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Post by jettalewis on Sept 17, 2011 12:23:30 GMT -5
Hi. I wanted to do an M1 Garand build that would use as much of the M1 rifle as possible. Also, I want to address the problem of making the hand grip area so thin. My idea is to remove the motor and most of it's housing. Make a bearing and shaft with the operating gear and move the motor as far into the stock as possible. To do this I will either use a flexible shaft or a universal joint at three points on the drive shaft. Hopefully this will allow me to make a 1/2," or less, hole thru the hand grip area to operate the motor. The only other hole I will have to make will one large enough to accomidate the battery wiress. This photo will show my work area. It is cramped but I have no other room to devote to this. I thought I knew how to put more than one photo on here at the time, but evidently not. Attachments:
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Post by jettalewis on Sept 17, 2011 12:58:17 GMT -5
Here are some of the tools I'm using. Belt Sander. This is probably one of the most used tools I have for cutting out stocks. It removes wood or metal at an astonishing rate. It took me hours to cut out one stock with a chisel and hand saw. This belt sander did the same job in a few minutes. You can put various grit belts on it to control the cutting and it will articulate to any angle up to 360 degrees. It will not eliminate a chisle and I have an array of them and both a leather mallet and small hammer to aid in cutting. I have small hacksaws and an electric hand held hacksaw that in invaluable in cutting thru bolts and opening trigger housing areas in the stocks. Various files, chisels, sanders (both hand and electric) , anvil, and many other tools. This go round I will be doing some silver soldering and am prepared for that. This is just to give you an idea of tools. Some absolutely necessary and others will generally be used also. In this photo I have the M1 Garand barrel I will attempt to use. My plans are to bore the rifling out to accomidate the airsoft barrel and possibly to have the end of the barrel turned down to fit the airsoft bolt area. I don't know if this will work or not and have put off looking at it until necessary. Since I do not have a lathe large enough to do this work I will have to farm that part out to a machinist. Anyway, it's a fun project Oh, BTW, the tape stuck to the front of the desk is used to mask out and lay out areas to be cut on the stock. Attachments:
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daug
Private
Posts: 37
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Post by daug on Sept 18, 2011 16:24:00 GMT -5
Good job, you're project to remove the motor is very interessing. I will following your job with very interressed
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Post by jettalewis on Sept 19, 2011 17:08:28 GMT -5
Well, I've moved on a bit. In the first photo you can see that the receiver is fulled inletted and the trigger housing is locked into position. You will also see an original trigger housing with the magazine area cover. With any kind of luck I hope to install this cover on this rifle. The 2nd photo shows a bit of bright wood at the front of the receiver. This piece of wood was removed from the left side of the stock and I simply glued it into position and sanded it into shape. I hope to stain it to match the rest of the stock when the time comes. I have the original M1 Garand barrel laying on top of the airsoft rifle and by itself in the final photo. This barrel will be drilled out to accomidate the airsoft barrel and will be cut down to fit into the airsoft receiver. I also intend to remove enough of the barrel that the airsoft charging handle will operate normally. When I finish, my hope is that this gun will be 43 1/2 inches total legnth and will assemble and disassemble as close to an original as possible. At this point in time I am still awaiting my micro universal joints before I attempt inserting the motor into the very rear of the rifle. I do like the way it is fitting into the stock at this time. I can see that I could have left even more wood than I did. During the next few weeks I will be working on assembling this rifle to appear original and building a new housing for the motor cover and gear. Attachments:
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Post by jettalewis on Mar 4, 2012 16:03:19 GMT -5
Grrrrr. Arrrgh. Let me update a bit. I screwed around with this remote motor deal until I finally convinced myself that it just won't work. Oh, I was able to get the motor into the back of the stock and the flexible cable did an admirable job and the unit did fire. No problem. Well, lots of problems, but they were all solved, until I started looking for space to put the batteries. You know what? They ain't enough space. No way in crap to put the motor and batteries in the stock. Ain't gonna fit. So, I moved on. I disassembled what I had and installed another motor directly to the gear housing and bored the crap out of the handle area to fit the motor/gear assembly like everyone else does. After the usual grinding and sanding I finally got it cut thru. I can tell you, for sure, that the wood is only about 1/8th inch thick in critical areas, but it is doable. Now comes the bad part. I laid the completed stock on the workbench and swung around to grab another part and when I did the electrical cord from a tool caught on the arm of my chair and pulled the tool off. Unfortunately it also knocked off the stock and it cracked right in the middle of the handgrip area. Soooo, I sat and looked at the cracked stock for a bit and after a bit of wailing and gnashing of teeth tossed it aside and will now order in another two stocks. (In case it happens again.) On the plus side, the ejector for the magazine is coming along gang busters. All of the parts have been made and some testing of actual shell ejection. It seems to be working just fine and I will post some photos later next week. If it comes up a bust I will post some photos of that too.
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Post by jettalewis on Mar 12, 2012 17:21:08 GMT -5
This particular post should probably be a separate thread but I will put the info in here. I have perfected the ejection system for an AEG M1 garand and will demonstrate it here. Unfortunately, I didn't realize just how lousy my photos were until just a few mins ago. I will reshoot some of them later. I'm not going to give any sizes. It's simply what works for you. Let me start with the components. In the first and 2nd photos you will see the various parts. It's really simple. Part 1 is a piece of plumbers elbow. Note the very small hole just under the top edge. Look carefully and you will see that a wire is wrapped around it and goes into the hole. When this wire gets into the area the BB goes thru it is looped back down and that will enable a BB to go into the gun, but will not let it fall back out. Part 2 is the cradle the shotgun shells rests in and it has a cam that goes into a rectangular hole and rides on part 3. When part 3 (actuator rod) is pushed back against part 2 it will create enough force that the shotgun shell will be kicked straight up 3 to 4 inches. Of course, in the gun it will be straight down. Part 4 are the springs that pull the cam/cradle and the actuator rod back into position. Attachments:
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Post by jettalewis on Mar 12, 2012 17:23:34 GMT -5
Here it is all together and holding a shell. Note that the hole in the Garand stock does not have to be enlarged. It will fit in comfortably and ejects thru the original hole just fine. Attachments:
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Post by jettalewis on Mar 12, 2012 17:24:40 GMT -5
Ok, last bit for today. Here is how everything works. When the last shot is fired and you wish to eject the shell you pull the operating rod (#1) this in turn will force the shell ejection rod (#2) to travel back and then force up the cam/cradle (#3) which will, in turn, eject the shell. The springs (#4) bring everything back to the beginning. Attachments:
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HornetWSO
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"We may not have a history, but we have a rendezvous with destiny!"
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Post by HornetWSO on Mar 12, 2012 17:42:33 GMT -5
Very ingenious and impressive. You have set the bar higher for those building Garands!
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2nd Bat
Master sergeant
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Post by 2nd Bat on Mar 17, 2012 23:58:26 GMT -5
That's very cool. Nice job!
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Post by jettalewis on Mar 18, 2012 12:28:51 GMT -5
Guys, I appreciate the nice words and I am going to redo this post with better photos and hopefully it can be used as a mini tutorial for anyone wishing to modify existing AEG M1s or wanting to build a wood stock M1.
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Sgt_Tom
Technical Sgt.
Combat!
Posts: 3,580
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Post by Sgt_Tom on Mar 18, 2012 13:28:12 GMT -5
Sounds great! Probably too much work for me but I'd like to see exactly how you worked it out either way. Excellent job.
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Post by jettalewis on Mar 18, 2012 15:58:58 GMT -5
sgttom, this would be right up your alley. You would have no probs with this. But, as I stated earlier in this post. I do not see a wood stocked AEG M1 Garand as being pratical in the field. The wood is simply too thin. I expect that when the M1 Garand is finally manufactured as an AEG it will be thicker to take care of the motor and receiver internals. Now, that is something I would love to see. It would really dissapoint me if they were to install a smaller motor or skimp on the operating parts.
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Sgt_Tom
Technical Sgt.
Combat!
Posts: 3,580
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Post by Sgt_Tom on Mar 18, 2012 17:26:35 GMT -5
Huh, seems a tad complicated but maybe I am over thinking it. I really like the idea of releasing the magazine with the bolt though. I am guess they are going to make the stock thicker for the new M1 Garand AEG releases. I doubt they would go through the trouble of making a smaller motor. Most airsoft stocks are thicker then the real thing from my experience. The Dboys Kar98 and the CYMA Thompson stocks are thicker then my real steal ones.
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Post by jettalewis on Mar 18, 2012 19:49:42 GMT -5
I will take your word for it on the stock thickness. I had honestly never paid it any attention. Let me get this "tutorial" post up and you can make a decision then. It is not complicated when you break it down into the various components. You simply want something to lever the shell out of the gun. I was once very involved with real steel guns and have sold many that I wish I owned today, but nowdays I have a very laid back attitude towards guns and enjoy the mechanical aspect with minimal tools building part of airsoft. It's challange to build something with hand tools. As you well know
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2nd Bat
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Post by 2nd Bat on Mar 24, 2012 16:04:04 GMT -5
Very very cool approach to the clip challenge presented in a Garand AEG. I love the solution as the modified shotgun clips have a smaller capacity and require quite a bit of practice to get good at loading and reloading. This really helps make the Garand AEG conversions skirmishable. As I understand it the shotgun shells you use hold 30 rounds. Is that correct? If so that is a big improvement over the 14 round capacity of the 870 shotgun clips.
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Post by jettalewis on Mar 24, 2012 20:48:43 GMT -5
Thanks 2nd Bat. It may hold 30 rounds to begin with, but not after conversion. Probably be lucky to get 12 or 15 in it. I have only popped a few in it to make sure it works. This gun is still evolving and I think you are going to like the next bit. I've already screwed up up once and hopefully will get it finished out tomorrow. I will post it on the mini tutorial. These shotgun shells are a bit perplexing to me. The first batch of them I ordered in worked absolutely perfect. For some reason, on the 2nd batch the interior hole did not line up after cutting. I had to feather out the edges of the hole to let the bb pusher move freely. They ended up working ok, but only after a bit of "fine tuning" Thanks so much for the kind words and I will keep you up to date on the next bit.
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Post by volkssturm on Nov 3, 2015 18:17:55 GMT -5
I'm revamping my M1. One thing I've never quite figured out is a secure way to hook the upper and lower together. I don't have the metal bit with the little lip the hooks into the upper handguard. The M14 operating rod won't fit into the opening without removing that part. How do you all handle this?
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2nd Bat
Master sergeant
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Post by 2nd Bat on Nov 3, 2015 23:50:00 GMT -5
Jettalewis I fear has passed away. His last post was just prior to him going in for major cardiac surgery and he never responded to emails since.
In your recent box I included the M14 ferrel which I modified by cutting off the lip. I also cut the end channel off the upper handguard so the two will marry up. This facilitates the barrel and gas tube allowing your charging handle to work. Provided your handguard stays snug the two halves stay together nicely. To further secure everything I put a small easily removed tab of Jb weld on the gas assembly. Another more costly approach but way way better is to use the actual Garand ferrules. These of course interlock however you need to grind the channel interior to a larger hole to accommodate the gas tube.
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