Done / Completed The Expanse - MCRN pistol - machined aluminium conversion kit

[eethan]

Hey there, sorry, I didn't have time to update yesterday,
I'm back on the training remote base boxes from today until they are finished. Then I'll finally be full time on this.

Yesterday, i sanded flat and nice all the blocks.
Here you can see my setup with the famous guitar frets sanding block:

The advantage of this is that is perfectly flat, to the hundreds of mm, the disadvantage of this is that... it's perfectly flat!
The part I tested the power sander on had a slight concave curve in the center, so it took a good while to get back to perfectly flat with a nice surface finish!
here after a moment sanding, there was a large unsanded area in the middle:

after then more minutes or so, smaller unsanded part:

anyways, the other blocks went faster and the result is really nice, so this was a bit painful and took time to figure out but I'm really happy with the result.
this more something to see in person, but here is a photo of 3 of those:

this means all the preparations are done. When I'm back to this, it will be pure machining. Sorry this is taking a bit of time, I hope that will be worth it when I eventually finish those. This will be before the end of the year though, I'm not making you wait until next year, no worries!
cheers all

 

[eethan]

Hi there,
I am finally back on this project until it is finished
some progress today with all the top cuttouts machined on the parts:

In other news, I have been stung by a wasp inside my workshop right in the middle of winter. pretty crazy!
cheers all

 

[RandomMaker]

Hi there,
I am finally back on this project until it is finished
some progress today with all the top cuttouts machined on the parts:
View attachment 1888880
View attachment 1888881
In other news, I have been stung by a wasp inside my workshop right in the middle of winter. pretty crazy!
cheers all

Looking good! Don't work too hard on it over the holidays... And watch out for the crazy wasps! Hopefully there's not a nest in your workshop.

 

[eethan]

Looking good! Don't work too hard on it over the holidays... And watch out for the crazy wasps! Hopefully there's not a nest in your workshop.

it has been an issue for a few years, it's right under the roof, without insulation, and they found a way in, last year, during the summer, it was around 20 wasps per hours that I was chasing outside. This year, we tried to plug all holes and slots around the roof tiles and it got better, but there are still 3 or 4 wasps that manage to get in every day. And now they came to hivernate and it looks like this one fell on my coat while I was working and I when I removed my coat, I put my hand right to the damn bug!
thank you for the kind words and for your patience following this

 

[eethan]

Hi there,
some more progress on the project today, mostly on the V2 type today,
here milling the 3mm detailing in the front:

the 6mm detailing under as well. starting to look a bit cool

and getting started on the big next step (for the V1 and V2 tomorrow)

cheers all

 

[eethan]

Hey there,
more progress on both versions today V1 main part is more complex so there is still a lot of work on it, but the V2 is starting to look pretty cool!

cheers all

 

[Griefboy]

I’m ready! These suckers are becoming very hard to find especially in the USA.

These are going to be THE definitive MCRN pistol kits. Amazing work as always.

 

[eethan]

Hey there,
some good progress on the back end of the V1s and V2s today, keeping a good rythm, pretty happy with progress
this is the first milling op with the 20mm end mill, then the corners are redifined with a 8mm end mill like they did on the original.

V1 on top, V2 on bottom. V2 is relatively close to completion. But there is a second part to make as well for the V2.

I hope you like the progress, cheers all

 

[RandomMaker]

I hope you like the progress, cheers all

I like!!! They're looking amazing. I'm going to be a little reluctant to paint mine.

- Dave

 

[eethan]

Hello there,
last update before Christmas, some more progress done. those are extremely tough parts to machine because of the complexity, so I'm going slow and steady, but progress is good i think

Merry Christmas all, I'll be back to it on the 26th
cheers

 

[sgfan]

Progress is looking great so far.

 

[eethan]

Thank you, sorry for the lack of updates lately, I have made more progress and will post an update tomorrow.
Those are definitely the hardest parts I ever machined!

 

[eethan]

Hey there, promised update
I'm making good progress. Slow progress because it's so damn difficult and time consuming, but progress nonetheless.
don't mind the messy circles and machining artifacts in the middle on the long recesses on the back end, this is normal as this is where the different machining opperations join and this is also all going to be removed as there are empty spots there
This project is so complex and one part takes so much time to machine that I have already picked up new skills twice during this project! This is clearly a CNC job although I'm still not sure if they used a CNC or a really big and really good manual milling machine, but let me tell you once again, this is a very very hard project!

 

[Griefboy]

Looks amazing! It's obvious how complex and time consuming these are and your efforts are truly appreciated.

 

[RandomMaker]

Hey there, promised update

Agreed, they're looking amazing so far! No rush on them... Glad you're picking up some new skills/experience along the way, that's always nice.

 

[EvanW]

Awesome! I need to change my order from 1 of the initial to one of each now please!

 

[sgfan]

Really taking shape!

 

[RandomMaker]

eethan, do you have an approximate maximum height and width dimension for the finished V1?

I ask as I'm starting work on a holster, and I'm trying to estimate how much of the material I'll need to cover my airsoft once the machined top piece has been added.

TIA!
- Dave

 

[eethan]

eethan, do you have an approximate maximum height and width dimension for the finished V1?

I ask as I'm starting work on a holster, and I'm trying to estimate how much of the material I'll need to cover my airsoft once the machined top piece has been added.

TIA!
- Dave

Hi,
The width is 24,9mm
The height is 25,6mm, but only adding 22,6mm to the pistol because of the 3mm recess on the bottom.

Sorry for the delay on this, I'll try to post an update tonight or tomorrow, I'm back on this until it's finished and I have made some progress.
Cheers

 

[eethan]

Promised update!

sorry for the delay, I had to jump on prototyping my next big project to launch the interest thread. And it also took longer than expected as it is a very complex project, Chewie's and Leia's brass handcuffs!
Now that this is done, the interest period is running until the 6th and then I have to wait a bit for the materials to arrive, so I'm trying to finally finished this project before starting on the handcuffs! That leaves us until probably next Monday or so, hopefully this works!

I'm telling this again, but this was the most difficult machining project I have ever made, almost to the point of regreting to do it, it was a crazy endeavour to try to machine those extremely complex parts by hand, and since they take basically 12h per part, if you make one mistake at any point, you ruin 12h of work, very painful!
Anyways, none of the part are going to be 100% because I'm not a machine, but I'm really trying my best
At some point, when that project should have been finished already, I couldn't even see the end, there was so much more to do, I just gave up on trying to figure out how much more time was needed to finish it! Now, i'm finally starting to see the end. it's not finished yet, but the main parts of the V2 have been almost done for a while and now, the V1 will almost miss just the final 45° machined opperations. almost there!
that's not all, because when this is done, I still need to do the lathed parts and the extra lower part for the V2, but I'm hoping the main parts will finally be finished in the next few days.

alright, I have made a bit of progress in the past days, today, I have started machining the parts where the cylinders are visible in the front and back.

parts starting to look good

and preparing in the back, removing the big chunk of material first before finishing with the 8mm bit:

cheers all, sorry for the time it has been taking, we are almost there!