Drilling and Tapping

cycoblade

cycoblade

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Anyone in the Ottawa/Gatineau good at drilling and tapping? Is it something relatively simple I could do myself?
I want to drill and tap 4 holes in my Tokarev grip for holding on new handles instead of using the lever method currently employed.
 
If you have the ability to locate and drill the correct size hole and the ability to tap that hole without breaking the tap and have the drills and taps required then you would be able to do this... if the metal you wish to tap is not too hard... If they are blind holes that require tapping you will need a plug tap and a bottoming tap.
 
If you haven't done it before, I wouldn't start with something valuable. Best to get some scrap steel and practice, its not as easy as it sounds. A drill press is a good start, not only for drilling, but it can be used to guide the tap, by turning the chuck manually...but it does take practice. (don't forget cutting lube !)
 
If the material you are trying to drill is too hard and you keep breaking bits, you can perform spot annealing.

This can be accomplished with a torch flame, or with friction by using a nail in your drill press.

The purpose of annealing is to use heat to remove the temper in that spot and soften it up to be workable.
 
A torch won't anneal a small enough spot on anything. Pistol frames usually aren't terribly hard anyway.
Don't think there's a good spot on the frame of a Tok to be drilling and tapping. Maybe on the top and bottom under where the grip would be. D&T isn't hard to do, but you do have to get the holes located correctly and not have the screws be too long or they'll interfer with the mag.
 
You'll want to get some very fine thread pitch gunsmithing taps for this project. The usual hardware store options will leave you with too coarse a thread pitch. Using the extra fine pitch options on these very thin walls is important if you want to have a good amount of strength to the threads.

You'll also want to make up a tapping guide block for this sort of job. This is nothing more than a block of steel big enough to sit square and flat on the project with a hole in it that just barely lets the tap pass through without cutting. It ensures a smooth start to the threading.

If it were me doing this, which is a great mod by the way, I'd make little top hat shaped bushings for the lower holes that fit out through oversize holes that have conical sides. The top hat button would be made a few thou longer than needed and a spacer made up that fits snuggly inside the frame. This would let me peen down the button so it rivets out and locks into the tapered hole. Then I'd dress the end down flush and drill and tap. In fact making these rivet bushings with a square shape would be even better so the threaded bushing can't rotate in the tapered hole.

The other option, which has a LOT to recommend it, is to drill and thread for 1911 bushings. I'd screw them in using red Loctite to set them more or less permanently. If you ever needed to remove them for whatever reason heat from a propane torch will break the Loctite free at around 140C.
 
The Hungarian made Tokagypt variant used grip panels that wrapped around the rear of the frame, akin to the grips on a P-38. Might be something to consider.
 
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