, run on a now-antique early Max Flow, and the tank has been expired expired for like six or seven years.

Doc.

[Meleager7]

pics please!

[DocsMachine]

Lo and behold, I actually made a video about this!

Point in fact, that was actually the primary reason I did it: I wanted a fairly simple, single project that I could try recording from (slightly) different angles, and practice laying out and editing the shots into an actual video.

It's... not terrible, I guess. I'm no Clickspring or Old Tony, but it's also not a vertical cellphone held by a Parkinson's sufferer.

Yeah, there's lots of little things that need to be attended to if I'm ever going to have anything like a decent video- first and foremost, my tripod arrangement is clearly way too shaky (I didn't even realize how much it shook 'til I saw the clips afterward) and I clearly need to work on my scripting- the drawer thing was supposed to be "looking for the material".

Comments- good and bad- suggestions and ideas welcomed.

Doc.

[Alexndl]

Fun video to watch!
if you had used a stroboscope when you round the hex head, would that had allowed to see more the corners being cut?

Totally overkill for a bolt pin but I think everyone want one now...

[netsurferdude2]

Great video Doc!

[DocsMachine]

Totally overkill for a bolt pin but I think everyone want one now...

-Of course it's totally overkill. But I had the material, and I thought it'd be a fun little project to practice filming with.

I seem to recall somebody in the past offered a Ti pull pin... for like $40 each. And with no one really interested in absolute flat-out max ROF anymore, that's probably a little spendy to save a couple grams.

Doc.

[Flaco]

-Of course it's totally overkill. But I had the material, and I thought it'd be a fun little project to practice filming with.

I seem to recall somebody in the past offered a Ti pull pin... for like $40 each. And with no one really interested in absolute flat-out max ROF anymore, that's probably a little spendy to save a couple grams.

Doc.

I would not mind buying one !!

Angel

[ford]

Comments- good and bad- suggestions and ideas welcomed.

I liked the looking for parts intro, My favorite part was around 1:38 when you added... the... collet? to the chuck and you heard the squeaky noise for a couple seconds. I did not know what exactly was making the noise at first and I liked having a couple seconds to guess what was going on before your next shot revealed how you were tightening things up.

[DocsMachine]

I would not mind buying one!!

-I can sure make more if you're legitimately interested.

My favorite part was around 1:38 when you added... the... collet? to the chuck and you heard the squeaky noise for a couple seconds

-Yep, those are 5C collets, the things you see in the neatly-organized drawer. I use those a LOT, possibly more often than I use the 3-jaw.

Hopefully the next video will be somewhat better. If nothing else, less shaky in spots. (That was the camera shaking, not the lathe. )

Doc.

[DocsMachine]

pics please!

-I was trying to clean up the shop a little- this past week was a madhouse- and was putting this back up on the wall. I remembered the request, so I leaned 'er up against the tailstock of my big lathe and snapped a couple pics.



-It's nothing particularly wild, and certainly getting a bit long in the tooth, but it's also my favorite go-to marker.

I built it in late 2005, on a Friday night right before a late-October last-game-of-the-season. (It snowed lightly on us during the game. ) It was a case of knowing I was going to be playing with a bunch of guys that only had Tippmanns and blowbacks, and I didn't want to take an Angel or the Freestyle or my E-Bladed halfblock. I threw this together from parts bins, tuned it, and as I didn't have any HPA at the time, I put one of the old Max Flows on it, and filled the tank with CO2.

It worked so well during the game- despite cold, snow an slush- that I decided to keep it together. The only change I've made since them was to add a swoopier custom drop to the Max- the factory was just one of the old Shocker flat bars.

Specs are an '04 (I think) Pro Stock body, a custom-made Delrin bolt (no o-rings) a 14" Bob Long Longshot barrel (.687" as I recall) an original full-size Rock (doesn't even have the quarter slots on the front cap) and a nickeled factory WGP ram.

As I recall, the pump rod is one of the ones I was making back in the day, and I can't recall which 3-way I used. Obviously, it has an Eclipse swing trigger (love those things, at least three of my 'Cockers have those) and a factory WGP beavertail and cocking rod. The IVG is one of the stainless ones I used to make, and it has a Tornado valve with the factory AKA spring set for it.

The pull pin used to be aluminum, but as I mentioned, I gave that to a player who needed it, a few years ago, and is now the titanium one. I'd originally used a factory, or possibly KAPP ball detent, but after that one got jammed up, I swapped on one of the stainless delrin-ball ones I still make.

That's a KAPP gas-thru, and probably a 2002-era short-cap Max Flow, with the reverse-thread HPA tank. The tank itself is just slightly out of hydro.



Yeah, it's old and clunky and isn't going to win any beauty contests, but then, neither will I.

BUT... it's reliable as an anvil. I literally have not touched the timing since that Friday night. Besides the pin, detent and drop swap, that gun is as I built it over fifteen years ago. And if I had a game to go to in the morning, I'd grab that and my Etek and know for a fact I'd make it through the day with no breakdowns.

Doc.