Barrel replacement services update!
 

Hi to all! Well, the roads been bumpy, but really has been fun so far! Just when you think you've got a handle on things, you find out you are still in the "Baby turtle stage!" But, that having been said, I have had continued success and have brought a couple of old soldiers back to life... It's a real good feeling to see these old war horses perform like they did 100 years ago.. Just a few small springs, maybe a small part or two, and they run like new... I've reached a point in my efforts, where new and better fixtures are warranted, and as I add to my work bench, the job gets a'little more fool proof" all the time... And, as I mentioned earlier, I have acquired a lifetime of "fool" to overcome?? ...:eek:... I am getting quite a bit of help from some of our own forum members, and hope to enlist their aid whenever possible, or agreeable to them.. A very skilled bunch here.. :thumbup:... Best to all, til...lat'r....GT:jumper:

help along the way!
 

Hello to all! Well, I've had to chamber a few.. and it's pretty amazing the range of chambers I've found on even the best of original barrels?? It seems as though barrels from the same era as the receivers are the very best bet! I have had quite a bit of excellent help along the way, as sheepherder and Olle have been helping me get to the next level...:thumbup:.... Hey, this isn't for the faint of heart... as every step is a disaster in the making.. why do you think there are so many barrels with pipe wrench marks on them?? :eek:... All in all, it's going well, let me know if any of you need a shooter re-barreled... I will do my best..BTW, waiting on a range report from Doc, his needed just about every ounce of my ability to straighten out??... Went a little outside my skill sets.. but, that's where my forum friends shine... BTW squared! Had some parts blued by Thor, another outstanding job as always, went the extra step and then some... As I've said before, a lot of talent here...:thumbup:... best to all, til..lat'r...GT:cheers:

Is there anyone in your sphere of influence who does bluing??? Not buffing, necessarily, but dip-bluing...

Rich,

You could give GunBlack http://www.gunblack.com/ a call. They're close to me, in Interlaken. The owner's son, Steve, is quality-conscious, really seems to know his stuff/processes, and is a nice guy, to boot. And I've been able to pay with a couple of bottles of La Fin du Monde, or similar, each time. You can save a lot if whatever you send is stripped down and prepped--they will degrease and acid dip, then hot blue. Great quality finish!

I've had them blue the barrel sleeve spacer for my Luger-to-.22 conversion kit, and a half dozen parts for my Thompson's soon-to-be removable butt stock. (I'm having the lower frame milled to receive an adapter plate, which my machinist is also making [He can probably make more adapters, once the recipe is established. I'm pretty sure John S. wants one for his Tommy project.])

I've filled out their contact form with a short explanation of my 'dip only' requirements. I'll be interested to see how they respond. ;)

Gerry, if I wanted to shorten a carbine or artillery barrel, could you saw off the front sight band, bore it out, turn down the barrel stub and silver-solder the front sight band back on??? :thumbup:

I would try it myself but I am not confident in my ability to solder the band back on without slobbering up the entire muzzle with solder... :(

Rich,

I could send you a coil or two of 1/32" D silver brazing alloy from my roll. The small D. would enable you to apply tiny amounts at a time to keep the surrounding area neat. Clean the surfaces to be joined well first, then when fluxing remember more is less. The flux will "clean" the bluing right off if you're not careful; and these areas will risk wicking the solder to follow wherever the flux has been. If you get an errant blob of solder, re-heat this area somewhat to make the alloy plastic, then a quick swipe of a wire brush will remove dimension from the deposit, leaving mostly only a surface coating, which is less work to sand off. Theoretically, the joint should be a .001 or two between the surfaces. Pre-flux, like a plumbing joint and slowly heat until the flux melts and runs, which distributes the flux and its chemical cleaning power to wherever it goes. The flux will probably bubble out a bit, as its water content expands and escapes. Wipe excess unwanted flux off with a damp rag. Heat both sides as evenly as you can, and the fused solder should wick into the joint, leaving very little where you don't want it.

Or you could drive down between the lakes and we can do it at my shop...

I think Rich is asking partially on my behalf as I have a "fat barrel Baby" Luger project that he and I have been discussing and the barrel band attachment is part of the process. He has really been responsible for my thinking about rekindling the project that I started probably close to 30 years ago!:) Just yesterday he gave me a heads up on a "Fat Barrel" in 7.65mm that is threaded for the long receiver that I need which is being offered by Sarco. I have one ordered so we will see if that becomes part of the solution. I have done quite a bit of jewelry silver soldering years ago but I don't have the tools or ability to do the machine work for the barrel band modification.

To add to what David is saying: I would tin the surfaces first, it seems to help the solder "find its way" to the right place. You flux the surface, then heat it and apply the solder, once it's good and runny you wipe it with a rag, Q-tips or whatever works to get the excess off. This will leave a very thin coat of solder on the surfaces. Slip the barrel band on and put it in a padded vise, with the muzzle up. Apply a little bit of flux, reheat and apply a tiny amount of solder. If everything works as intended, the solder will wick into the seam and fill it completely. It takes a minimal amount to fill the seam, so the thinner diameter solder David is talking about should work well to minimize the amount you add.

Olle,
The tinning approach is what I have in mind. I have read that "tinning and sweating" is how some gunsmiths attach sights or join barrels on a double rifle.

I doubt there is enough beer in Mecklenburg for that... :rolleyes:

In the far past, I have done some silver-soldering, but I am 50 years out of practice and don't want to mess up a costly project, mine or someone else's. I also don't have the tools to hold a sight band in place (so it doesn't slip when the solder starts to run). Brownell's does sell such a tool, but really, I have a cabinet full of jigs, fixtures, and specialty tools that were used once or twice and never touched again. :(

That part is easy (relatively speaking). The band & barrel stub could even be threaded, although I can't think of why anyone would want to... :rolleyes:

In any case, I'm not trying to muscle in on G.T.'s business; I just wanted to know if he could provide that service. I don't need it yet, but might in the future. :thumbup:

In the "good ole days" when I did such work, and was out of the THIN silver solder, I would take some nice round solder from the reel and pound it flat on the anvil ... with a clean surface you can wrap the flat solder around the area to be tinned and then heat it until it 'runs'...

Late to the party!
 

Hi Rich and all! Sorry, just got back to this thread! And, I'm afraid I'm in the same boat as the rest of you, when it comes to silver solder???... I've not done enough to trust my limited experience... The machining wouldn't be too tough??... But, then again, I've not yet attempted it... Best to all, til...lat'r....GT BTW, Rich, I'll certainly help you out in any way I can!! ...:cheers:

Oxy-acetylene/propane will give plenty of heat to do the job; in a pinch, one can use two propane bottle torches. Sweating is good, but I think unnecessary, in that even if only the extremities of the joint are solid it would be plenty to hold the assembly in perpetuity.

I once hired out to one of those places around here that manufactures turbine blades. The particular order was too much for their in house welder, and I was taken on for a couple weeks. We used an RF generator to heat the materials between the tubes of its loop. We were silver soldering Stellite (an alloy that resists erosion from low pressure steam) strips into pockets milled on the blades' leading edges.

All parts had a final cleanse in alcohol; then a coat of paste flux, a strip of flat silver alloy clamped in between components, then turn on the juice/heat. An optical temp sensor helped us prevent over-temp. A bit of art work was involved because the heated piece had a significantly different shape than when cold. Our work was good enough to pass X-ray inspection at an acceptable rate, so I'm confident that if it can be done to a long set of dissimilar metals that changed shape that much when heated, not many would have problems doing such a straightforward chore as a barrel band. As an old timer at a scrap yard I worked in WAY back in the day, "Go right at it just like you knew what you was doin'!"

I can't see why the band would slip...? If the barrel is turned down, it will have a shoulder as a positive stop. Just heat it, solder it and tap it lightly while it's still hot to make sure that it's all the way home. If you're worried about the indexing, keep in mind that it's very easy to adjust by simply heating it again.

Thanks, I will add that to my book of "down and dirty tricks". :cheers: I guess the "thin" solder you refer to is the ribbon? I'm thinking about getting some of that, haven't tried it yet but I figure that it's one of those things that "may come in handy one day".

(Geez, I gotta quietly stick my nose in here...

I am following this wonderful thread with awe! You guys are fantastic; do you mind if I genuflect?

Enraptured,

Gunny John)

PS. Wow! And I ain't kiddin'!

You can't have it both ways...It's either a slip fit or an interference fit. And back when I did do brazing/silver-soldering, parts did move when heated & the solder/braze flowed. Sometimes parts would fall off.

I might be able to make up a 'clamp' out of a clothes pin spring, a piece of rod stuck in the bore, and another rod or strip bent to hold the band in place...Maybe even a big alligator clip...

But that's not my biggest misgiving. I did get a roll of Silvaloy, a jar of UltraFlux, and some soldering talc sticks from my last Brownell's order. I've had braze flow where I don't want it. Back in the day, I used 'Bear Snot' to keep solder from running on elevator cables, when we soldered steel ferrules on the ends (1" steel woven cable). But I don't have any anymore. :(

G.T. sent me a Luger barrel to practice on. I'll give it a try sometime soon. It's old and corroded, like they all are, maybe that'll help keep the solder from spreading. :rolleyes:

You folks have definitly evolved from your high school shop class!

This is what I imagine G.T.'s shortened barrel might look like, before silver-soldering...Four inch to three inch...

...Not that there is anyone looking for that...But it might look something like this... :rolleyes:

Looks like you have the process well in hand. One small suggestion is to make the turned down portion of the barrel just a hair longer than the bored out barrel band. Then it will stand a bit proud of the band when assembled and make crowning a bit easier. I have also heard that folks that perform this joining will peen the end of the barrel which makes the seam just about invisible when the crown is machined. I like the looks of what you have done. To me, a 3-inch barrel is just about perfect for a Baby.

This part is the easy part. Getting the front sight at 12:00 o'clock is the hard part. :(

I made the two sections equal wall thickness. Be kind of hard to peen. The stub does stick out a bit, not much, but this was just to get a feel for it...Sticking out would give the solder a place to start flow, too... :rolleyes:

I may not shorten a carbine, however...It may be more fun to make a short fore end for an artillery... :)

I use Hi-Force 44, it's plenty strong enough for most applications. I would think that even regular plumbing solder will do in this particular case, capillary soldering makes a pretty strong bond. Personally, I would not even consider use hard silver solder. 1200F is when steel starts glowing red and I don't want to do that with a gun barrel. I'm sure it's ok in a professional shop where heating and cooling can be controlled, but that's not really the case in my basement... :)

I would feel entirely comfortable with this type of Loctite, Acraglas (which is commonly use to install barrel liners) or any high-strength adhesive. The only drawback is that once it's there, it's pretty much there forever. The solder is easy to reheat if you need to adjust.

That's why I made that leveling block i showed in this thread: http://forum.lugerforum.com/showthread.php?t=30581 . I put the barrel in a receiver, then I used a level on the receiver and the block and adjusted until they were level. I had already tinned the parts so the fit was snug enough to hold the band in the right position until I got it soldered. Let me know if you want to borrow the block, it's just sitting there in a drawer anyway.

I had forgotten that you had posted a barrel shortening thread already...But since all your pics are on Tinypic.com, they'll soon be lost anyway... :soapbox:

I hadn't considered making a little jig like that...My barrel bands have slight dimensional differences...large differences in the case of 'pencil' profile barrels (which I like)... :rolleyes:

Sheepherder... another method for which you ARE tooled that will work as long as you use CLOSE tolerances.

Machine the barrel just as you have illustrated and measure it carefully.
Then bore out the front sight band to EXACTLY (or as close as you can) to the SAME dimension.

Mill a TINY witness mark/groove/keyway on the bottom of the barrel, that you have properly indexed to be the bottom of the barrel about the diameter of a straight pin, and very short! Length is not important here, only position.

Then mill a matching groove in the bottom back of the front sight band that you bored out.

Cut a piece of wire/straight pin/etc. to fit carefully in the groove you cut in the bottom of the barrel. This will be your index so you can't get the front side band on at an angle. Solder/superglue that little piece into the groove on the barrel. Then put the barrel in your freezer for about 20 minutes.

When the freeze is over, mount the barrel in a vise muzzle up.

Quickly heat the front sight band with a propane torch just until it starts to barely glow---pick it up (with tongs or pliers, not your fingers) and position it on the barrel using the pin/index as your guide. GET THIS RIGHT cause you only get ONE SHOT AT IT. (No pun was intended, but it works in this case :D )

Let it cool at room temperature, and I would wager a small sum that once cooled in place you won't shoot it loose.

This interference fit method was engineered by BMW to hold the rear wheel bearing on my motorcycle, and that bearing supports the weight of the entire motorcycle, and all the G-forces of the rear wheel---- it won't pull it off once cooled.

You could of course practice on a piece of scrap eh?

John,
That chill barrel/heat band technique is similar to the process they use to put the iron rim on a wood spoke wheel! The index pin is a novel idea.

The interference fit is great--it will never be shot loose, and there's no mess to clean up.

I had occasion to take such a joint apart some years ago. I was working in a local fabricating shop and, to the owner's specs, had made a short set of special dies for the press brake. The whole assembly was too short, it turned out, and the screws that moved the upper frame up and down to adjust it were extended so far that the force of the stroke offset the few threads that were turned into the socket by about .003". The threads would bind when running the screw upward due to this offset portion.

The socket component was held by a large resistance fit pin to an offset hole in a large wheel. We heated the dickens out of the material surrounding the pin and applied the output of a CO2 fire extinguisher to the exposed end of the pin--and off she came. The offset threads were trimmed by the machinist, and the parts were heated and cooled similarly for re-assembly. The moral of the story is that such a joint can, indeed, be manipulated, rotated, or undone.

Another way to get a hefty bond is to create a slick slip fit. Then apply three evenly spaced rows of center punch dimples to "strawberry" the O.D. of the inside piece for a tap fit into the corresponding hole. When the inserted piece bottoms out, rotating it slightly positions it so that the strawberry marks resist being drawn back through fresh material. But at this point, I think I like the heat/cool joint, for this job.

Cool story! :thumbup:

I have one too... :D

Back when I was a millwright, one of my recurring jobs was rebuilding pulverizer gear reducers for the boiler in our paper mill. Coal dust got in everything (especially lungs :( ) and gummed the reducers up to the point they would break 3" shafts. To replace the bearings we'd heat up the cast iron gearbox, refridgerate the race overnight, and press the outer race (about 6" dia) in with a six foot hydraulic press. The outer race was an interference fit. You only had one chance to get it right. If you got it wrong, the race had to be torched in half and do it all over again.

To get the cast iron gearbox to expand the exact amount needed to drop the race in, we'd use two oxy-acetylene torches with rosebud tips. The millwright heading the job [me] would run a Tempilstik [pic below] over the area. The stik was like a candle but only melted at a specific temperature. 262º F in this case. When it melted & ran when you touched it to the gearbox, you [me again] dropped the race over the gearbox shaft opening, slammed a long steel sleeve over it, tilted it under the hydraulic ram, and started pumping like Hell!!! :D

I did at least a dozen rebuilds...I don't recall ever having a hangup...But there was evidence in at least one of the four reducers we had that it had happened (torch cut in the cast iron body)...

It was a four man job...And once the ram slammed down we all took turns pumping...Welders, millwrights, machinists - anyone walking by!!! :p

It was a stressful job...Lots of time spent by the machinist making the shafts...Expensive bearings...6" in dia, 3" wide races... :rolleyes:

A reducer lasted about three months...We always had one standing by for when one of the two in use failed...The dust got in the oil ways and made a hard paste that had to be drilled out...

IIRC, the interference fit was ~1 1/2 thousandths [.0015"]...You couldn't let the reducer body get any hotter or it would take the hardness out of the bearing race...We had to have air hoses ready to start cooling the reducer down as soon as the press reached 20 tons...

They had all been painted gray originally...I had our painter paint them different pastel colors to tell the four apart...Baby blue, pink, light green, and gray...My way of rebelling against conformity... :cheers:

Dave -

His site has a form to fill out for a quote/response. I have not gotten a response. :(

I can sympathize. I don't want any more work either. :rolleyes:

Uh-oh, your request is stuck in the "cloud"! I was a walk-in, initially, so didn't try internet contact. Better call 'em on the phone...

Ron - Whatever happened to this ordered barrel from Sarco???