DIY Machine cut checkering

[ANeat]

Thought I would show everyone my checkering setup. For you guys with milling machines and a rotary table its a pretty good solution. Probably not as nice as the dedicated fixtures but it does work.

Ill put up the pics I have and if anyone needs more details just ask. I think most guys with the equipment can probably sort out most of it. Many times just seeing someones solution can help even if you dont make an exact duplicate.

Im not a profesional gunsmith, I shoot 1911's a lot (bullseye) and just happen to work on machine tools and play with them at home. I was wanting to checker my guns and it seemed like a challenge to figure out how to do it on the Bridgeport.

Might as well start with a couple of the "finished" pics to show the results.

And another gun

So first the front strap must be trued up.

Here is some stippling being removed

And the horizontal lines being cut, Yes a 90 degree cutter was used. No one reason, it points up at less depth, still feels great, and I had the cutter already

[ANeat]

Now when cutting the "vertical" lines the rotary table gets turned vertical without removing the frame from the fixture and indicated in.

Here you can also see I have the fixture mounted on a sub plate so I can remove it without loosing too much of the setup, not required but pretty handy.

Tough to get better pics but hopefully these will help

[ANeat]

Now the angle plate, why take a 6 inch angle plate from this

To this

For the setup in my previous post it dosent matter much but when you turn the table vertical and start rotating it to cut the vertical lines things get tight.

I couldnt run it on the bottom half of the table because I was hitting my clamps when rotating so I went off in this direction .

Doing the first line on center is good enough,

And swinging away from the angle plate is fine

But swinging towards it things get close, luckily everything cleared before I ran out of metal

Adam

Edited January 11, 2011 by ANeat

[GentlemanJim]

Nice work

With all the setup and fixturing you have done...I hope you do a bunch of them

Jim

[G-ManBart]

Wow, very cool...

[Aircooled6racer]

Hello: Cool fixtures you have made up. I did mine by hand with a checkering file. I may have beat you on the first one but you will beat me on the second one Great job. Thanks, Eric

[ANeat]

Thanks guys, yea I tried the checkering file and it was Ok but way too much work in my opinion for the results I achieved. I had several guns I wanted to do. A few Bullseye guns and a couple other 1911's plus I just wanted to see if I could sort it out with what I had.

I was really happy with the texture and the undercut was an extra bonus. I always liked the agressive grip

[Flexmoney]

Nice work, Adam. Thanks for sharing.

[pgh george]

Great job on both the checkering and the fixtures !

Thanks for the post.

[CSEMARTIN]

very cool.

[billfer]

Very nice set up on this job. Didn't look like you had any problems (tool chatter)with the cutter hanging out so far either.

Very nice work.

[Jay870]

Thanks for posting this.

The checker looks very sharp.

[jan13]

Looks really nice - Thanks for posting

[ANeat]

Thanks again guys. Glad to share the info. Ive had a couple of PMs with some questions and hopefully a few more pics will help.

When you indicate the frame you soon realize that there arent too many straight/square surfaces on a 1911. The front strap is usually as forged so you just have to get a good average reading. You can get the frame centered up left/right but you will have a little leeway on the vertical.

Another example is one of the blocky Springfield frames they were putting out a few years back.

It would have a large flat in front of the grip and the front strap was quite "square"

This is where you have to play around with the positioning of the frame on the fixture and try to determine how round you want the front strap. Obviously you have a lot of potential for a major screw up here so procede with caution.

You want to leave a bit of a line in front of the grips, there is probably no "set" ammount. If you look at a blueprint of a 1911 frame you can see the centerline of the magwell radius and the fronstrap radius are different.

I generally try to shift the frame around to get it so the front will just clean up and get a more natural raduis.

Ive done several and I dont thing any 2 were the same.

You can see here its just clipping off the corners

Keep going till the front just cleans up

[ANeat]

After the checkering you have a much nicer transition from the frame to the grips

And here you can see the difference in the radius before and after

[CSEMARTIN]

We need more milling threads like this one in the gunsmithing section. Thanks for sharing ANeat!

[BigGabe]

Real nice Adam.

[818-DVC]

Really informative. Great photos w simple explanations. The jig looks simple enough too. Thanks for posting this.

JL

[kevinj308]

That's beautiful work!!!!!!

Thanks for the pics, really appreciate the sharing of techniques.

Kevin

[Joe A.]

Adam, I would like to state that your work is impressive. I too am a home hobby machinist. As with so many machining operations there is a need for a specific jig to hold the stock while the cutting is being done. For me the machining operations you have shown are standard and straight forward.. Making of the jig and how you utilize it in conjunction with a rotary table shows your machinist skills in it's finest light...You deffently done good!...JoeA.

[jjanglin]

Nice job on both, Iuse a jig made by Niel Keller,Its pretty easy to use, Has index plates to do the differant lines per inch.

Jim/Pa

Sailors

[GGW]

ANeat-What a great job depicting this operation.....

[an1913t]

ANeat,

In your OP, you state:

"Yes a 90 degree cutter was used. No one reason, it points up at less depth, still feels great, and I had the cutter already."

If you hadn't already had the 90 degree cutter, is there something else that you think would do a better job? Basically asking because I don't have a 90 degree cutter and figured I'd get the best tool, if you feel like there might be something better.

Thanks for the great thread.

[Tom S.]

That is one industrial strength indexing plate!

Excellent work, BTW!

[ANeat]

ANeat,

In your OP, you state:

"Yes a 90 degree cutter was used. No one reason, it points up at less depth, still feels great, and I had the cutter already."

If you hadn't already had the 90 degree cutter, is there something else that you think would do a better job? Basically asking because I don't have a 90 degree cutter and figured I'd get the best tool, if you feel like there might be something better.

Thanks for the great thread.

Thanks everyone,

an1913t, a 60 degree cutter is the angle most use, I dont know if there is any one specific reason.

If you have enough "thickness" in the front strap 60 degree is "sharper" although some feel it is too aggressive at 20 lpi. If youre doing finer spacing like 30 lpi or 40 lpi 60 degree would have more grip. I think at those fine spacings the 90 degree cutter would not have any advantage