Custom Part Creation

If you can't find a home machine shop guy locally that'll take something like this on then look at the more serious gunsmiths.

Expect the bill to come in at something north of $100 though. One off shaping of this sort is almost always fiddly work that will take well over a couple of hours. And shop time for any gunsmith is going to run $80/hr or more.
 
BCRider said:
If you can't find a home machine shop guy locally that'll take something like this on then look at the more serious gunsmiths.

Expect the bill to come in at something north of $100 though. One off shaping of this sort is almost always fiddly work that will take well over a couple of hours. And shop time for any gunsmith is going to run $80/hr or more.
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Thanks BCRider and BuckBrush. I sent off an email to Dlask last night, and I'll continue to look for someone familiar with this type of thing. If it does get too expensive, I may just look into a mini lathe.
 
That's a pretty serious response to a one off part. I'd suggest that there are other options. And besides, if it's the external lever you want to change then a lathe is just about the least usable tool I can think of for making a new one.

I'd offer other suggestions but we don't know what you're trying to make it look like.
 
In all honestly, my garage is becoming as populated by tools as my gunsafe is. I've seen mini lathes go for as low as $250, which sounds like it wouldn't be far off from the cost of the part fabrication. Essentially, I'm looking to elongate the lever and I'd like to slightly alter the mechanism. With the longer lever, I'd like to reduce the turn radius from a quarter turn to an eighth turn.

A few rough schematics I've come up with require the handle to be attached separately with a machine screw and weld into a tapped pin. The only way I'm familiar with fabricating the internal pin of the safety selector is using a lathe.
 
OK, for that level of modification I can see a lathe being used.

The extension for the lever itself is likely best done with hand tools and/or hand held grinders to shape an extension or whole new lever. Likely as not decent metal files will play a big part after the roughing out.
 
The extension for the lever is a safety selector off another firearm. Mounting it shouldnt be an issue, especially if I can shape the pin to be a square on the protruding end. Good metal files will be required for shaping the grooves in the interior pin and to slowly adjust the fit. Unfortunately the set I currently have were cheap files I used for stone work. Do you have any suggestions for good assorted metal files?
 
I'll add that if you use the drill method I mentioned, you should use a drill with a keyed chuck so you can crank it down tight. Chuck the piece as deep as you can and the work extending no longer than about 2" from the chuck. Remember to wear safety glasses or face shield in case it does let the piece go. Also never do this in a drill press, because those chucks are just held in a taper and will come off when you apply any lateral pressure - I experienced this first hand!:redface:

Don't use this method on hard steel. Hard steel is a real pain to work with if you don't have the right tools.

Heat treating tools made from plain carbon steels is a pretty basic handyman skill that everyone should learn. Brownells sells a little book called Hardening Tempering and Heat Treatment by Tubal Cain that is designed for the home hobby "model engineer". It has more info on this subject than most of us will ever need.
 
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Excellent info, Quiet. I've considered using a drill, but I guess I wanted an excuse for a new tool. If I remember correctly, isn't annealed steel a steel harded by heat? Or is it simply a mild steel that hardens when heated? I haven't played with anything like that for a long time.

Would you suggest getting it glowing red with a torch and allowing it to cool, or heat it with a more precise method?
 
Expect the bill to come in at something north of $100 plus per hour in a machine shop. Plus the time for set up and making a drawing. Unless you have a machinists drawing now.
"I want one." is the best reason to buy anything.
Annealing is softening metal to make it less brittle. Mild steel doesn't take heat treating well. Heat threating is mostly adding carbon. A safety lever doesn't really need to be terribly hard.
 
sunray said:
Expect the bill to come in at something north of $100 plus per hour in a machine shop. Plus the time for set up and making a drawing. Unless you have a machinists drawing now.
"I want one." is the best reason to buy anything.
Annealing is softening metal to make it less brittle. Mild steel doesn't take heat treating well. Heat threating is mostly adding carbon. A safety lever doesn't really need to be terribly hard.
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I'm starting to drift more towards doing it myself. I just need a bit more info on the annealing process. I've contemplated the amount of wear on the safety lever, and while it may only be minor, this rifle sees use nearly every week. I'd prefer that it fails due to something that I didn't make.

Do you have any resources that would be useful in properly hardening the metal? Or if you'd be kind enough to walk me through it, we can communicate further over PM.

Edit:
Reading up a bit more, I haven't yet found a specific type of steel, but the annealing process seems fairly simple. Heat the pin to a glowing orange-red, and keep the heat constant for 3-5 minutes. Rest the glowing metal into a box of ashes to allow it to cool as slowly as possible. Leave it for a day, and it should be much softer to work with. I haven't found much info on normalizing/hardening the metal, but would that involve simply cooling it down faster? Would water cool it too quickly making it too brittle?


I have sourced hardened steel dowel pins locally in various lengths and diameters. Would I gain or lose any diameter in annealing and hardening? Or should I suck it up and try to work the hardened steel?
 
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Thanks Quiet, I went back and read your edited post. I'll take a look on the Brownells website for the book you mentioned. I plan to leave a short length of extra steel on either side of the pin so that I can shorten it to where I need it. Out of my 5 drills, I don't think I have a chuck tightened drill anymore. Moving from Ontario, a box of my tools went missing from the moving van..

It looks like I can get a bulk set of 50mm pins for about $30, so I'm not worried too much about messing up now. It'll be a good learning experience! The hardest part it seems will be mounting the lever as they are extremely hard to find.. gotta get it right the first time.

Just to confirm, would someone be able to take a measurement of the diameter of the safety pin? I'm currently away for a bit and didn't think to bring the VZ with me.
 
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To anneal steel heat it to non magnetic (tested with a magnet LOL) then allow to cool slowly. Best I have found is a bucket of vermiculite (asbestos)
Google is your friend on this stuff there is a tonne of info out there. That being said I may order that book as well It's nice to have a hard copy sitting next to the throne :)
 
Thanks CT. I have been doing quite a bit of searching on Google. I read of people recommending ash as an insulator while the steel is cooling. I don't have any asbestos kicking around unfortunately. I will make sure to keep a magnet on hand as well.. I know I read about that, but it didn't quite register in the memory banks.
 
Oil quench hardening may also be of use to you. Use the google-fu
I learned quite a bit about hardening/tempering steels and other metals way back in steel fab school.
Haven't had to do it for a while.
Parts can also be sent to Nick at Vulcan for top shelf results for reasonable $$
 
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