Castable DLT

[rl180]

wow..  stunning work.  you make me want to toss my DLT in the trash   LOL

[Tig70[TK]]

wow.. stunning work. you make me want to toss my DLT in the trash LOL

Yeah rich just thought I'd show you how to work plastics , maybe you can try a bit harder  

Edited December 1, 2016 by Tig70

[Tig70[TK]]

Finished the small plate on the ejector port , Had to make this out of metal as I could'nt see how else to get the shape into it , a bit of metal work ! thats something I dont do alot of , also used a bit of filler to smooth out some of the marks from dressing it into shape and the rivets are actually holding the little angle bracket on . Quite pleased with that .

 

 

 

 

[kman[TK]]

Then realised I need to finish the part on the main gun so made the catch on the end of the feed cover .Managed to get it down to 2.5mm or 3/32ths" thick but it starts getting a bit fragile to machine .Tried using a knurling tool on a spare bit of wood to cut pattern in the side but it only compressed the wood with very little pattern . So after a couple of hours and a steady hand cut them in by hand with a small triangular file ,its a bit wider gauge than the oringinal but considering hand cut pretty happy.

 

 

 

 

 

That hand-cut knurling is UNREAL.  Stunning work so far!

 

Following this.

[rl180]

Agreed, the hand-cut knurling is really nice.  If you have some time, can you post some stuff on how you do it as well?  Picture of the tools, etc.  Your pictures of the finished work is awesome... pictures of how you got there would be great too.

[Tig70[TK]]

Agreed, the hand-cut knurling is really nice.  If you have some time, can you post some stuff on how you do it as well?  Picture of the tools, etc.  Your pictures of the finished work is awesome... pictures of how you got there would be great too.

Yeah will do Rich when I get a spare hour or so ,and Cheers Kalani

Today little job is T Tracks , decided to make my own, thought I should or its not my build , funny bit is I made some excatly the same a couple of months ago for a mate who's made a Rouge One E11 which he's cast , if i'd thought about it should have made them at the same time

General idea seems that all the T Tracks are of the same or very similar size so made my 11mmx 8mm with centre fin 4mm thick . Looking at the ref pics of the DLT it looks like the T tracks are rubber as they sag a tiny bit over the cooling holes in the barrel , and are very thin on the edge of the track , so had to comprimise on this as getting the wood that thin is near impossible , also got to be able to cast it as well, Iv'e made them over lenght so once Iv'e got my final lenghts will cut them and put the notch for the wire as well ,

 

[rl180]

Looks really good.  Great job.   Did you make a custom cutting die -- like used for custom molding work?

 

I seem to recall old flame threads (Marc, Roy, Gino)  about which shapes, dimensions, etc of t-tracks were accurate and pretty sure they stated it was not rubber.  It was a hard plastic track if I recall used in storm-doors/windows in England.  I tried to find the thread... but couldn't find anything useful.  Just arguments.

[Tig70[TK]]

Rich these T tracks are wood I've still yet to mould them . I can believe there are lots of ideas on what's accurate , but it seems there is no 100 percent correct answer , just lots of theories . Has anyone ever seen the real thing ?

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

Nice work, detailing looks great

[rl180]

I know they are wood...  I was wondering if you made a cutting die to get that shape... They look too perfect for a table saw / router.

 

As to seeing the real thing, that was part of the debate.  I read the threads years after it happened, but from what I recall Gino claimed he handled the real props. And thus his claims that his T tracks are most accurate.  Larger part of the debate was around lack of evidence to such claims. 

 

I assume you've seen these already, but for other reading... comparison photos:

http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/gallery/image/3273-ccd66b35-87a7-47b2-baf3-9475b27b71a7-zpsglcfsgxq/

http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/29118-alternate-t-track-supplier/

[Tig70[TK]]

Yeah sorry Rich not heard of cutting die so assumed you thought these were resin , these were machined through a router table . Not seen these post with comparable T track , so down to personal appinion then . In a way it's quite funny we all strive to make this things as screen accurate as possible , but more than 2 feet away and you wouldn't be able to tell between any of them

[Tig70[TK]]

Finished making front sight and what I thought was the smaller sight, but after making it and the sight mount the same as the original I realised its to stop the flash surpresser from undoing as its impossible to lift it up once the locating pin is fitted .I've again not drilled the locating pins as this will be done once cast .

 

 

 

 

 

 

After chatting to Rich I decided to post a few pics of how I machine some of these parts , as it may be help to someone else .

Im using my hollow chisel morticer, I remove the reducer bush and use a router extention tool in the chuck to hold the router tool . with this set up I've got a basic milling machine but it does allow me to machine nearly any shape , and even when there's a really small as these sight parts you can still hold them in clamp with some addtional packers ,as it would be very tricky to try to route bits this small , also mean you can get pretty acurate with sizing bits . Here i've showen how I machined a 2mm slot in the bottom of the bi pod mount to take the little plate that fit under the barrel , as it round it would be near impossible or very differicult  to just use the router or even a router table .Hope this may help

 

 

Edited December 20, 2016 by Tig70

[rl180]

New parts looks excellent!  

 

Thanks for posting pictures of your setup.  I had no idea what a "hollow chisel morticer" was... had to google and watch some youtube videos of them in action.  That is an excellent tool for projects like this.   Looks like you can lock down your wood and then precisely move the platform with your various wheels.  These adjustment wheels seem to be lacking from any entry level versions.  So that is a pricey toy you got there!

[Tig70[TK]]

It's something I've had for many years now as I'm a builder and we sometimes have to make one off specials window and doors . I have a mate how has milling machine I've used before for other projects ,which is where I got the idea for using my Mortiser , but now I worked out how to make it work I'll be using it a lot more, but it still has its limitation . But having most joinery tools it certainly makes life easier making this parts .

[Tig70[TK]]

Had a bad idea over Cristmas and decided to make the Bi Pod fully working , OMG what a lot of work and a total nightmare; this was by far the most difficult part I've made so far on this project .Total Respect to the guys who have made working Bi Pods .

Anyway here is how far I've got .As you can see needed a bit of two pack filler when the part jump out my vice halfway through machining  , beauty of wood you can allways make good on your c*** ups.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Bulldog44[TK]]

Bipod looks awesome as with the rest of your build. Super work!

[rl180]

Awesome work on the bi-pods.  Let's see you make a spring out of wood next to expand them. 

[Tig70[TK]]

Made the rest of the Bipod parts now and it all seems to work well ,just waiting on some torsion spring to hold open the pod and hold it up on the clip on the underside of the barrel .Your right cant make them out of wood  Used a mates lathe to make the pivot pin this will be drilled and I've got some split pins to secure with . I've also work out that the Bipod will be able to be moved to the centre mounting point aswell as the two collars below the rear sight have the same diameter grooves as the front mounting point ,and by making the the two small retaining plates that are screwed too the bottom of the barrel removable ,the bipod can be fitted in each position . some of the machining will have to be done once cast but it should be all be fully movable  .
There is one part that I can see I will need to make a four part mould to be able to get it .we will see  :? .also added the rivet to the legs , nearly forgot

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also while making these parts decieded to make the parts for a fixed bipod as not everyone will want a full working pod , these are two parts just put together but the part that fits into the barrel grove will be used for both version of pod .still need to give all these parts a few more coats of paint yet

 

 

 

 

[jcalus]

Fantastic work!

 

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

[Tig70[TK]]

Hi Everyone I've have now finished making and painting the last of the parts .

 

 

All the parts laid out now I just have to mould and cast all these bits

 

I've also made a start on all the barrel pipe thats got to be drilled

 

[Griffin-X[TK]]

Wow, awesome work here!!

[rl180]

Inspired as usual!  Are we getting close to seeing what the casts look like?

[Tig70[TK]]

Hi Rich .That's what's next on the to do list ,just waiting for the silicone and resin to turn up

[Tig70[TK]]

Ok its not much but had a chance to start making moulds ,so picked some quite easy parts to start with .Iv'e spent a bit of time this weekend making a few more moulds but as the silocone takes 24Hr to cure its not going to be quick job , but its been six months now so another few weeks wont make a lot of difference . here are the centre bipod mounts and one of the front mount. Iv'e decided to used black resin as Iv'e seen some cast DLTs and when the paint wears or gets chipped you can see the cream resin underneath ,Im hoping this wont be a problem with the black resin.

 

 

 

also spent a few hours drilling holes in all the barrel sections . 520 holes later finished the main barrel section only another 80 to go

 

[rl180]

They look pretty clean, did you have to do much to them after removal from the mould?