Carving the 1911 from Steel
- Thread starter Ganderite
- Start date
@8:29, that is a very strange range booth for the accuracy test. +No eye or ear protection 
Thanks for sharing. It's always interesting to see the old tracer mills/lathes, broaching and forming machines. And how inefficient they were. Between injection molding, precision castings, and multi-axis machining centres, they've rendered purpose-built, single operation machines largely obsolete.
There's definitely a great cost involved in all that equipment and labor, but they do seem to turn out extremely accurate product with the right skills. It amazes me the machining and precision that was accomplished with such "obsolete" equipment.
Thanks for the movie!
It shouldn't. Those machines were more than capable of maintaining the same sort of tolerance as any modern CNC machine. And in fact many of the features for such things as the dovetail ways set for accuracy with adjustable gybe strips and zero backlash lead screws that were used on some of those older machines are still being used by the CNC machines today. When we have a good way of doing something there's no need to change it. The overall shape has changed because a machinist no longer needs to work the controls in direct contact but otherwise at their core the new is still very much similar to the old.
What HAS changed is that back then a machine operator on a production line only needed to know the one machine and the one operation. And with that limited amount of training needed the average folk off the street could fairly quickly learn to do good work. A REAL machinist was a whole other thing. Those folks were in the custom shops turning out the jigs to be mounted on the shapers, lathes or presses for the machine operators to use.
Even that hasn't really changed. There are still dedicated machine operators in CNC shops that may not know anything in-depth (nor would they need to know) about how the machine functions, because (more commonly in larger shops) programming and setup is done by the "real" machinists. The crazy thing is some of these operators somehow managed to get their ticket.
And even then she fumbled a little due to being clearly nervous and having to perform for the camera. I'll bet that when she was just doing it as part of her job with no lights and lenses she was easily a 1/3 again as fast.
Colt also has a video on their website of modern 1911 manufacture. I guess modern high end manufacture might be a better description. Most of their lower end competitors use lost wax and M.I.M. castings for their 1911's.
Investment casting and metal injection molding are high-end manufacturing, that can create very strong products if designed correctly. Making gun components (especially small parts) from billets and forgings is almost as much marketing as it is tangible benefits. Most internal parts in an HK pistol are MIM, but few would say that they are low-end, or prone to breakage. Are there limitations? Sure. But knowing where to apply them allows you to create a less costly product that is indistinguishable in critical areas to more costly (and time consuming) techniques.
Rickster66
Regular
- Location
- Montreal, Quebec
Nice find. Thanks for sharing.
