I was pretty busy at work lately, and naturally, several different projects were piling up in my garage shop, so on my first day off I was up at 6am and ready to make some chips!
First was this bad boy. I’ve been working on it for the past couple of months and finally had time to finish it. I sanded everything with 400 grit emery, sandblasted, and rust blued it with Mark Lee Express Blue. I love this stuff! After first couple of applications the parts usually look horrible and you’d think you ruined it, but just keep going and the ugly duckling suddenly turns into the beautiful dark black swan!
I usually do nine or ten rusting, boiling and carding cycles, then boil it in clean water for about 30 min, and then spray with WD40 and soak overnight in old dark dirty motor oil (my mechanic was totally puzzled when I asked him if he could spare some used oil, the dirtiest he has.) Yeah, pins and screws were fire blued, I like this dark purple color (or electric blue, if the gun is stainless).
Next was a custom rail for a wad gun, it goes in front of the rear sight and covers the front sight, kinda like what Jon Eulette used to sell.
The aluminum blank that I had was too thin to hold it in the vise, so I made a little fixture first. Then I clamped the blank in the fixture and went for it with a carbide cutter. It turned out pretty good, I was just 7 thou out of parallel, lol! But hey, it does the job of holding the red dot. How many of you have ever measured your scope bases with micrometers? Yeah, that’s what I mean.
After machining I cleaned it the best I could with some acetone, sand blasted and anodized it, about 20 min at 20 Volt / 2.5 Amp.
And while I was at it, I made another scope mount for one of my rifles. Same process, but after anodizing I sprayed it with some satin rust oleum paint.
But don’t think I spent all my time making chips. I always compare machining to cooking, it is the same basic principle, you use raw materials (steel, aluminum, meat, vegetables) and tools (milling machine, cutters, knives, forks, pots and pans) to make something beautiful. So I paid a visit to my kitchen, sharpened my beloved chef knife, only cut myself twice in the process, and made all this.
For some reason my family loved this a lot better than all the metal things I made (still wonder why).
There was one more thing I did, and it involved chambering a blank in a particular caliber, but it’s a whole different story. Some day I will tell you all about it, but not today.