My Scrap Yard build -- RG-G plans 1/2 scale 22lr - Blog

Well I\'ve posted a few things here and there. Well today I made up my mind to start this blog on my build.
Why call it a blog - because it\'s not a build thread till it\'s done. (My Thoughts of Course).

So on with the blog.
1st I\'ve read and posted about scrap this and buying scrap that in several threads and postings.
2nd So I\'m going to try to bring in a few posts and get it on.

From another thread

 I used a piece of Harbor Freight \"scrap\" to start working on the pair of Brass nuts and one of the Brass nose pieces. Have it long enough and threaded inside now I need to cut the nuts apart and start shaping the nose piece to a shape that I like. The scrap was the remains of a two piece Brass punch and drift set I bought a long time ago. I\'m using a Harbor Freight lathe and learning more and more about it as I go on. I\'ve always used my Sherline lathe and mill for most of my projects in the past. One of the things that I did not have on the Sherline lathe was an auto feed. The HF lathe has one and boy does that help save the hands. Wish my big mill had an auto feed. Someday cnc the mill skip auto feed. Someday.

Looked at the scrap barrels that I bought and reviewed and reviewed several times. I bought 10 barrels for around $140.00 shipped to me. Some will work great, 12 full easy to work with inches is the goal. Wish that all of the barrels were that way. The sight mount holes and dovetails will have to be worked around in several cases. In a couple of cases I\'m happy for that 2 inches of Hex on the end of the barrels that we will be adding. In several cases it\'s going to be close. If the barrels will not work out as nice as I want, well I have a few barrels that I got from cutter that I will cut into. I hope to save those for another day or project. We shall see.

Barrel cutting
Next I chucked up a used barrel (more scrap) that I got and found that if I want to use the live center then I can only work on cutting down about 4.75 inches of barrel to start with. After that I guess that I\'ll be removing the tail stock and pushing a few inches through the headstock at a time to get it cut down. Well I did that on several of the barrels today and really wish for a little more through hole dia. Turns out the 3 jaw chuck has the smaller dia.. In talked with our lead guy he said that he used a boring bar and opened up his chuch a little bit. I think that is something that I\'m going to have to do as I can\'t even begin to chuck 2 or 3 of these barrels.
Using a low speed and a few inches of some of the start of the barrel and way to much hanging out with out support. To long and short bed to use a live or dead center. Turned about 3 to 4 inches of the barrel down to about .62 and then opened the chuck and pushed that in and then reduced the o.d. of another 3 or so inches and then pushed it in and so on.
It\'s the old story of no matter which lathe you buy it always seems that you end up wishing for a bigger one. In my case I went from the small Sherline lathe to this HF which has power feed and can cut threads. Sure thought that it would do everything that I would ever want. opps...

Well garage is not warm and I\'m taking a long break and typing this. Will try to review what I\'m going to do and how, with some of the special barrels and try to get back and rough them in to 12 1/2 inches long and a rough .6 inches. So far out of the ten I don\'t even have one that\'s close to that. But I\'ve learned several things and that\'s an important thing to me.

Pics well I\'ll try to get so in later.

Later 42rocker

Well switched to another barrel and made some more metal filings. While taking this break I checked the plans again and did some math. According to the plans (48.04) the last 2 inches of the barrel will be milled down to a 7/16 inch hex. Flat to flat that is. Well 7/16 is .4375 inches. Should be interesting to see how that works out with some of the sight dovetails that are cut into the barrels. Have two barrels roughed down to about .61 inch dia and 12.5 inches long or longer. Keeping one of the barrel long till I make up my mind as to how the dovetail will work out and where I\'ll take the 12 inches from on the barrel.
The fun that you folks that have done this before me have had. Of course if you bought the right barrels rather than anything that I could get. Except for those barrels that I got from Cutter, Thanks Again.

Enjoy the weekend. Wife wants us to go out and wash the car next. Fla weather what can I say.

Later 42rocker

Well the clouds moved in and the wife changed her mind as to washing the car. So I got a few extra minutes of shop time. Have roughed in two barrels so far and going to cut off the brass nuts that I started tomorrow. Also cleaned a small area around the lathe, so might take a few pics tomorrow and try to post them.
Enjoy

Later 42rocker

Such fun -- Anyone with an idea - I\'m listening. I have three barrels that will only chuck into the 3 jaw chuck, period. This of course leaves about 12 inches of unsupported barrel sticking out of the chuck. Which seems a little wrong to me.
I could chuck up the 1/2 inch, then start a slow light cut what say from the chuck face to about 1 inch out. Then if I can, without throwing the barrel around the garage, get the that area cut down to about .62 (which fits the chuck bore). Then chuck that area into the chuck and work on cutting another inch or two and repeat several times till I can use a tail stock with a live center. Of course the bed is not long enough to use a live center with anything over 4 1/2 inches and I don\'t own any type of center support. Not even sure if they make one for a HF lathe. Funny I have one for the Sherline Lathe, non roller type. Might have to get the Sherline out to start to get an area to be able to get those barrels into the HF Lathe.

Have a nice day.

Later 42rocker

Well went back out to the garage and chucked up the first 1/2 inch of one of those barrels and started about 3/4 of an inch out and took off about .002 inch at a time at low speed and did not throw the barrel around the garage. After a lot of small passes I got the dia down to about .62 which I can chuck. Ok, pics to follow. So opened the chuck up and tried to push the first 1 1/2 inch of barrel in. Well the area that I had first chucked was to big, so could not push it into the chuck bore. So turned around and used the bench grinder to grind down that first 1/2 inch till it would go into the chuck bore. Now I was at least able to chuck about 1 1/4 inches into the chuck and tighten it down and start to work on the next 2 to 3 inches with of course about 11 inches hanging out into space. But light cut, low speed passes and I\'ve got the next part started. Took a break as my upper back has been hurting also wanted to share. I took a few pics which I\'ll try to post next.

Later 42rocker

Well going to try to post 4 pics. One is out of focus, sorry about that.

First pic is of Lathe with to much barrel hanging out. But I got it to work.
[attachment=0]1.jpg[/attachment]

2nd pic is of what the barrel looked like after I turned some on the lathe and then the end on the bech grinder.
[attachment=3]2.jpg[/attachment]

Bad focus showing it after I got 1 1/4 inches into the chuck.
[attachment=2]3.jpg[/attachment]

Last pic showing the next 2 to 3 inches starting to be turned down to .62 or less. Lot more barrel to follow.
[attachment=1]4.jpg[/attachment]

Should note the lathe is a HF 7 x 10 which if you add a tailstock to makes the usable bed really small.

Well I hope that the pics and everything come out well.

Later 42rocker

Ok, this is one of the first times that I remember posting pics to this site, wow. Ok, I sized the pics to a width of 1200dpi and that came out a little to wide. Next time I\'ll try 1000 dpi and see if it works better.

Later 42rocker

As Cutter said \"Go cut something\", well I hope that you got the chance over the weekend to go and do that. I did some, made a lot of turning scrap to turn into the scrap yard at about 7 cents a pound. I must have made at least a nickels worth for sure of metal turning scrap.
I worked a little more on the above barrel and have about 3/4 of it turned down to under .62. Next I\'ll mount the tail stock back on and use it for the last several inches and then I\'ll take the barrel out and reverse it and try to clean up the grinding mess on the starting area. That will make three roughed in with only 7 to go. Should be done in 10 days or less. Goal is shoot able Gatling for next New Years Day. Would be nice to have either a tripod mount or a mount like is shown in the RG-G plans. I want something like the RG-G mount before I\'m totally done.

So what did you do over the weekend?? Cutter made a super nice pair of handles. I roughed in a few barrels and cleaned some in my garage.

Later 42rocker

The little 7x10 lathe is just the wrong tool for the job when it comes to the barrels.   You need a setup where you can put a live center in the far end of the barrel to have a fighting chance.    Leaving the amount you have unsupported is looking for a wild crash.   The unsupported end will eventually ride up over the cutting tip, bend the barrel and then whip everything into scrap metal.  

Time for find a larger lathe for turning the barrels.

George

George
Totally agree but going to try to deal with it. I\'m thinking about opening up the center of the chuck a little and seeing if that will help out.
Thanks for your input.
The final turn down will be on a friends 24 inch South Bend.

Later 42rocker

Just curious why you decided to use take off barrels rather than make them like the plans with tubing and barrel liners? It would have been a lot easier than the way your going about it especially with the lathe you have available. The cost would have been pretty much the same too.
As far as what I did this weekend I worked on getting mine closer to ready to fire. I got all the bolts loading and ejecting rounds. I got the hammer bolts adjusted to engage when the cocking segment is in place and not cocking when it\'s pulled out. I need to finish my stick mag and install the firing pins. Hopefully in the next week or two I will have time to do that and finally fire mine.

[quote name=\"42rocker\"]George
Totally agree but going to try to deal with it. I\'m thinking about opening up the center of the chuck a little and seeing if that will help out.
Thanks for your input.
The final turn down will be on a friends 24 inch South Bend.

Later 42rocker[/quote]

The old school rule of thumb is the lathe stock should not stick out of the chuck more than 3 times its diameter.   So.... if the barrel is 3/4 diameter, that means a max of a inch and a half sticking out unsupported.  

The problem with your method is a very bad crash could easily result ruining the stock and likely breaking parts on the lathe.    Considering you have the south bend available, you would be far better off to just do the barrels entirely on that machine.    Even on the southbend, you will find it difficult to get a good finish.   The small diameter, long length barrels want to flex in the middle under the cutting tool pressure.    The technique for that is a extremely sharp high speed cutter with large rake angles for the finish passes,  that minimizes cutter pressures.

George
One of the good things for me is that I have two friends that are old tool and die makers that will help with the final turn down on the South Bend Lathe. So looking forward to using that machine.
Thanks for the info. Good Luck with yours as you are getting near the end of the journey.

Later 42rocker

Wes our lead in our group came over tonight and we reviewed and he said that the way that I did the above was not the best way to do things. Also said that the way that I did it kind of worked. But we did to my lathe what he did to his. That was to remove the chuck jaws and then run a boring bar in and out of the chuck several times. After we were done cutting the inside of the chuck we found that I could run a .72 dia barrel thru the chuck. This way I will not repeat the above.
So learning and moving on. I\'ll try to take a few pics tomorrow when I go back out and work on another barrel.

Later Tim

Did the HF lathe come with a steady rest?  If not, you can make one with a small mill.  And if you don\'t have a small mill you can probably put a cutter in the lathe chuck and make one holding it in the cross slide.  I\'ve made all kind of fixtures to do what needs to be done.  The old Machinist saying, \"I make the part, that makes the part, that made the part.\"

Don
I\'ve not seen a stead rest for a small HF lathe like this before. Thought about trying to make one, but. Now that the chuck has been opened up and will take my largest dia barrel I can feed thru the headstock and chuck and almost get the job done. Remember I\'m just trying to rough the barrels down and I\'ll finish them on a nice 24\" South Bend that (I believe) has a stead rest.

Later Tim

Well after cutting out the center of the chuck and changing a few things. I can now cut 6 inches between the chuck and the live center mounted on the tailstock. Making for a much better, nicer, supported cut that\'s far safer than before. I started another barrel tonight and cutting it back from around .75 and heading down to roughing it to about .6. Still going to need several more passes but I\'ll get it done.
One of the harder things with using any barrel that I could find and buy at a fair price on ebay is the holes and dove tails in the barrel. The gun shows in this area think that 22 cal lr barrels are worth their weight in silver or something. I was lucky in getting a few nice Ruger 10/22 barrels from cutter (Thanks again). Trying to save those for other projects. But if I can\'t work out the distance between holes and dove tails those 10/22 barrels will work out great. Happy to say at least we do a hex on the last 2 inches of the barrel I\'m thinking that might take care of a dove tail or two. Now there were also some threaded holes that I\'m trying to work out also. Fun Fun. We will get it done.

Later 42rocker

Well worked on that barrel from last night and in the pic you can see about 6 1/4 inches of turned down area. It\'s turned down to about .60. Look at what remain of a dove tail. Well I think that the hexing of the front 2 inches of the barrel will take care of that.
With reusing barrels that\'s just something thing that you just have to plan in.

Later 42rocker

[attachment=0]5.jpg[/attachment]

Another major error that I just found myself doing and corrected. After you cut your barrel to length -- face it before you put the live center in. For those of you pros you know what happens. For the rest of us as you push the live center into the rough cut end it can cause the barrel to be pushed out of center by a few thousands if the barrel cut was at a slight angle.

Live and learn.

Later 42rocker

Some times you need to turn the barrel\'s between centers with a lathe dog if they are blanks to start with. Nothing worse than having your chambers off center.
bruski