The Down Range Forum
Member Section => Down Range Cafe => Topic started by: alfsauve on January 15, 2023, 03:34:18 PM
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My sons went together to give me a 3D printer. Had always wanted to play with one but hesitated to spend the money. I mean there are so many guns and so much ammo I NEED.
It’s a Ender 3 Pro, a middle of the line consumer model. First thing I did was order a Home Depot base cabinet. It was cheaper in red so it’s jazzed ups the electronics project area. I also ordered the 10Watt CO2 laser head. Creality, the manufacturer, is a bunch short in the instructions area. Their support forums are also useless. I pity the non-tech trying to make sense of this. Much trial and error. Finally found 2 Facebook support groups I’m “cooking with gas now.” The laser software has a lot more how-to instructions, but still takes some tinkering.
Don’t know if I’ll try printing a gun other than maybe a rubber band one I saw that has “magazines”.
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Cool gift. Maybe you can print up some neat ammo holders? Maybe various parts holders for the pistols you use at competitions? Everything tailored to your exacting requirements!
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One of the things I'm not good at it 3D design software. I'm at the mercy, right now of what other people have done. I've printed some plastic project boxes and expanded them to the exact size I needed. I probably need to take a 3D class at the local Univ.
I've printed some very neat 3D designs. UGA BullDawg. A miniture of Sanford Stadium (UGA). Some roses and a rather pretty stylistic vase that resembles a miniture Christmas tree.
At last weeks Steel Challenge a .22lr competitor had a table top holder for his magazines that he had designed in such a way so the magazine took on different heights depending on how many rounds were left in them. He could readily tell which ones where full or not.
With the laser I've been practicing, trying out, the various settings for wood and I've manage to etch guidelines on my metal protective plate, which is very useful in lining things up.
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More pictures to follow, but here's a etching sample. Z = height of the laser, Sp is the speed the laser mover in mm/sec. and Pwr is % power of the 10W laser.
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Alf... get good with setting up lettering with the laser engraver, then get one powerful enough to engrave 7075-T6... in 3 months there will be a portion of the 20 to 40 million braced AR owners wanting to register without paying the $200 tax stamp as an SBR, and will need the trust information engraved on the lower...
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I have a prusa. I probably make 1 or 2 doodads a month.
Its about 50/50 rather I design it or I get it off line. Just the simple organizational stuff I have built for the garage/bow/guns is crazy. Stuff that would take me hours to hand fab out of wood. Is mins to draw up in cad and then walk away.
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Below you'll see pictures of the plastic boxes. Most used just as risers for panel mounter meters and USB ports to use them as surface mounted. I didn't designed the boxes, just got them off Thingverse and sized them to fit my needs. There's a collection of "fun" stuff I printed and a picture of my setup with the laser head installed. One thing I did (not well) was to score lines on my laser base plate to provide guidance when placing materials to be burned.
And yes, that my AN-6, Assault Natural gas 6 burner stove in the background.
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I'm on a reloading kick. Got 5,000 X-Treme bullets and am stocking up for 9mm Steel Challenge, both ISR and PPCI, as well as IDPA .38spl. All using 147gr plated bullets. My 9mm regimen is to size/de-prime the brass, then run them through the tumbler, chamber check, finish reloading. (I need to chamber check the brass because in my 35# of various and sundry brass are a significant number where the base has been blown out some. It's too far down to resize with normal dies so I need to eliminate them before I waste powder, primer and time on them.) I use crushed walnut hulls and it can be a pain separating them from the brass. I've tired the big hand crank separator and it was just too big and messy. I've also tried the perrarated top that comes with the tumbler but it too is messy and heavy.
<INSERT LIGHT BULB IMAGE HERE>
I'll print my on sieve/separator to my specs. A great first time project to design in TinyCAD. I probably did it wrong with a box, a hole and then 46 little cylinder holes but it printed well. No sooner than the print was under way than Version II was born. Slots instead of holes. A little bigger also. When you shake it the slots help tumble the brass which tends to be base heavy.
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I load my .458 Socom by hand. Weighting each charge. (Throw back to when I began reloading with a single stage press.) I use to do the same with the .357 Max back in my IHMSA days.
To make getting the powder into the case easier I cut off a .308Win case and glued it to a small funnel. This has worked okay, especially consider I don't load more than about 20 rounds a year. However, I've had the idea for a special funnel that would have a sleeve over the outside of the case to hold the funnel steady. With every 3D design program I've tried out this would be the "test" object. Well with TinkerCad, it was pretty easy to do, though TC has it's limitations. e.g., cylindrical objects are multi-faceted rather than truely round, but hey I designed and printed. Cool.
Here's pictures of the older funnel and the new 3D, state of the art one. The second picture shows the sleeve before I glued it in place. TinkerCad doesn't appear to have "layers" or the ability to prioritize "voids" over "solids". I've since found a "ring" object that I could have used to do this all in one piece, but project already completed.
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The loading block holds the case and the case holds the funnel. I like it. 👍
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The loading block holds the case and the case holds the funnel. I like it. 👍
And those are my Flambeau loading blocks which they don’t make any more and are about the most perfect blocks ever.
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And those are my Flambeau loading blocks which they don’t make any more and are about the most perfect blocks ever.
It looks like you'll have to make more when they're gone.
My gun cleaning kit is a Flambeau tackle box, or some kind of box with a removable tray. The tray holds a lot of brushes and other small stuff, and bottles of oil and Hoppe's No 9 fit in the bottom with a variety of patches. If I buy another box I'm getting a bigger one next time. It's well built and has lasted many years.
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I still dabble in special effects for theatre and I have a client that I'm working on a life size Plinko board for Halloween. Instead of ping-pong balls it will feature snack size candy. I'm pretty much done with design and wanted a final signoff to spend the money. See drawing below.
The client unfortunately isn't great with looking at 2D drawings and visualizing the finished product.
Wait. PING-LIGHT BULB. I have a 3D design program (Tinker CAD) and a 3D printer. The world is my oyster. How about a 3D model to show the client.
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I still dabble in special effects for theatre and I have a client that I'm working on a life size Plinko board for Halloween. Instead of ping-pong balls it will feature snack size candy. I'm pretty much done with design and wanted a final signoff to spend the money. See drawing below.
The client unfortunately isn't great with looking at 2D drawings and visualizing the finished product.
Wait. PING-LIGHT BULB. I have a 3D design program (Tinker CAD) and a 3D printer. The world is my oyster. How about a 3D model to show the client.
Tell them it looks like that. but bigger. Hopefully they understand that.
Suddenly, the Spinal Tap movie comes to mind. One of the guys in the band drew the plan for a Stonehenge model for the song Stonehenge, and someone built it. The size of a model.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg5Ovdu6bOE
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Gun related printing.
I've learned more about TinkerCAD and how to manipulate the models. So I redid the .458S funnel as a one piece project. And I learned how to smooth out the sides of curved objects. Picture below with the 2-piece gray one and the newer, smoother 1-piece one.
What are those little pieces in the picture you ask. Ah Ha. Once a month at my IDPA club we shoot a low light stage. I suck at holding a light and a revolver. And since I've got the Perfomance Center, slab sided 686 model, there's no good way to attach a light. Options: 1) Get a regular full, rounded underlug model and have it machined for a short rail to hold a light under the barrel. 2) Sew a magnet into a cap and put a flash light there once the start signal sounds. Quicker than clipping it on the cap. Or 3) Find a way to attach a light to the butt.
1) Under consideration, but I need it for 3/18's Belton, SC match held at night. This isn't cheap when you throw in a custom holster.
2) Done that. Fall back option.
3) Ah HA! So those little pieces are a saddle to hold the flash light straight against the butt. Second picture you can just see it between the light and grip. Yes I had to severely cut down the grip, I have several spare grips-which for revolver shooters they multiply almost as fast as holsters.
If you're curious I included shots of the TinkerCAD creation. The gray areas are "holes". I call them Black Holes because anything inside just disappears. I started with a solid block, the added the "holes" to form the shape. The last picture show the object "group" or compressed so the "holes" turn into non-magical voids.
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Follow up on the legality of this for IDPA.
I had the Area Coordinator run this up to national. Turns out there is a 5" rule for grips in the Revolver Division. Measured from the bottom of the hammer slot the grip can't be longer than 5". National decided any light attached to the bottom would be included as part of the grip. There is a width and depth limit, but there's no clear instruction on how to measure those. I may substitute a Fenix R18 or a OLight Baton for the Streamlight. They are A L M O S T legal length.
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Just Gorilla tape the light to the barrel, problem solved.
Contact me for more pro-like shooting tips!
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Just Gorilla tape the light to the barrel, problem solved.
Contact me for more pro-like shooting tips!
Either way sounds like a weiner winner for home-defense use too. If it works, ir works,
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So I did Belton Double Trouble night match. Won 1st Place in Sharp Shooter Revolver. Below is a picture of the revolver with the OLight Baton. ~1,000 lumens. My area coordinator wondered how much time shooting at night adds to the scores. Since this was a double match, shot once in daylight, then repeated after dark, I compared the ~50 or so shooters who shot the same division in both matches. Turns out it adds about 15% to the scores, overall. Probably more if these were new stages. And of course I don't have a way to figure out how much fatigue figures into this. Two 9 stage matches in one day starting at 12:30pm and ending about 11:45pm.
First, weapons mounted light is definitely the way to go for low light. Secondly, I've decided not to shoot revolver in our local weekly match which has 1 low light stage each month. I'm going for the BUG division. Had to get a second P365 with the 3.1" barrel since my XL version is too long, but half inch. Then, oh duh, why didn't I try our my OLight BALDr green laser w/ light BEFORE I bought another P365? Turns out those little slots on P365 grip aren't 1913 (picatinny) spec!!!
Wait, I HAVE A 3D PRINTER. World Peace is attainable. Someone on ThingVerse already has conquered this problem. Their solution is very elegant and slim. By using the "clamping" power of the picatinny device to hold the adapter onto the grip. Works like a charm. Seen below is the first iteration which was printed with whatever filament I had on the printer, PLA in dark green. I'm will reprint it and some extras for friends in Tough PLA, which is harder and has more resliance than regular. Nylon filament would be ideal but at $70+ a roll, compared to $20 for regular PLA I will wait to see how Tough holds up. Unless I come up with another justification for Nylon.
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I've noticed over the years a lot of rails on pistols aren't Picatinny rails. Some have the right external dimensions but only one slot, while others are proprietary rails. Someone should make a miniature version of an ARCA rail, narrow enough to fit any mid-size pistol dust-cover. A half-size Picatinny rail, done in metric dimensions, would be good too. That seems like an even better idea to me. Updating the Picatinny rail after 110 years to Picatinny Version 2.0, or PicII, for smaller objects. If a major player did it, the whole industry might see what a great idea it is and standardize it.
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100 rounds of Win 115gr through my P365 with the O-light laser/light and it's still tight and alignment of the laser didn't change.
Onward now. EGADS, I've become such a gamer. Not on Les's level but still I'm a shadow of my former go-lucky self.
With the new P365, and the weapon mounted light, the next problem is how to get empty magazines to eject quickly without aid. IDPA BUG divisions allows you to add up to 1.5oz base pads, which I've ordered. My next idea was to glue small tungston rods to the floor plate for added weight, however, not that anybody would check, it's illegal to add weight for weight's sake. But I got thinking if I could get the mag spring a little tighter so that the follower pushed against the slide a little bit more to make ejection quicker and easier. Remember these are 10 round mags but IDPA only allow 6 rounds in BUG. WAIT! Hold the presses! I have a 3D printer.
Designed a new floor plate that takes up about 20mm or about the same as 2 rounds. And Oh Yeah. An empty mag jumps out of the gun and this is with a plastic base plate wait until I add the 1oz base plates. Pictured below is the original SIG floor plate and my new improved IDPA competition plate.
This along with my mag holders. I downloaded a design but it was for 15 rounders. I shortened it by an inch, reversed it to use for left side and added weep holes in the bottom. The picture below shows the right side prototype along with my final design.
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And just when I think, "Okay, I'm done printing for a while."
Primer flippers. AH HA. All the commercial ones are just a tad smaller than I like when flipping Federal Primers. By tonight I'll have one that's JUST RIGHT.
Also I can print replacement "fingers" for the bottom of the Hornaday primer pickup tube.
Also I found a better mount for my Primer Out micro switch.
Also looking at various flipper-tube loader combinations.
Also have printed film holder for BAC.
GAD I LOVE THIS THING.
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And just when I think, "Okay, I'm done printing for a while."
Primer flippers. AH HA. All the commercial ones are just a tad smaller than I like when flipping Federal Primers. By tonight I'll have one that's JUST RIGHT.
Also I can print replacement "fingers" for the bottom of the Hornaday primer pickup tube.
Also I found a better mount for my Primer Out micro switch.
Also looking at various flipper-tube loader combinations.
Also have printed film holder for BAC.
GAD I LOVE THIS THING.
Thanks! Can’t wait to try it.