We love to see all these different ideas on how to do something. It's also what we really loved about Gunsmith School. They always taught you how to do things without equipment, figuring correctly, that if you could do the work well with hand tools, you were most likely smart enough to do it with power tools and fixtures.
Well, I didn't get nearly as much done as I had hoped, but we also worked a real long day on the Brooke Chassis and Platform today. I have 48 identical pieces of white oak Platform periphery timber waiting for me on Monday for another 4 operations and then glue-up.
To participate in the Nano Arms Race I better get going. The pics below show what I accomplished this evening. The following is not an excuse, it's a Reason for not filing a lot of metal tonight. My reason is that alignment of the hand drill and the 60 deg sharpened piece of 3/8" all-thread did not happen smoothly at all. I must have wound the bungees around that contraption 10 times before it ran correctly.
A little info about filing might be helpful here. I had trouble with the first file I selected. It is a 2nd Hand Cut and looks like it's in very good condition, but it kept loading up with chips and I couldn't find my file card anywhere. Yes, I've tried chalk on the file, prior to filing, but that never worked for me. Out of necessity, I tried a piece of green scotch-brite pad. It worked great! It will not prick your fingers like all those steel wires sometimes do when you use a file card. Wonders never cease! Some people say the steel wires of the typical file card dull your file's teeth too, although I never really noticed that happening. We were taught to remove the few filings that the card will not remove
easily, with the tip of a scribe or prick-punch, rather than scrub hard and vigorously with the file card...You Must remove these bits of metal or risk gouging your nicely filed surface.
Mike and Tracy
This is a repeat from last time, but it's really important, so here goes. Getting a 60 deg. hole into the tailstock end of your workpiece is not hard, but it's important, so first, we file the end of the stock square to the stock's side. Then dykem it blue, red or black. Grab your combination square with the 'V' attachment and scribe three lines on the end at approx 120 degs with a scribe or scratch-awl. Then, using some sort of magnification, place the tip of your prick-punch either on the intersection point or within the tiny triangle formed by the scratched lines (thanks for that tip from Victor3 two years ago). Follow with a couple moderate hammer hits on a center-punch and then Carefully remove all the raised material around the hole with a smooth file.
Put a #2 centerdrill into the hand drill chuck and drill a 60 deg. center which has an approx. 3/16" dia. at the surface. Align carefully.
Construction details of hand drill lathe in view; Remember to grease the 60 deg. tailstock center. Any machine or gun or car grease will do. Slip your workpiece into the drill chuck and tighten and screw the tailstock center into your work piece center until contact is felt then Stop. You are ready to study your drawing and begin filing.
A view of our hand drill lathe set-up. Not too complicated, eh? My 48 pieces of precisely cut white oak timbers in the background.
The first bit of filing brought the entire work area down to .431" dia. from .4375" dia. stock. This is the dia. of the base Ring which is the largest on this Nano cannon.
The last thing I did was to layout the other major features to be filed. A black magic marker was used to color the work piece, then a steel scale was placed on the top and small marks were made to define the length of each feature. Next the drill was turned on and the "Stay On Button" was pushed to turn the workpiece at filing speed. Now take your scribe and scatch a line all around the surface at each faintly seen mark position. From the breech end there is the Base Ring width and position .219" from the end of the Cascable, the end of First Reinforce, Chase Ring position and Muzzle Swell and Muzzle.
