BCRider
Member
Today seems to be the day for fiddly jobs. I got all inspired to make up the new front sights for the .44 and .36.
The brass rod is 3/16 round that I've had for ages. But I've seen such rod at Home Depot as well.
I still don't have my lathe set up so the 1/8 size stubs were turned down in my hand drill using a small flat file with a safe edge. It's easier than it sounds.
The holes in the barrels were drilled out from the slightly smaller metric size to 1/8 to the original depth. I then squared up the bottom with a flat ended drill bit that was custom sharpened by eyeball. It's easier than it sounds as long as you have a keen eye or powerful reading glasses...
The first picture shows all the bits for the .36 laying ready for soldering. The .44 stub is already soldered in place. The second picture shows the hi tech soldering jig that I spent many hours milling from billet....
Sharp eyes may note the silvery ring around the hole in the .36 barrel. I actually used one stub as a lapping form with some fine compound to lap the blueing away. Turns out I didn't need to bother. The flux I'm using seems to do a fine job of removing the blueing or the solder is quite happy to stick to it just fine. I ended up with a slight fillet on the low side of the soldering job. So now I've got a little cleanup and some blue touching to do.
I'll post up another picture of the finished blades once they are done.
The idea of using the larger size rod is to
The brass rod is 3/16 round that I've had for ages. But I've seen such rod at Home Depot as well.
I still don't have my lathe set up so the 1/8 size stubs were turned down in my hand drill using a small flat file with a safe edge. It's easier than it sounds.
The holes in the barrels were drilled out from the slightly smaller metric size to 1/8 to the original depth. I then squared up the bottom with a flat ended drill bit that was custom sharpened by eyeball. It's easier than it sounds as long as you have a keen eye or powerful reading glasses...
The first picture shows all the bits for the .36 laying ready for soldering. The .44 stub is already soldered in place. The second picture shows the hi tech soldering jig that I spent many hours milling from billet....
Sharp eyes may note the silvery ring around the hole in the .36 barrel. I actually used one stub as a lapping form with some fine compound to lap the blueing away. Turns out I didn't need to bother. The flux I'm using seems to do a fine job of removing the blueing or the solder is quite happy to stick to it just fine. I ended up with a slight fillet on the low side of the soldering job. So now I've got a little cleanup and some blue touching to do.
I'll post up another picture of the finished blades once they are done.
The idea of using the larger size rod is to
