The Chopper Compendium

I made some slight progress on the receiver. Got the magazine slot finished. Magazine fits perfectly. I'm relieved about that because now I'm even more confident about the drawings.

I was planning on making the receiver (frame) then doing the slide, but now I think I'll work on them both as time permits. I picked up a couple pieces of 420 SS. If I screw up I'll have enough material to start over. The question is whether or not I'll tell you all. Probably, I'm dumb that way.

Couple photos with the 45 ACP. magazine in the new receiver. If you look close you can see the magazine in both photos.

I just picked up a ton of work so it looks like this project will be sitting for a while. At least it's started now.

So I picked up the internal parts for the 1911. Some of them I could make, but seems dumb to spend a day or two making up a trigger that only costs a few bucks. Yes, I do see the irony in that of course. Some might say spending months making pieces for a gun that I can easily buy complete (and already own)is kinda dumb, but I need to be realistic about this project. Gary gave some good advise in that you need to make some kind of progress every day. I know first hand that projects go stale after a while.

You could have lied to me and told me you made those!!

I would have belived you!!!

Haha, well....I didn't make the springs.

My original plan was to make most of the parts. I started thinking that it would never get finished if I did that.

Had some time today to get some work done on this. Decided to cnc the right side first, starting with all the holes. Once those were in correctly I cut the shape of the pistol. Tomorrow I'll flip it over and do the left side. Better pics tomorrow.

There is a small under cut on the right side and a larger one on the left. I made up a specialty cutter by grinding down a 1/4 hss endmill. This one is for the left side.

The scratches on the body aren't as bad as they look and will buff out later.

Looking good! Are you going to finish the stair-stepping by hand?

rudog wrote:Looking good! Are you going to finish the stair-stepping by hand?

Heck no. the magical CNC.

Well the easy part is done. It looks like it's 80% done but in reality it's probably closer to 60%. I've still got several set ups on the CNC plus EDM work to do. I put in a couple trickey undercuts that went pretty well. I still could totally screw it up, but so far so good.

I squared up and ground the SS for the slide.

Real work next week so it could be quite a while before I get back to the frame (receiver)

I'm loving this project, nice to see the progress. And thats a pile of parts up above,
would take forever to make those. Good choice buying the kit.

Thanks. Kinda seems like a transmission. Been using it for a long time but never studied exactly how it works or how to disassemble every single piece. Lots of good youtube videos on assembling a 1911.

Indian Mark wrote:Thanks. Kinda seems like a transmission. Been using it for a long time but never studied exactly how it works or how to disassemble every single piece. Lots of good youtube videos on assembling a 1911.

Yep, and a lot on completing an 80% lower receiver.

That's nice. Beautiful work.

railroad bob wrote:
Yep, and a lot on completing an 80% lower receiver.

Hmmm...hadn't thought about looking for that. Thanks.

rudog wrote:That's nice. Beautiful work.

Thanks, We'll know for sure if the bullet comes out the way it's supposed to. At this point it's still a crap shoot.

Picked up a set of black pearl grips. My plan is to black anodize the receiver and polish the stainless steel slide.
It'll still be quite a while before I'm able to work on it again. I've got a ton of "real" work in the shop. Not complaining!
I also ordered the tap for the grip screw inserts.