One Year Progress

Hi to all you gat heads out there.  It\'s been a year since I started my gun.  It was all the posts that helped me along the way.  I am 99% complete now with only some work left on the bolts.  The pic shows some parts missing such as the elevator nut wheel.  Just don\'t want to install until until I am complete.  To all you guys out there just starting.  Hang in there, it\'s worth it.

Have you test fired?

Haven\'t live fired yet.  Been running dummy rounds thru to fine tune.  One thing I\'ve added to my storage box is a spent round cartridge extractor.  I\'ve seen on the posts that caartiges failing to extract is sometimes a problem.  Now wating for the snow to leave.  Then I\'ll be out to the farm of a gunsmith friend of mine to throw a few rounds across the meadow.

Is this a D&E style 22 rim fire?

This gun is an RGG design.  The tripod is a modified D&E design to suit me. Like many of you out there I also modeled each part into an assembly. (Autocad Inventor) It didn\'t prevent mistakes but made it clearer as to why they occurred. During the build the excitment got he better of me and I also made a couple of matching wrenches for the assembly.  I\'ll post some pic\'s of those later.

Here\'s a pic of the wrenches I made for my gun.  My goal was to have a completely maintainable gun in a campaign box,  This of coarse includes wrenches for assembly and disassembly.  So why not make something unique?

Very nice , was it done with a water-jet ?

Jerry

Yup.  Thanks.  I\'ts almost like cheating.  But if you have access to a water jet you might as well use it.

Beautiful work! I am Jealious, I am 3 years into it and no where near done. In my defense, I wasn\'t a machinist when I started. I bought a lathe and mill for this and I am learning as I go. I make a lot of scrap but not as much as when I started. I am having a lot of fun and I am making progress. A few more years and I should be where you are now. This forum helps keep me going.

Don\'t concern yourself with making some parts over.  Look at it as Quality Improvements.
One thing I did was to document my progress.  During each process,  barrel making for example, I took pictures of the machining steps and the finished barrels.  As I completed more of the gun I had a record of benchmarks to share with jealious friends, and pictures of fixtures I built to make things easier that I could share with anyone who needs an idea.  Now I have a nice \'book\' of Building the Gat.
Hang in there.  Let\'s see some pics if you get a chance.

I have been taking a lot of pics as I go. Progress for me has been slow mainly due to lack of time but also due to having to learn to be a machinist. I bought an old Atlas 10\" lathe and as I learned to run it I learned about what was wrong with it. Being a mechanic, I ended up fixing many things on it and it runs good now. The mill I bought is an X3 import. My shop is a wooden floor shed, 8\'x12\', which includes my lathe, mill, a work bench and my reloading presses as well as storage for my ammo and empty gun cases, guns are in the safe in the house.  It does have both heat and AC (needed here) and a sign over the door that reads \"Daddy\'s Dog House\". Wish I had more room, better shop and better equipment but this will do for now. At least I am making chips and getting better. Maybe by the time I retire in 20 years I can move up.

Progess is starting to pick up as I get better. I am currently working on my cocking ring. I am machining it as a one piece but had to stop to repair my air compressor. I have broken two cutters as I learn about cutting slots. With no coolant pump, it is rough on cutters. I have broken two before I came up with the right technique of using air. Then my compressor failed. Had to order the part and now it is back up. Hopefully this weekend I can try again. I think I will be able to use the one I have started, otherwise it is more scrap and start again. But believe it or not, I am having fun as I go.

That sounds like you have a real nice setup.  If it\'s not fun it\'s work.  Keep having fun.

Nice work, I would like to do something similar for a tripod mount so I don\'t have to store a carriage.  How sturdy is the setup with the tripod?  What kind of changes did you make to the tripod design, was it just in the mount?  I think I might buy the D&E plans to use the tripod design.

Oh and I love the box too, is that something you bought?

Thanks Rayhawk.

When I started out I bought both the RG-G plans and the D&E.  Actually I got the D&E as a Christmas gift from my son.  I was interested in the Brodwell magazine mostly but I too looked at the carriage and said there\'s going to be a storage problem.  I took he tripod D&E design and made a few changes mostly to make it easier to machine.  The legs are my design.  As far as stability goes, it\'s just fine.  The legs are quickly removable with a simple lynch pin with hair pin clip. When disassembled there are four pieces: Three legs, tripod with yoke, gun, and magazine.  All of it fits nicely in the campaign box. Glad you like the box.  In the box there are two drawers: one for ammo, one for tools, spare parts, etc.  A shelf drops over everything holding the gun in place.  The box has dovetailed corners and the drawers have box joints.  I just thought a nice gun should have a nice home.  One more thing, In the removable shelf there is a cubby that contains a manual and of coarse a notarized copy of my letter from the ATF explaining the law.  If you want, I\'ll Post some pictures of the tripod during fabrication and the drawings I made up.  Good lick

Yes, definitely post some pictures up, I would love to see how your box is set up, and what modifications you made.

What keeps your elevating screw from rotating when you turn the handwheel?  Without the carriage you must have come up with a different way to prevent the screw from turning.

Have been ruminating over what I should and should not post.  I don\'t want to step on the toe\'s of D&E.  I decided to post some pictures, not drawing of the tri-pod.  I will post the drawing of the leg, which is mine, in another reply.
When fabricating the tri-pod, I first machined the \'triangle\' with the open square socket cutouts.  I machined from a piece of 6 dia HR faced to 1.31.  Cheaper than machining down flat stock.  After adding the angles and cross hole to the sockets, I welded a rectangular cap over the socket to close it.  Other will do a better job of welding this.  Any way that\'s how I approached fabricating the tripod top.

As far as the elevating screw rotating, you are spot on.  D&E takes care of this by adding a .25 flat under the ball.  The open slot in the socket on the casing is also .25 keeping the screw from rotating.  Since I had already built the screw and casing with the RG-G design, I just added a #832 RHMS to the side of the ball.  This keeps it from rotating, for me any how.

Pictures of storage box to follow later.  Right now my gun is in some state of disassembly.  Re-doing the bolts with Cutters extractor design.  Never ending.

Apologies for the poor photography.

Here you go Ray Hawk,

The storage box carcass is loosely pattered from a Civil War ordinance box.  Though that might be appropriate.  There are many references on line to this given the popularity of civil war reenactment. The top has a tray for the tripod legs and magazine as well as a document well for a manual and my copy from the ATF regarding the law.  Thought that would be good since most people, including the law boys, think this is a machine gun.  Below the tray  is a cradle for holding the gun, top and bottom and a profiled raised cutout on the bottom to hold the tripod.  on the end is storage for ammo and a drawer for tools.  Complete it with a small cubby below the drawer for rags, etc.  I\'m  kind of proud of it.  Sometimes it gets more attention than the gun.

Looks like the pics are in revers order. [size=85](Fixed - NWM)[/size]

Good luck if you give it a try.  Maybe you can convince the better half that it really is furniture.

NICE JOB!!

Beatiful work. I have been thinking about a case like that.

Your giving me the itch to get back to mine! Actually I started up a few weeks ago. I scraped the piece I had been working on and started fresh. After many cutters I finally got the slot done for my cocking ring. Just a little bit more to go and that will be done. Working 60-70 hrs a week hasn\'t left much time for work in on my Gat. I think sense Feb I have only put about 10 hrs into it. Slow, but steady. Things should slow at work this winter and hopefully I can make a lot more progress.