Back in the day I kinda put the foot in my mouth when talking to a bunch of guys at the gun store about "O yeah I know how to work a mill, give me ____ an I can get you ____ done for $____. After that I was hounded by an endless parade of guys trying to get me to make them that "one part" that broke on an old gun.
However making stuff on a MANUAL mill or lathe is tedious work, an 90% of it is problem solving. Most hobbiest machinists really are playing a "puzzle game" if you wish to consider it that way.
So to give a rough break down on what's really involved, here are some rule of thumbs to tell anyone who wants you to build some thing for them on your mill or lathe so they know what you have to go through & deal with.
1. If it takes a week to figure out how to do one thing............just to make one of ______, then it only takes another week to make a 1000 of hence _____. Figuring out what you are working on, what the true original dimensions were, what it's made out of, what "setup" or "jigs" you have to make to work on it is the majority of the work. Once you finish the first one, making an endless parade of them afterwards is easy. This happened to me when someone wanted their M1 garand gas tube repaired.
2. Tooling is expensive, no REALLY expensive. Some guys asked me to make some magazines for their 50 BMG rifles. Since those things were impossible to get and super expensive when they did rarely showed up, I took it on. I went to my neighbors old Cincinnati Toolmaster an made 14 1/2 of them out of welded up aluminum square stock. Why 14 and a HALF...............cause the cutting bits I bought wore out (I barely got #14 done), an that was half the cost of the whole setup. So each magazine cost (at the time) around $35 total to make. I only used up 3/4 of that aluminum stock, it's been sitting in the corner of my neighbors shop ever since. I got the aluminum at a scrap yard cheap, the spring stock was also cheap, an I made the followers out of stainless flat bar. Took me a weekend. I got paid $100 each and a case of Dandelion wine for my neighbor ^_^
Yet those were simple End Mill bits..............when they asked me to make something more complex that would require a bevy of tools, I had to say no because it would be cheaper for them to just buy them at the store. Unless they wanted me to make over 100 of that ___ they wanted.
3. Gun stuff always seems to be hardened steel, T7075 aluminum or 416, 7-14 or whatever god awful space age material they come up next. Those require high quality cutting bits, an minimum 3 phase machinery to work on......................an they also send downright lethal metal chips at you at velocities equal to a bullet cutting through you like a hot knife through butter. One guy asked me to fix his glock slide that broke in a minor area that could be tig welded up an milled back down. Even thou it was only 1/4" tiny bead, it sent over a dozen flaming hot "mini bullet" like chips at me that magically found every unprotected spot on my body. The cutting coolant........the coolant does nothing.
So next time you ask a guy to work on such stuff, realize you are kinda asking him to be strapped down an tortured. Modern machine Vertical or Horizontal milling centers have those things in a "booth". Someone at a manual mill is right there beside it one-two feet away.
4. It's not just "cutting it". A lot of parts are "heat treated and/or coated". So sure I can run a mill or lathe to cut a hunk of metal into what you want........O but I don't have a inductive furnace to heat treat it, or coat it with that magical stuff they sprinkle on it. Them funny Europeans would use a goofy form of "lacquer" or a primitive version of Teflon or god knows what. An without it........wouldn't work so now you have to "experiment" to find the right metal to do the job.
Someone wanted a bolt for their FN-49. So I used 416 stainless cause it was the only thing on the shelf I had. Worked great but then it was TOO hard an started to eat away at the receiver which was softer. Finding how to make a bolt out of metal exactly the same "Rockwell hardness" of the receiver was tedious. An then on top of that to make sure the "weight" was close to the original because every other metal varied in weight much differently an the FN-49 was super fussy (not exactly a reliable gun to begin with). Took 4 bolts to get one just right in terms of weight an rockwell hardness to match the receiver. Last bolt job I ever wanted to do.
5. It's a favor or labor of affection. Chances are if they are suffering through it for that dinky lil thing, they like you enough to do it. Otherwise it's all about the money at the usual $1653623636363/hr shop rate.
However making stuff on a MANUAL mill or lathe is tedious work, an 90% of it is problem solving. Most hobbiest machinists really are playing a "puzzle game" if you wish to consider it that way.
So to give a rough break down on what's really involved, here are some rule of thumbs to tell anyone who wants you to build some thing for them on your mill or lathe so they know what you have to go through & deal with.
1. If it takes a week to figure out how to do one thing............just to make one of ______, then it only takes another week to make a 1000 of hence _____. Figuring out what you are working on, what the true original dimensions were, what it's made out of, what "setup" or "jigs" you have to make to work on it is the majority of the work. Once you finish the first one, making an endless parade of them afterwards is easy. This happened to me when someone wanted their M1 garand gas tube repaired.
2. Tooling is expensive, no REALLY expensive. Some guys asked me to make some magazines for their 50 BMG rifles. Since those things were impossible to get and super expensive when they did rarely showed up, I took it on. I went to my neighbors old Cincinnati Toolmaster an made 14 1/2 of them out of welded up aluminum square stock. Why 14 and a HALF...............cause the cutting bits I bought wore out (I barely got #14 done), an that was half the cost of the whole setup. So each magazine cost (at the time) around $35 total to make. I only used up 3/4 of that aluminum stock, it's been sitting in the corner of my neighbors shop ever since. I got the aluminum at a scrap yard cheap, the spring stock was also cheap, an I made the followers out of stainless flat bar. Took me a weekend. I got paid $100 each and a case of Dandelion wine for my neighbor ^_^
Yet those were simple End Mill bits..............when they asked me to make something more complex that would require a bevy of tools, I had to say no because it would be cheaper for them to just buy them at the store. Unless they wanted me to make over 100 of that ___ they wanted.
3. Gun stuff always seems to be hardened steel, T7075 aluminum or 416, 7-14 or whatever god awful space age material they come up next. Those require high quality cutting bits, an minimum 3 phase machinery to work on......................an they also send downright lethal metal chips at you at velocities equal to a bullet cutting through you like a hot knife through butter. One guy asked me to fix his glock slide that broke in a minor area that could be tig welded up an milled back down. Even thou it was only 1/4" tiny bead, it sent over a dozen flaming hot "mini bullet" like chips at me that magically found every unprotected spot on my body. The cutting coolant........the coolant does nothing.
So next time you ask a guy to work on such stuff, realize you are kinda asking him to be strapped down an tortured. Modern machine Vertical or Horizontal milling centers have those things in a "booth". Someone at a manual mill is right there beside it one-two feet away.
4. It's not just "cutting it". A lot of parts are "heat treated and/or coated". So sure I can run a mill or lathe to cut a hunk of metal into what you want........O but I don't have a inductive furnace to heat treat it, or coat it with that magical stuff they sprinkle on it. Them funny Europeans would use a goofy form of "lacquer" or a primitive version of Teflon or god knows what. An without it........wouldn't work so now you have to "experiment" to find the right metal to do the job.
Someone wanted a bolt for their FN-49. So I used 416 stainless cause it was the only thing on the shelf I had. Worked great but then it was TOO hard an started to eat away at the receiver which was softer. Finding how to make a bolt out of metal exactly the same "Rockwell hardness" of the receiver was tedious. An then on top of that to make sure the "weight" was close to the original because every other metal varied in weight much differently an the FN-49 was super fussy (not exactly a reliable gun to begin with). Took 4 bolts to get one just right in terms of weight an rockwell hardness to match the receiver. Last bolt job I ever wanted to do.
5. It's a favor or labor of affection. Chances are if they are suffering through it for that dinky lil thing, they like you enough to do it. Otherwise it's all about the money at the usual $1653623636363/hr shop rate.
