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Barrel in letting by machine
- Thread starter dant
- Start date
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The bbl is used as a pattern and is "sunk" into Bondo and when hardened and removed, the exact shape in the "Bondo" is used to duplicate the bbl inlet. Fred Miller can also duplicate butt stock shapes from the many patterns he has....Fred
Does anyone know if you can use each of the side flats of the barrel as a guide to cut out a pattern in wood and then use the pattern to route out the side flats? You would still have to control depth, but I think that you could use the router to remove wood down to a minimum depth and then deepen the side flats as necessary.
if yo make fixture with a flat top for the router to slide on two simple fences on either side of the stock will do just fine.
make what is essentially a table with a space in the top for the stock to come through and a cradle to hold/clamp the stock flush to the table top. then by knowing the width of your router's plate and the diameter of the router bit, a fence on each side can be set in place on the table top to act as a guide for the router to cut the channel.
it is best and easiest done when the blank is still square and flat sidded...clamping is easier to rig up. if you use a 45 degree chamfer bit, the angled flats and the bottom will be done as you sink the bit into the blank.
if you have the inkling and the knowledge to do it, a single fence that follows the profile on a swamped barrel can be made to inlet the sides of the channel by first routing the fence using the barrel as a template to route the swamped profile on the face of the fence. then, by anchoring the profiled fence down to the table top on the same side of the channel you want to cut, you can do one side at a time and be able to make minute adjustments to the blank in the clamp with shims to get the fit perfect.
again, the key to having it come out accuratly, is to cut the channel while the stock blank is slab sided, using the very top of the blank as the top of your forearm. do any cleaning up and/or straightening of the top so it's just about down to finished condition before you start, so that you have good surfaces to clamp to and index off of. don't forget to cut the entire channel deep enough to leave the hump at the breech end of the channel where the stock kicks up to the height of the barrel top.
i would build th system and then test it on a glued up soft wood blank first to de-bug the fixture and design. it might take a while to do, but if you build guns more than just every once in a while it might be worth doing and if you already have a router, the cost of the fixture wouldn't be much at all.
make what is essentially a table with a space in the top for the stock to come through and a cradle to hold/clamp the stock flush to the table top. then by knowing the width of your router's plate and the diameter of the router bit, a fence on each side can be set in place on the table top to act as a guide for the router to cut the channel.
it is best and easiest done when the blank is still square and flat sidded...clamping is easier to rig up. if you use a 45 degree chamfer bit, the angled flats and the bottom will be done as you sink the bit into the blank.
if you have the inkling and the knowledge to do it, a single fence that follows the profile on a swamped barrel can be made to inlet the sides of the channel by first routing the fence using the barrel as a template to route the swamped profile on the face of the fence. then, by anchoring the profiled fence down to the table top on the same side of the channel you want to cut, you can do one side at a time and be able to make minute adjustments to the blank in the clamp with shims to get the fit perfect.
again, the key to having it come out accuratly, is to cut the channel while the stock blank is slab sided, using the very top of the blank as the top of your forearm. do any cleaning up and/or straightening of the top so it's just about down to finished condition before you start, so that you have good surfaces to clamp to and index off of. don't forget to cut the entire channel deep enough to leave the hump at the breech end of the channel where the stock kicks up to the height of the barrel top.
i would build th system and then test it on a glued up soft wood blank first to de-bug the fixture and design. it might take a while to do, but if you build guns more than just every once in a while it might be worth doing and if you already have a router, the cost of the fixture wouldn't be much at all.
ohio ramrod
75 Cal.
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Good looking tool. You can also inlet the stock on a table saw for straight barrels using a molding cutter with a 45 degree point ground flat on the tip, cleared to cut on the end. Either method cuts a nice channel needing only hand work at the breech.
I've done several stocks on a Bridgeport. It's real fast. Swamped bbl. would be easy on the CNC as the Z-axis would put in the profile. I have thought of building a dedicated inleting machine out of a high speed CNC I have and no longer use. Or you could mount a high speed router to the backside of a Bridgeport turret. They used to sell a shaper attachement that went there years ago.
We have a Shopbot CNC router in our lab that is plenty accurate enough to inlet barrels and I have, on occasion, done them this way. For this, and high quality manual duplicating machines, you are talking thousands of dollars in investment plus a lot of time spent learning the nuances of the equipment. In my opinion, your better off sending the work out or doing it by hand unless you want to get into high volume work. Like was mentioned above you can also utilize some simple power tools like router, drill press, or milling machine, to do a lot of work and save time.
i actually do mine on a drillpress that is from a patternmaker's shop. it's very old and heavy duty the collum is 6-3/4 inch diameter! it's almost a light duty milling machine and i have done aluminum, brass and some mild steel. for the steel, if the cuts i need are just small and short, it does fine with a four flute end mill, for wood, just hog away!. it has a cross slide that travels about six inches so it takes a couple set ups to do a barrel chanel, but i can get almost perfect results if i take my time.
i run it at 3200 rpm and use a typical 3/4 inch core box bit for a router on the centerfire stocks i've done, for my vincent i'll use a 45 deg. chamfer bit.
i run it at 3200 rpm and use a typical 3/4 inch core box bit for a router on the centerfire stocks i've done, for my vincent i'll use a 45 deg. chamfer bit.
as for the pro's, i would think they either use thier knee mills or send the wood out to someone with a duplicator. as said, the time savings is worth the cost in thier situation. us wannabes don't have to get paid for our labor :grin:
