[DogWood]

dumpster, beautiful job on those 1911's
really got me inspired and fired up to try to do the same on my mini-mill

thanks for sharing

now to find the time :drowning:

[brianklein]

Does anyone have videos or DVD's on milling or machining parts of the 1911 like the frame or slide??? Or any part of the Colt 1911. I tried Roderus Productions for about a month and none of my e-mails have gotten a response to and the telephone number for Roderus doesn't work.

[bill south]

Brian;
Jump over to Justin's site. He does great things with cnc and guns.
cncguns.com
Bill

[brianklein]

I already have those 1911 files from cncguns. The trouble is i can't get the CAD file from cncguns.com of his to work in Solidworks, and the e-drawing isn't dimensioned. I would like to generate g-code from the model, but i am having problems in doing so.

[Nono]

I hope this works1911A1sldprt.zip

[OrionBlade2003]

Anyone think of using a hand-forged blank in a CNC setup?

I'm planning on CNC'ing my 3 axis mill in May, when classes are out again (I have a few manual projects to keep me occupied through winter and spring break) but I've always wondered why more folks aren't blacksmiths and machinists like my friend Greg and I. We're both in a blacksmith's guild, and we both have machining experience (he's actually an instructor, so experience is a bit of an understatement ;-)

I'll be posting a few projects here and there, but one of my next projects is a hand-forged steel window crank handle for my Geo Tracker. I'm tricking it out in all hand-forged or machined coachwork, with a bit of an ArtDeco/Steampunk run to it. Lots of cabochon inlay type stuff on the crank handles and replacement knobs for the A/C and such, and back-of-the-watch gear details here and there. Might even work up the courage to do the whole inside doorskin out of engine turned aluminum, with a carved wood pull handle instead of the cheapo vinyl chunk that's there now.

Long story short, I'm doing all these crazy shapes that would waste TONS of stock, so I'm forging to near net shape, with a nice bit of fluff around my final dimensions, then machining down to spec.

Anyone else have similar techniques you use? Reason I ask is I'm thinking of doing something similar for the slide, and maybe frame, of my .45 ACP project. A steel frame would be nice, and it'd be nice to not turn 1/3 of my stock into chips, and the slide I could at least fuller (forge a groove) and half-face (shallow L shape) so I don't have to cut off a half inch strip from the bar stock just to work in the nose of the slide. Although I can always toss 'em in a can and forge weld them back together into a crapahagane billet ;-)

Also, if anyone wants input on this sort of thing for a non-mission-critical application (just want to try it out) I can walk you through some simple blacksmithing operations that could get you around weird corners and the like without having to double or triple the size of your stock.

[astainless]

I notice a lot of people asking all over but nobody seems to have any. I just need the Cad file for the Grips. I want to make some custom ones for some paintball markers and a lot nowadays are using the standard 45 frame style grips. None of my programs will recognize an IGS file. Does anyone have the grips in a cad file? I can't use an edrawing or IGS. Even if I have to get a cad of the full assembly and cut and past the grips that would be fine.

[parkerbender]

Hi All!

I'm going to try to crank this guy out next week, and was wondering if anyone had posted what undercutters (and that saw) a person would need for this project? If nobody knows, I could drag through the drawings and figure it out, but I'd love to get the endmills ordered sooner rather than later, so I get them in time to make the cutters, and chrun this guy out before the end of spring break.

Thanks for any help that anyone might have!

-Parker

[matsuura]

hi dumpster, dont know if you still around but have a question for you, when i look at the blue print of the slide i see a 0°52' angle at the end of the bore that is not on your solid does it work anyway?did you machined it exactly like your solid? thanks and great work look awsome

[dustin1706]

I'm glad matsuura bumped this thread...

I'm in canada, so it's probably illegal for me to even look at pictures of handguns (lol) but your work is amazing. Nothing beats the aesthetics of a 1911.

[dustin1706]

I'm glad matsuura bumped this thread...

I'm in canada, so it's probably illegal for me to even look at pictures of handguns (lol) but your work is amazing. Nothing beats the aesthetics of a 1911.

[iThrud]

Would a machine like this Tormach Tormach CNC PCNC 1100 CNC Mill and stand on eBay (end time 17-Nov-10 10:34:26 GMT) be ok for a project like this?

[plasmator]

A Tormach will work great.

The real trick is the tooling. Lots of undercuts, that sort of thing. Also a few features that require hand filing.

[NavyShooter]

Sorry to revive a long silent post, but I'm new and figured I'd jump in :-)

Interestingly, even in Canada, it is legal to build your own firearm for your own use.

I built a Semi-auto only copy of the STEN sub-machine gun, that fires from a closed bolt only. (5 round mag limit applies in Canada too....)

To do so, I met 3 times with the Chief Provincial firearms Officer, just to keep him in the loop before I:

-started
-assembled the receiver and registered the frame
-completed the firearm and re-registered the frame as a complete firearm

It was an interesting challenge, and draws some looks at the range when I have it out.



A video of the offset machining for the bolt guide-rods:

http://www3.ns.sympatico.ca/econolod...2008%20024.avi





Now, I did all this on a manual mill (the little bitty Sherline I used to have) and my SB 10K lathe....so it's not CNC related, but still, perfectly legal in Canada.

NS

[smaj100]

Alright guys,

I'm a newbie here still trying to figure this cnc thing out. I've downloaded many dwg and igs files from bighammer and a few other sites. I downloaded the 30day trial of autocad 2012 to play with also not that I am going to buy it. eek

When I open the dwg files the model opens in 3d, and then if I open mach3 to import and prep it for gcode it says nothing there. Am I missing an obvious step? Does the dwg file need dimensions? If i take a simple drawing file with dimensions from dwg and bring it to mach3 it shows the image and shows it as it was drawn.....

Helppppp..

Thanks,
Lee

[keebler303]

Lee

Its not as easy as clicking "print". You may be able to do basic dxf files in mach3, but anything more detailed, or requiring 3D machining will require a CAM program. The normal progression is CAD->CAM->Control. CAD is autocad, CAM could be from free to $20k depending on needs and budget, Control is mach3.

It sounds like you might want to do some research into the CAD/CAM relationship and see how that all interacts.

Good Luck and Welcome
Matt

[smaj100]

Matt,

Thanks for the info. I'm getting the cad part down, everytime I try to bring a dwg file even a simple square block with a hole in the center into the cam. It' just kinda stares at me. I'm assuming i'm not setting up the cam program properly. Is there a place to put in what size stock your using. I'm using lazycam with mach3.

Thanks,
Lee

[keebler303]

Lee

I know that lazycam exists, beyond that, I'm clueless. I mainly use artcam. I think there is a lazycam section on the zone, I'm sure others there could help.

Matt

[smaj100]

Yeah I did some more checking and found the lazycam only works in 2d mode unable to gcode 3d images. So after I switched to meshcam everything appears to be working just fine.

[jerry1957]

does anyone have any gcodes for the pistol grips (left and right) smooth surface that I can get.