Vee Twin Autococker

[DocsMachine]

Are the Starrett V-blocks something you made? Or is that something commonly used?

-Mine are antiques, probably dating to the sixties, that in a roundabout way I "inherited" from a retiring machinist back around when I started this biz. Starrett lists them as discontinued, but there's a set on eBay for fifty bucks.

Doc.

[DocsMachine]

And that's about it for the contouring!



The one I left rough as one customer wants more "angular" milling.

The next step is back on the ends, so it's time to clean off the table again, wipe everything down, and remount the vertical vise.



And now, it's finally time to mill them all to finished length!



Yeah, I think that'll do.



With that done, I could finish-drill the front-block bores to depth, and get them all fully tapped.



And there we are, one row of very surprised-looking 'Cocker bodies.



Skipping back over to the plain vise, I roughed off the front of the bolt tubes, to length...



And then slipped a corner-rounder in there as far as I could, to smooth off that point a tad.



The last little bit I'll take care of with hand files.

Finally starting to take shape!



I'd hoped to get into the actual breech boring today, but I'm just knackered. There's a ton of work in those eight pictures.

More tomorrow!

Doc.

[DocsMachine]

Another big step, with only a few photos to show for it.

While I still had the plain vise set up, I nibbled down a bit of the extra at the peak of the front extension, to make the hand-filing a little easier.



And now, the big step: barrel threads! First we bore to size...



Then thread!



Do that approximately sixty-three more times, at least according to my shoulders, and they're finally ready for barrels!



Like so!



Now, the next step is drilling and finishing the valve bores, so I spent a few minutes trying that out on the Evil Twin (as shown in its thread.) I was able to establish the measurements I needed, so hopefully the rest will go fairly smoothly.

Keep standing by!

Doc.

[maggot]

Can't begin to tell you how much I appreciate the updates and build being detailed out here.
Amazing amount of progress over a shortened month of Feb. Thanks, Doc!

[SETHZILLA!]

PM'D ya Doc. Watching these updates has me remembering my days as a machinist, going to start looking for a mill to fit into my shop one of these days.

[Meleager7]

in that 2nd to last pic, there's $16000 US worth of guns on that there table!!!

[Nuppydog]

Ooh I love the one with the angles

[Adam R]

This is amazing! Thank you for all the updates!

[DocsMachine]

in that 2nd to last pic, there's $16000 US worth of guns on that there table!!!

-Er, not unless you're paying by the barrel.

As it sits, of the eight bodies, six have deposits, one's mine (probably the "mini" since no one else wants it) and the last is still technically up for grabs.

It's also worth noting the aluminum alone cost me very close to three times more than what it did the last time I made one of these, I've spent almost a thousand on new tooling (drills, endmills, reamers, etc.) to make it easier and more accurate, and I've spent over a full month already working on them, and still have a couple weeks to go.

Doc.

[DocsMachine]

I do have to apologize to those of you patiently waiting. Yeah, I kind of got sidetracked with the Evil, but it was for a good cause- I learned several things I needed to know about fitting the valve, as well as finalizing dimensions for things like the feed necks and bolts. So the time wasn't by any means entirely wasted.

We'll be getting back on track here very shortly.

Doc.

[DocsMachine]

Not as much progress as I wanted, today, but thanks to the data I gained from fiddling around with the Evil Twin, I was able to complete the valve tube machining all the way to reaming to size:



That's the whole batch, done!



Well, not done-done, of course but all the major drilling is done, the bolt bores are done, all the major threading is done, the valve tube drilling is done, and the bulk of the external milling is done. We're closin' in on it, gents!

Doc.

[DocsMachine]

Progress! (Somebody should write a song about that...)

The bottom drilling and tapping for the grip frame, valve and vertical ASA is done!





Not much left to do, folks! (Well, except make bolts, pins, pushrods, front blocks and valves, fit them all with feed necks, drill and tap for detents, do an F-bomb ton of smoothing and sanding....! Yep, practically done! )

Oh, but I did just pick up a green Neon, and just signed up for the local racing series, so there might be a slight delay...!

I'm kidding! I'm kidding! Put away the torches and pitchforks! ... where do you guys keep those things, anyway?

Seriously, though, I have a good-sized hot project in the queue for tomorrow (Wednesday) so probably won't be able to make much progress on these 'til Thursday or so. Stand by!

Doc.

[SETHZILLA!]

Its gonna be fun to see mine taking shape once the bulk are done with your fit & finishing.

Sent from my SM-G970U1 using Tapatalk

[BlindFaith429]

Quick question.

How do you drill the hole between the valve and bolt-bore? I assume you can't drill up like a normal body, right? Do you have to somehow drill them in the same "V" shape to dirrect air to both bores?

[DocsMachine]

You'll see. That's coming up here shortly.

Doc.