Status 3/2/04:

Would you believe, the 416 stainless was back ordered. It arrived last week. My action vise is completed. Still have not ordered the barrel blank. Sorry things are progressing slowly. New day job has got me busy. Several other winter projects abound.

Hope you can get around to taking some photos and showing us this re-born lathe Dean...

Atlas reborn, re-shrugged..
http://forums.lugerforum.com/lfupload/dlhatlas.jpg

EXCELLENT!

As soon as I find time to finish the barrel blueprint for Navy Barrels (both long and short frame versions) I will be sure you get one! Do you have the ability to read Autocad Drawing files?

Yes, I can read .dxf

Status 04/05/04

Ordered a stainless "Featherweight #1" barrel from Shilen today. It will be 3-4 weeks until delivery. Looks like I am commited to this project now!

The machinist at work recommended a local metal supplier that caters to the walk-in customer. I went down there last week (Metal Supermarket in NE Philadelphia) and bought some stainless rectangle barstock. This place is wonderful. The have a large "cutoff" section (organized by metal type) where you can browse around and pay by the pound. They cater to the larger customers as well. Hard to believe you can get 30ft lengths of 4 in diameter aluminum bar.

I have begun machining out a stainless stock iron ("Stock Stainless"?). I am grateful to John Sabato for providing some accurate measurements on this item.

Presently, I have milled the block to the proper outer square dimensions. This took a while BTW, the luger iron is just over 3/4 inch thick (20mm), so I had to mill 1 inch down to 0.787". I think if I were to do it over I would have lived with .75"

I have now scribed the profile on the side and I will begin roughing out the interior. I will post some pictures of this procedure. I am performing this on the Atlas milling attachment.

I figured I'll work on the stock iron and other details while I wait for the barrel to arrive.

Oh yes, I ordered some tooling from Grizzly. They had a nice threading tool for the lathe that takes carbide inserts. Price was right for $15. They also had a 4 flute 1/4" carbide end mill that I will use for cutting the "Stock Stainless" and other parts. HHS mills work fine on the stainless, but there is much cutting to be done with the 1/4 inch mill so I figured for $8 it was money well spent.

About the stainless, I am using what I believe is one of the new 304 "free machining" types. Seems that all the manufacturers are constantly improving the recipe. This stuff cuts pretty easy.

Take plenty of photos of the process while you work Dean.. and include at least one of yourself for the Rogues Gallery... When the project is over, send me a CD with all the photos and I will post them in a member gallery album... it will be a great photo documentary.

Here we are so far (upsidedown in the vise).
http://forums.lugerforum.com/lfupload/dcp01224s.jpg

The slots cut so far do not go all the way through. I left about an 1/8" to help support the piece as additional cuts are made. When I am all done milling I will cut through the remaining material with the bandsaw to remove the extranious material. I thought about bandsawing the whole thing, but I think I would have ended up going through a zillion bandsaw blades.

The next cut will be a 3/16 mill right up underneath the lever axle hole. I will then set the vise at an angle and free up the inner section and mill out the "web" on the back inner side. I think I will make my webbing a little thicker than the original. I will then set the bar on it's sides and use a 3/8" mill to narrow the stock tangs.

The arc will be cut to approximate shape by nibbling with a large mill. I will then hand grind the curve to final shape as I test it against the back of the gun.

Down the road a ways, I will have to mill the lug slot. This will be the most difficult part. I'm still thinking about different ways to do this.

More importantly, I find myself wondering how the originals were made. Mass producing these with a CNC machine today is trivial (wish I had one! Someday...). But what kind of fixtures and techniques did the old timers use? I'm guessing they had a big custom cutter that they pushed the front into that cut the whole arched portion with the narrow slot and beveled th edges. They then must have used a radius fixture to cut the t-slot. But for the inside, they must have had to mill it out like I'm doing.

...and mills to go before I can sleep...

Disaster struck this evening, but a recovery was made.

I over milled while cutting the inside web area on the left side and came close to the hole where the axle goes. Just not paying attention and turned the crank the wrong way.

This mistake was cosmetically unbearable.

Having to start this all over after so much effort was just not an option. What to do?

Some time ago I went to the Harbour Freight retail store in Allentown, PA and I picked up some stainless arc welding rods. I never knew you could stick weld stainless. I figured it was a MIG/TIG only. I bought some rods just to see how they would work (and then promptly forgot about them) These are Weldit brand 308L rods 3/32".

Now let me say, I don't have a fancy arc welder. In fact, it's little 70 amp portable unit that I bought at Walmart for about $80 a few years ago.

I first took some scrap stainless and practiced on it. These stainless rods are tricky to use. Very difficult to get the arc started. I discovered that I would get best results by pre-heating the item first with a propane torch.

So, I was able to fill in the mistake. Here is a shot of "stock stainless" after the weld.

http://forums.lugerforum.com/lfupload/dcp01228.jpg

One thing I noticed after this procedure is that you can straw stainless. I think I'll tuck that little tidbit away for use later :)

So, after a little more machining I arrive at the following :
http://forums.lugerforum.com/lfupload/dcp01229.jpg

How do you like my hand? I had to get that in the shot. It more than anything summerizes the evening.

It's not all finished yet but most of the complicated milling is now out of the way. There will be much more filing, grinding & polishing to do. Need to radius up around the axle hole. I'm going to leave the main body squared off for now, until I decide how to mill the lug slot (it will be easier to clamp into the vice)

As you can see, I've only deviated slighty from the original design. I left the inside web the same width as the tangs. Naturally, this will not be noticable once mounted in the stock.

It's not as perfect as I would like, but nothing ever is. I'd have to say, to date, this is one of the most complex items I have ever milled.

Dean, keep up the report, I for one am enjoying your "journey!"

:)

Ed

A great stroy Dean... I can't wait for the next installment. and BTW, nice recovery! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

Thanks for the encouragement guys. I hope that all had a nice holiday. In particular, my heart goes out to those with familiy members in the service, stationed overseas, and in harms way.

There are a few more things I would like to mention while they are still fresh in my mind.
These are some useful tips in case there are others out there who suffer from SLCOCD (Stainless Luger Carbine Obsessive Conpulsive Disorder)

I am fortunate that I selected 304 stainless for this part. This is a stainless alloy that is weldable. There is a variant that is even better suited to welding called 304L (low carbon). You may want to consider using this if you can obtain it.

As I mentioned earlier, start with 3/4" stock instead of 1" as I did. Nobody will miss the extra 3/100ths inch. Much time will be saved in not having to thin the stock down. However, I must say that thining the stock down provided me with valuable practice time and allowed me to become accustomed to the material.

Use four flute endmills. There is less chatter. This is especially important with the Atlas milling attachment which is not as ridged as a full blown milling machine.

Carbide milling bits will hold their edge longer but they are brittle. I ended up breaking my 1/4" carbide bit about 3/4 of the way through this project. High speed steel bits work fine but they will dull quicker.

I think the best solution would be cobalt steel bits (I recall Rick W. mentioning this type of tooling with regard to threading). I noticed that Industrial Pipe & Steel has some sale pricing on these type of bits in their current sales flyer. Despite this, they are still more costly than HHS or carbide. There must be a reason for this. I also understand that TiN coated bits are of benifit when machininf stainless.

Coolant must be running at all times on the bit. Spindle speed must be adjusted based on bit diameter, smaller bits spin faster. I ran the 1/4" and 3/16" bits at the full speed belt setting that the Atlas could provide.

The most critical time for the bit is just as you begin a cut (entering the material), and as a cut ends (leaving the material). You have to slow down your feed rate during these times. Otherwise you will break the bit. Shock is what destroys the bits.

With the Atlas milling attachment, All cuts must be performed with the workpiece being pushed into the cutting edge of the bit. This requires frequent re-orientation of the workpiece in the vise to obtain this goal for every cut.

I carefully measured and then drilled the axle bore first. I then used a black marker and covered one side of the bar. I then scribed the layout on that side of the bar (using the hole as a base line for all measurements).

When I made the cuts, I did not mill right up to the scribe marks. I left a few thousands just in case. You can always come back and remove more.

A seasoned machinist already knows these things, I am mentioning them here for the benefit of the novice (and for myself, I don't mill things very often and I forget these things).

I am now finding stainless to be a wonderful material to work with and I think I will use it more in the future. I think the improvements in machinabiliy that maufacturers are now incorporating into the alloys has a lot to do with this. Search the web for "machinability stainless" and you will see several trade articles discussing this. Ugine is one such manufacturer that has done alot in this area.

I can remember years ago I would dread having to drill and tap a hole in stainless (let alone machine it). This is much easier now if you select one of the newer free machining alloys.

The choice of stock wood.

I'm not yet finished the "stock stainless" and I am already thinking about what wood to use for the carbine stock. I've also decided to have a stainless steel butt plate. It will be formed of 1/8" plate and I will bend over two tangs on the top and bottom. These will balance with the tangs on the "stock stainless". I could then mill some checkering into the plate.

Anyhow, back to the wood.
This guy's Claro Walnut is insane:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...392646124&rd=1

Unfortunately, his wood is in high demand from both stockmakers and luthiers alike. It usually fetches a pretty high price. This guy must be living in a golden grove of Claro Walnut trees somewhere in CA. Lucky for him. His blocks seem to be much larger than what I would need for a luger carbine stock. Sure is fantastic wood though.

The small size of the carbine stock opens the possibilities to woods that would normally not be availible in the size of a full stock. I also don't feel weight is much of an issue.

A dense rosewood would fit the bill. Cocobolo is one such possibility. However, I think Cocobolo is a little overused on firearms these days. It just does'nt seem to fit the nostalgic spirit of this project.

I've got some slightly figured black walnut on hand. But I have never been happy checkering black walnut. It's too soft.

I also have some tiger striped hard maple. I'm not sure this will look good with the stainless unless it is darkened. There is a hole art devoted to darkening tiger maple and I don't think I want to go there right now.

I don't know, maybe I can do a first go with the black walnut. That way if I make a mistake it's no big loss.

It would be nice is to find a piece of claro walnut that matches the grips already on the gun.

I love wood, and to work with it. But, too overpowering of wood might not display the carbine as well?

I like oak, always have, but curly maple or like the example you showed is pretty amazing stuff.

But, like you said, you can always change the stock later!

Ed

To be honest Rick, this will be the first stock from scratch. However I have learned a few tricks from the grip making business.

Shaping the luge stock is certainly much easier than a typical gunstock. It's smaller and thinner.

I was thinking about striped ebony. I could call this the "Out of Africa" carbine, as per the original inspiration I had at the very beginning of this post. Striped ebony would contrast well with the stainless. I know of a place that sell this at a reasonable price.
Ebony is tough wood though.

It is probably not practical and would be difficult to work, but I think a piece of red oak finished in a honey color would look good with the stainless! Just my musings...

Today I made a new tool...and then promptly used it.

http://forums.lugerforum.com/lfupload/radius.jpg

It's a mount to hold the dremel in the tool post of the lathe. I used a bandsaw to cut it out of 3/8" aluminum. I then mounted it in the 4-jaw chuck and bored the hole for the dremel. Next, I cut a slit and then drilled and tapped it for a allen head bolt so as to provide a means to clamp the dremel.

I am using it here to to form the radius around the lever shaft area. I put a rod into the chuck to allow me to pivot the part (The lathe is not running during this operation) I used a 1/8" carbide bur in the dremel.

I suspect I will be using this attachment for other purposes before this project is over. I intend to turn my own barrel plugs (as described in Howe's "The Modern Gunsmith"). I will use this arrangement to put an accurate ground finish on the plugs.

Next, I will be making the lever/shaft for the "stock stainless" . After this I will be setting this part aside for a while. I can't legally create the stock lug until I install the 16" barrel to the gun.

This is neat stuff. The only problem is, I stay up late at night so I can catch the next installment of the saga! Entertainment at its best.

Sorry for the late posts Ron. I'm sort of a night owl on the weekend. I wish I could progress faster on this project, but between the day job, the night job, and all the other projects, I find it tough to find the time to get anything done.

Hey Dean,

Just a word of advice from personal experience...your Dremel device may get you through this one project, but I doubt that the lateral thrust on the dremel bearings will hold up for much use of this nature... that is the reason that tool post grinders are so expensive, they can take the punishment... If you are "building your own" tools, a better substitute might be a motor/chuck combination from a quality wood router... I picked up one (an older craftsman) once at a yard sale for ten bucks, and used it in the fashion you are using the dremel and found it pretty satisfactory if you make the mount stable enough... BTW, Craftsman tools have a pretty good warranty, so if you don't butcher the parts you could reassemble it and take it to sears for repair if something quits under duress...

Keep up the good work. I can't wait for the next installment. :)

Rick...

No dice on the taper attachment. But since I selected the featherweight #1 contour, I'm hoping that I won't have too much contouring to perform.
I had planned on an approach like this:

http://forums.lugerforum.com/lfupload/lgbar.jpg

Your thoughts?

Pins.. I did'nt even check to see what pre-made 9mm barrel pins are going for. I figured that I should machine my own to fit. I'll check Brownells. That's the problem with Howe's book, he make everything himself. Kinda forces you into his mindset.

I hear you regarding the "preciseness factor". I'm still going to do my best to get it all lined up. But it is a short pistol cartridge, I can see with a long rifle cartridge where it is more critical to align everything. My biggest concerns are not to mess up the threading, not to overcut with the chamber reamer (or break the chamber reamer), and getting the extractor cut proper & indexed. Safety will be first, and I'll live with whatever accuracy I end up with.

Speaking of chamber reamers, I noticed that there is an outfit on the web that rents them. I don't know if I would trust a rented reamer.

John...

I concur regarding the dremel. But..I happen to have a Fordom tool here with ball bearings in the handpiece. Should be no problem mounting it the same way. It does not spin as fast as the dremel however.

Wood... (not you Ron!)

I mean this wood :)

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=3672428498

Normally I don't like buying wood without looking at it up close, and in person, but I could'nt pass this up for $27. Click through the views, The opposite side really shows some nice figure. This color is very close to the grips on the gun. But if it's not a perfect match, I'll make grips from the surplus that will be left over. In fact, I will most likely be making some 1911 grips from the surplus as well.

This seller has some real bargins on Claro, if anyone is interested, check his "other items".

Wood..(Ron!)

I wonder if you would be so kind to provide width & height measurements of the original carbine stock butplate. I can't seem to find any carbine pictures that I can pull this from. I am OK with the profile dimensions and I know how wide it is at the stock iron. I just dont know how wide the stock is after the step behind the stock iron. I'm guessing that it's about 1.1-1.2 inch and carries that all the way back, but there might be some taper that I can't percieve in the pictures.
I may be altering the overall length of the stock slightly to fit me better.

Looks like my day job will be taking me to Canada for a spell (within the a week or two). So I may be "back burning" this project for a while.

Dean,
I'll dig out the stock Tuesday and get some measurements...gotta keep the project going. There is a very slight taper, expanding from the step in back of the stock iron to the butt. I will try to shoot some pictures.

No hassle here, Rick. In fact, I must confess that I've been snipping all your posts and putting them into a file called "rickstips.txt" so I can refer to them later. I think between you and Howe's book I should be fine.

I'm thinking back on my milling error. The reason it happened was I was tired and I kept on working when I should have given it a rest. Maybe it was a "good thing" that this happened. I will now be much more aware of this when I tackle the barrel. Take my time.

Ron, Thanks a bundle, no rush on those measurements. I can't cut the wood until the stock iron is finished and I can't cut the lug on the luger (or the iron) until I have the new barrel installed. The barrel won't be here for another 3 weeks.

Spoke with the machinist at work today. A good part of his time is spent making stainless shafted rollers for the products we make (paper sorting equipment). He uses an interesting product from Locktite to bond the shafts to the larger rollers. I think it's locktite 696. For example, instead of machining a 1/2" bar down to 1/4" for the shaft portion, he instead bores the roller to a close fit onto a precision ground 1/4" shaft. He then uses this anerobic glue to bond the rollers to the shaft. He claims that it is a very secure bond, but it is imperative to have a very close fit between the two parts.

I was thinking I could use this to bond the rear sight sleave to the barrel instead of soldering it. I'm going to ask him about this tommorrow and see what he thinks. He dables in gunsmithing a bit. In fact, he used to own a few lugers at one time.

Dean,
Glad you aren't in a hurry. I did drag the stock out of storage, but it may be a day or two until I can take some measurements and photos.
Hang in there.
Ron

Dean, Check your regular email please.

The barrel has arrived. Very pleased with Shilen's handywork. I am glad I took my time to think about the contour selection. The featherweight was the right choice. There will be very little machining to perform. I've tested a few mounting positions in the lathe an I am now under the impression that the turning/threading of the barrel is going to be easier than I had originally thought.

I am still contemplating a minor mystery. It concerns the following question: What does the barrel contour of the original luger carbine barrel look like underneath the soldered on rear sight base sleeve? Is the interior of the sight base sleeve tapered? Is the contour straight cylindical? Is it a step lip flange or is there gentle flare (like the standard barrel) concealed underneath the sleeve?

Hopefully I will find some time this weekend to dig into all this.

BTW, I was looking at the latest Shotgun News and they had an article of a new 9mm carbine with a 16in barrel. The interesting part (for me) was that they tried a variety of 9mm ammo and measured the fps/accuracy of various rounds. The best long range accuracy was with that new Aguila IQ 65gr. Hi velocity round. I doubt that it will feed well in a luger action. I'm thinking a "warm" 147 gr. might be a better choice for the luger carbine. Can't wait to find out...

Dean, this is just my guess, but I believe that tapering the area of the barrel under the rear sight base and matching the taper on the inside of the sight base is a waste of engineering and labor. I feel that if anyone were to take a rear sight base off of a genuine Luger carbine barrel, they would find that the barrel is a cylinder shape and so is the inside of the rear sight barrel band (in a similar manner to a K98 rifle barrel/rear sight) strictly from an ease of manufacturing standpoint.

If anyone might know the answer to your question, it might be Art Buchanan... track down one of his posts "Art" and send him a Private Message... which should trigger an email to him, as I recall he has that option enabled on his profile...

...and PLEASE dont forget to take photos of the setup and process as you work! :)

Practice...practice..practice...

Yep, I'm back at it.

Before I destroy a brand new barrel I thought I'd at least pratice the threading procedure on a piece of stainless barstock.

But before I could do this I needed to get the original barrel off. Here is a picture of the frame wrench and barrel vise blocks that I made..

http://forums.lugerforum.com/lfupload/framewrench.jpg

The frame wrench was made from some 1/2" scrap brass. It was from some kind of door handle so it was plated. I was originally going to use cap head bolts, hence the machined recesses. I could not find cap head bolts long enough so I ended up using the studs & nuts you see here.

The vise blocks were made from 3/4" aluminum. I mic'd the barrel close to the frame and bored a hole in the aluminum that size. I made no effort to taper the bore to match the barrel taper. The taper is so gradual that it really does'nt make much difference. I then cut the block in half on the bandsaw.

The barrel came off easier than I thought it would. The barrel and aluminum pieces were put in the vise, and I used a large pipe wrench around the brass clamp and it cranked right off.

Next, I practiced the threading operation on some 304 stainless barstock. I've set the barstock up just as I intend to machine the actual barrel...

http://forums.lugerforum.com/lfupload/testcut.jpg

You can see that I have machined down a portion to about .71". This is what I measured on the shoulder of the original barrel.

I intend to use the live center with the real barrel. I mounted up the Shilen barrel in similar fashion and I checked the run out with the dial indicator. It was less the .005, which I feel is acceptable. I will also be supporting the barrel with the steady rest fixture (which I did not use while practicing).

You will notice in the above photo that I have the compound of the lathe set at an angle. While threading, the compound is advanced inward with each cutting pass. So it is just the left side of the bit that is doing most of the cutting. For a threading tool cut to 60 degrees, the compound is set to 29.5 degrees. For 55 degree threads, the compound is set to 27 degrees. I cut 55 degree threads. It's hard to tell what the original barrel threads are.

The results of this practice run were "satisfactory". I was able to get a good tight fit to the reciever. In fact it is a little tighter that the original, but it can still be turned by hand.

http://forums.lugerforum.com/lfupload/teston.jpg

The threads were slightly rough. I think I need take lighter passes. A more serious error I made was that I bumped the cross feed by accident. This caused me to loose registration. This happened just as I was taking the final pass. To recover I had to hunt around to get it registered again. Next time I'm going to lock the cross feed before I begin so that it can not move.

I think I am going do another test run. I think I will also drill a fake bore on this test piece so I can test the chamber reamer.

With a little luck, I may have the new barrel mounted this weekend.

Stay tuned...

Check Your PM's, Dean.

Viggo