have a look at the Jaco pistol plans. They are all made from 1/2" stock with side plates.
I think the 1/2 inch looks better. Once you put a small radius on everything the whole thing seems to get thinner.
Plus, you want the block to cover the entire back of the shell. The half inch thick block covers better.
I was worried about the extra thickness on the Jaco mini I built, but I'm glad I went with the half inch thick frame. There's just more surface for the hammer and block to lock up on.
I bought a cheapo rotary table, and i've been making the clamping gear for it Instead.
I always saw and file the contact points on the falling and rolling block rifles, and I figured that a rotary table would do a better job at making those critical parts.
I also wanted to try my hand at making a barrel ring. The forearm for this rifle has to attach somehow, and I don't want to drill into the barrel that far up (it's a tapered barrel and gets thinner closer to the muzzle).
I set up my little cheapo rotary and cut out a round chunk with a leg hanging off of it. It worked great, and I didn't even screw it up. I was impressed, even if you aren't.
After cutting the outside mostly round, I chucked it into my lathe and turned the leg round.
I am now set up to bore the middle, and now is where I realize that I did this in the wrong order.
I wanted to use a center hole to clamp the workpiece to the rotary table. I threaded a slug Inot the center of my little rotary table, and tapped a hole so that I could put a screw through my part right in the center. This worked great.
The problem I have now is in boring the middle out. It's going to get pretty thin, and my four jaw is probably going to smush it.
What I should have done was bored the hole and then cut the outside on the rotary table.
I could have still used the center screw threads, by turning a plug that fit the bore of my part, and just screwing that down. I already had a clamp on the leg anyway, and I think this would have held everything so that I could mill the outside radius.
Oh well. I learned stuff, and got to play with my new toy.
Here's a pic of the hold down set I made. It's all made from rusty scrap metal, but at least that worked perfectly.
That pin In the picture is what I used to center the rotary table. It fits into my 3/8 collet, and just into the center bore on the rotary table. Not perfectly acurate, but good enough for what I do.
Everything I make is from rusty scrap.
It takes too long to order metal, and I can't buy it locally.
One of the worst parts about a future gun build I have been pondering is that it needs to be made from 4130, or something similar.
I'll have to order, and shipping is gonna be rough. I've been trying to plan several builds all at once so I can buy enough steel to make the shipping and wait time worth it.
