TennBill2's Borchardt

[Olle]

Like I mentioned in the other thread (http://forum.lugerforum.com/showthread.php?t=37041), I had the pleasure of meeting Bill Smalley (TennBill2) many years ago, and I took some pictures of his Borchardt project. At the time it was still a work in process, and I don't know how far he got after that.

His "drawing" was the spare parts schematics you see in one of the pictures. I think these were copied from an original manual, and he took it to Kinko's to make an enlarged print that was easier to use. I believe the copy showed some parts in 1:1 scale, but most of it had to be redrawn going my known or estimated dimensions. Using this, a replica Luger and pictures of he real thing, he was able to figure out the rest himself.

The work included a lot of trial and error, and he told me that the mainspring was one of his biggest headaches. You can see some prototypes in one of the pictures, and these were only the ones he had saved. We talked about the trials and tribulations of spring making, and he said that he actually enjoyed experimenting with this as "it made him appreciate the efforts of Mr. Borchardt even more". In this picture you can also see a mold of an original part, and he used this to figure out what the part should look like. He did use a few parts from other guns, but as far as I can remember it was just the front toggle link (Luger) and the mag body (TT-33).

The frame is not made in one piece, he made it as a "laminated" box construction to eliminate the difficult milling steps it would require to hollow it out. You can see some of the weld seams in the pictures, and he was planning to fill these and blend them in later on. Many of the parts needed further finish work, as some were basically just prototypes to figure out what they should look like to work correctly. He did say that a machine shop helped him with a few things, but most of it was created in his own shop. He said that making parts was easy, "you just take a piece of steel and then you cut and file away everything that doesn't belong on the part". He didn't have a milling machine, so most of the parts had to be made by hack sawing the rough shape, and then hand filing it until it looked right and worked correctly.

This is not an exact, reverse engineered replica, and that's one of the things that makes it special. He had to figure out a lot of the design himself going by the "drawing", pictures etc, so he had to do a lot of the engineering himself. Overall, it's a very impressive example of what can be done if you have enough talent and patience.

And yes, that's the Master himself in the first picture.

[Edward Tinker]

that is outstanding - what ever happened to it?

Same with Viggo's hand made 1900 stock - I think it was sold and sold again as real....

[Ron Wood]

Wow, that is a study in determination! Thanks for the story and photos.
Ron

[sheepherder]

Olle, Bill did post a short thread on shooting his Borchardt -

http://forum.lugerforum.com/showthread.php?t=26578

[Olle]

I must have missed that thread! I sure don't know where the gun is now, and it wasn't really the time to ask. However, Bill had many interesting projects in different stages of completion, so I might contact his family and ask for permission to study them. If they're still there, that is. I really hope his family appreciated them enough to keep them.