Building The Steven's Favorite

[TomG]

Machining these tangs required a lot of different set-ups due to the fact they are not parallel to each other or perpendicular to the axis of the receiver, plus the various holes in each one and the full radius on the ends. The most creative set-up was the one required to mill the full radii on the ends of the tangs. I clamped a parallel vertical in the vise and then clamped the side of the tang to it using parallels for spacers. It was an ugly set-up but it got the job done without a crash due to attention to cutter forces and a total lack of climb milling. Do not try this at home. Next comes the part I've been dreading, hollowing out the inside of the receiver. It's going to take a combination of drilling, long end mill milling, slotting and possibly broaching to get it done.

All told it was a pretty productive day. I got all of the internal cutouts roughed out with end mills and it went much better than expected. Some of the extra long end mills still needed to be gripped on the very end, which really cuts down on their rigidity. I've had a lot of experience working with long end mills and was able to get through the whole job without breaking any. Long end mills demand special techniques that can only be learned the hard way and I've broken more than a few learning them. Next on the to-do list is grinding a slotting tool bit and squaring up all of the corners in the pockets.

This was the deepest pocket and it need to be cut from opposite sides to get through.

Power tapping a 5/16-24 thread in the mill.

This was the longest reach. I drilled two holes through to start and then milled it with a 1/2" x 5" end mill which was just barely long enough.

Milling the slot for the hammer.