I figured I would share a little of what I've been working on this summer in my spare time.
Found a Harbor Freight mill, model 40939, fairly cheap locally with tools and a few extras. It worked for a day before I started converting it to CNC. Have most of the bugs worked out and have backlash down to .005 on the x, .002 on the y, and less than .001 on the Z. With the software compensating it does a pretty good job of keeping the backlash to near 0.
Downloaded a g-code example of some 1911 grips and after several attempts and issues I finally have my first set of 1911 grips.
This pic is of a pine board in the mill. Things were looking great until it went off by about .5 inch on the y axis. Turned out to be the motor side pulley had come loose. One of those "I'll put thread lock on it later. When it comes loose and causes a problem later".
Got all the set screws re-torqued, lock-tited, and a piece of red oak from Lowes.
Set the mill to cut the grip out with just a few thousandths left so it would stay put will machining. The g-code I downloaded has it set to drill the holes after it cuts the perimeter of the grip. If it were to cut all the way through then the grip would fall out and the holes wouldn't get done. I've since fixed that problem. The light shows how thin the remaining wood is around the sides yet holds it pretty well.
And the finished set (still need to cut the holes through on the one).
Still have a lot of tweaking to do on the G-code. I'm getting better with AutoCAD as well so maybe I could write my out code soon from scratch. I've got several programs where I made an action inlet from scratch for a Savage but haven't gotten the nerve to try them on a real stock yet. Just 4x4's for testing.
And I already know these are technically called stocks but I like to call them grips to piss of those that call them stocks.
Mike
Found a Harbor Freight mill, model 40939, fairly cheap locally with tools and a few extras. It worked for a day before I started converting it to CNC. Have most of the bugs worked out and have backlash down to .005 on the x, .002 on the y, and less than .001 on the Z. With the software compensating it does a pretty good job of keeping the backlash to near 0.
Downloaded a g-code example of some 1911 grips and after several attempts and issues I finally have my first set of 1911 grips.
This pic is of a pine board in the mill. Things were looking great until it went off by about .5 inch on the y axis. Turned out to be the motor side pulley had come loose. One of those "I'll put thread lock on it later. When it comes loose and causes a problem later".
Got all the set screws re-torqued, lock-tited, and a piece of red oak from Lowes.
Set the mill to cut the grip out with just a few thousandths left so it would stay put will machining. The g-code I downloaded has it set to drill the holes after it cuts the perimeter of the grip. If it were to cut all the way through then the grip would fall out and the holes wouldn't get done. I've since fixed that problem. The light shows how thin the remaining wood is around the sides yet holds it pretty well.
And the finished set (still need to cut the holes through on the one).
Still have a lot of tweaking to do on the G-code. I'm getting better with AutoCAD as well so maybe I could write my out code soon from scratch. I've got several programs where I made an action inlet from scratch for a Savage but haven't gotten the nerve to try them on a real stock yet. Just 4x4's for testing.
And I already know these are technically called stocks but I like to call them grips to piss of those that call them stocks.
Mike
