The Newell .45 cal front loader

BowtownBlade said:
This has to feel so good to see your ideas and work coming together like this. Doing two WIP you gotta be busy.
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I do love this job.
So far its been easy. The real trick is coming soon enough and thats to put a hammer, trigger, main spring, push rod, thickness shims and trigger tension spring all inside this hollow frame. :eek: Its not a gun until then but if I can do it yea!
 
Now comes the fun part. I need to figure out what the hammer and trigger will exactly look like. It is trial and error and time consuming. I'm using mylar and drawing the parts onto it. Its nice because it can be erased and redrawn a hundred times making small changes until I get the hammer and trigger the correct shape to work together. Its clear too so I can rotate the hammer and see where it starts, stops, contacts, etc. Same with the trigger.
Part of the trouble is the small size so I enlarged the tracing of the frame to 125% so I can see it better. After the drawings are exact I will reduce it back to 100% (original size) and make some copies to glue on the O-1 steel and cut out the parts on the band saw. More on that when the time comes.

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These two pictures are taken early in the day and dont show the final drawings of the two parts. I'll show you what I come up with next time. The final parts show a safety on the hammer. I also repositioned the pivots to centralize them in the opening. Like I said its trial and error and can take hours but I like this method. A much better way would be a cad program but that would require me to learn how to use it.
 
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I think this is why computers were made, to do this kind of work for people. I doubt very many people can do what your doing here Bruce with the drawings, enlarging scale etc, its probably a dying art for the people that do it all by hand.
 
BowtownBlade said:
I think this is why computers were made, to do this kind of work for people. I doubt very many people can do what your doing here Bruce with the drawings, enlarging scale etc, its probably a dying art for the people that do it all by hand.
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This is the only way I know how. In the past I would actually cut each piece out of paper and pin them down so I'm happy to learn about this clear mylar. Its really helpful.
 
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Like always, I love your work Bruce! This one is absolutely fascinating to watch come together... Wish I could watch in person!
 
As promised I have the hammer and trigger figured out. The hammer has a half **** safty now.
These are drawn on mylar and are blown up to 125% of their actual size so now I need to reduce them back to 100% and photocopy them. I will cut and glue the paper copy to precision ground O-1 steel and drill my pivot holes first and cut the parts out on my bandsaw.

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Bruce Bump said:
Thanks amcardon. You could drop by anytime. Where do you live?
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I'm in Portland. I actually sent you an email a couple months back (from a similar email address as my username) and would LOVE to come by if Chiropractic school wasn't so stinkin' intense!
 
Thanks everybody for checking out this WIP. Now that the fund raiser sub hilt is finished I'm back on this pistol. I made some progress on the damascus over the weekend. There will be just a couple cover plates of damascus on this gun but there will be a damascus bowie that goes with the pistol as a "pistol and bowie" set. Both will have the same grip material and engraving and will be stored in a black walnut custom made box. I have a feeling this thread will be very long if I put the entire WIP on here. Now that I have practically unlimited photobucket space I should go for it.
 
ddavelarsen said:
+1 on the going for it. :D

Is that the damascus in the Bruce Bump photo thread?
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No, our friends Dana and Sandy Hackney came up for the weekend and Dana made that one. I started a "W" pattern for this bowie. Dana finished his in the same amount of time I took to just go with 4 layers. His is a 300 layer laminate with the Texas Wind printed into it. His is basically the same pattern as the Tombstone Dagger. I'm not sure how to treat my "W"s yet. I still need to keep folding. One reason its taking so long is after I draw out I cut in half and reweld. Dana can draw his out and cut into 4 pieces and stack them
 
These WIP threads of yours are all awesome, can't wait to see more progress :)

Great work :)
 
I'm working on the hammer and trigger finally. No more procrastinating. I drilled the pivot hole and began cutting the hammer out on the bandsaw.

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