Wrapping many dozens of frames, barrels, tubes, etc. Everything marked with its part code according to the master inventory. 99.5% of these parts are complete and blued. So it's a matter of cleaning and carefully wrapping to protect for transport. Going fine. Just takes a bunch of time.



For fun .... thought you may care to see my "grandfather's clock" I made many years ago. It has surfaced again during the move. . Kelly says it looks more like me every year!!

Gary

Pshaw...grandfather clock indeed...hardly looks like you at all...

Not enough hair growing out of the ears.

Gary, you are moving right along! I can't wait for the tools to start spinning as I think the new BPS will have guns flying out the door.

I love the G'pa clock. With all your recent finds in the shop, I must admit the talk last week about finding Jimmy Hoffa in a work shop, had me fearing that you may have gotten a little deep than planned.

Kent

Hi Kent,
No Hoffa. But I have been pleased to note the number of tools I've run across, that I just have not had adequate room to use. Many things that would've helpful, but we're just stored until forgotten about.
When I get back home, I'll FINALLY be able to begin that phase that makes it all real. Putting in the units that will provide a home to the items I unpack. The trailer is being loaded with items and materials toward that end. I'm enthused to get to this stage. Ideas are clicking into place. Some revisions have been required in my thinking. But thankfully, the revisions do not effect completed work - just and for the layout.
All the work has been right on the edge of my endurance levels. The duration of the whole effort came into play some time back. I do feel a spark returning as I move into this next phase.
I can see a ROAD TRIP in my future. Haha. ASAP.
Thanks for the post.
Gary

Master inventory??? Is that really the case you have all extra parts logged down in your head ,,,, or are you that organized ?That pvc case is pretty cool too. I still am a major pack rat and have a hard time getting rid of any thing usefull. The hard part is remembering the special place i put it so i would not loose said items . Glad to hear things in the move are going well and oh by the way SNOW storm in the great northern planes on the way towards Michigan so you might want to leave the shovel in Maryland no preasure hehe.Cant wait till those inventory parts find adjoining pieces to marry with and nestle in to a cozy wooden home!!

Hi Kurt,
Yep .... guess I'm organized. Every part has a blue tag adhered to it with a catalog number. That number is recorded on the master inventory, according to type of part. I.E. barrels, reservoirs, valve body, receiver, trigger block, and so on and so on. Probably a dozen categories. Usually, the part is also assigned to a customer order and noted. Only way to keep track of probably sixty or so ordered at once.
It's on good old dependable paper, so its not gonna wink out with some electronic wardrobe malfunction.
Sorry, there's no instant readout or holographic projection showing the percentage of completion. . That's just a feeling I get for the projects.
Gary

Here ya go Kurt. Close up of parts tubes.

Gary

Hi Gary,
Just got back from a little trip to Kansas, to take a Friesian Colt to the Inspection. ( He got Reserve Champion for Colts )!

Anyway, I sure am Glad you said that they are on PAPER! With your luck with electronic stuff, well enough said.

You bet Rick,
I don't trust the electrons anymore. Horrors! What he SAID!!!!! hahaha. But - I'm happy with paper. Papyrus has worked out pretty well.
Congrats on your Colt! Good job. Nothing left but cashing the string of checks you get ... hahah.
Gary

A bunch of additional parts from cabinets and storage tubs. Wrapped and labeled. Ready to transport.

Gary

WOW I never thought you would have that many stock parts! I personally thinkof you more as an artist and cant imagine having to maintain parts. but that really shows the business part of what you have to do.. Sowhen you design a gun do you also make blue prints of any kind? I have seen alot of numbers you crunch when figuring bullistic coefficients and fps and other info required to maintain the correct recipe ?Y ou must have doodled them first on paper befor transfering them to your hand.

Doodled. Smile. Every part is drawn out full size (except tubes/barrels). Every operation is shown. Every size is noted. If there are a series of complex machining operations required, the order of proceedure is noted. Often the math required is noted with how to establish certain factors. The drawings are color coded showing each part in contrasting color. The drawings are referred to hundreds of times during a build.

Anything this complex ... machined from raw stock ... requires extreme precision. Often requires purpose built tooling as well.

There's none of that Hollywood, "I just let the metal tell me what it wants to be". Haha. What it would WANT to be is a total wreck of ruined parts. It's my job to make sure it becomes what "I want it it be".

Thanks for asking Kurt!
Gary

I am truley amazed! We have a new program in the construction ind that uses BIM ( building in models) . You draw a model of what building you want to make and it deconstructs it it to shop prints . The model you draw will show conflicts with adjoining parts and recomend certain architectual conections common to steel industry standards. I watch some of the motorcycle shows and see the models they draw and often wonder what the future holds for the same ease of fabrication. My 15yr old son earned a scholarship to a robotics summer camp at Lake Superior State University last year and did some amazing things with technolgy like building a door with special hinges and a latch system on the computer and trying to open and close and latch the door be fore down loading it to a cnc robot and cutting pieces out of plastic to assemble a working door.All trial and error done on screen befor making actual parts R and D at its finest.I do know that my employer pays a very expensive monthly maintence fee to upgrade and diagnose issues with the programs. IRONY something to make things easy so hard to do so i can appreciate all the pre effort that goes into a fine airgun...just to pull the trigger

I'm sure many will think it's CRAP, but I design in my mind and on the blank pc. of card stock paper. I then convert the entire thing to mechanical drawings, and notes. When I'm finished, I know it is gonna work. There have only been a very, very few things, since 1974 ... that just didn't work. Those had some fatal flaw, around which the whole thing had revolved.

I'm often between two worlds. I do not have the luxury of such low expenses and such infinite time - that I can start one project and scrape along on it til it's gone, then start another. I also do not have the luxury of the Star Trek "replicator" tools. And, oddly ... I don't desire to have those. They all make you dependent upon some "tech" or "rep" flying in to "debug" some incredibly expensive pc. of equipment. You have a shop dependent upon those, and everything stops until they are fixed. Sure - I can't afford it either. Most people say they don't want what they can't afford - but I really do like to be able to make these things, with relatively common machine tools. Another thing ... I don't have the explosive customer base that the Star Wars shops require either. They BETTER sell a BUNCH of units FAST if they are gonna maintain their initial investments.

The fast replicator shops are great for the modern fella that wants to just dip into the stream, and pluck out one unit from among tens of thousands of copies flowing by. Obviously, I've been the poster child for what can go wrong with waiting on one artist to do 100% of a project - from initial design thought - to the final hole in the target. But - if you want a "story" with your gun ... and more then just an artifact ... I could be your guy. Now - fair warning ... alot of the guys just grab and go. I never hear from the guns again. Never see the buyer again. That's a shame - and the exact opposite of the reason I started doing this.

Mark my words, someday there's gonna be the mother of all computer viruses and all that fancy-pants digital stuff is going to be so much useless expensive scrap metal for weeks or months or maybe even years, until someone figures out how to purge the infection. When that day comes, the guys that remember how to use paper for something other than wiping up oil spills are gonna be the only option for machine work...if there's any of them left, that is.

The stuxnet virus is only the prelude of things to come. I don't think anyone really understands how thoroughly we depend on microprocessors in our daily life.

There's a new show on about the lights going out worldwide. The premise is so stupid I refuse to watch, just like I've pretty much tuned out "reality" TV but the ads and this thread gave me an idea; what if a megavirus just added or subtracted a couple thou' from every dimension in every CAD/CAM program?

You pretty much have to suspend logic and common sense when watching ANY "reality TV" program. I can tell you for sure that all the Alaska-based "reality" shows play fast and loose with the truth. They constantly "punch up" the drama level until you'd think that every trip to the outhouse is a life-or-death nail-biter.

The scripted dramas may be ridiculous in premise, but at least they're not pretending that it's real. I can deal with that, fiction is, after all, fiction.