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Tutorials or Information on Milling a Slide???


gunsngeeks

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Hi Guys,

 

I have a small milling machine (Sieg X2) and wondered if anyone has any good information on milling a slide.  I have a homemade Yavapai jig and other jigs.  I'm not a Machinist and am really just starting this type of work on personal builds.

 

Any information would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks guys!!!

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Learn proper speeds and feeds, don't use cheap tooling. Cheap tooling doesn't cut very well and is going to make for a lot of deburring and hand finishing for you to clean up. We use high performance end mills, inserts, etc and carbide for everything except some drill bits. But that isn't practical for someone like you just doing it on the side. We have probably almost as much money in tooling as we do in actual CNC cost.

Edited by PrimaryBruce
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If you don't have a DRO then get one.

You can get a very good 3 axis DRO + glass scales on ebay for $350.

Then if it is a tilting column x2 brace it with some half inch plate. You can double the depth of your cuts after the bracing, and it will cut out almost all chatter when cutting steel. 

You can also buy lots of carbide endmills on ebay as well, usually on the cheap.

Milling a slide is like creating art, I would find some examples on the web for some inspiration and then plan it out.

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get a Machinery's Handbook.  You can't go wrong using the  information in it.

I have built 3 1911's 2 from parts one converted to 9mm from a 45 acp.   I milled the slide to lighten etc as I use 155 gr. at 1150 fps.  The converted gun has won 2 Jr. World Action Pistol Championships, 1 Jr Bianchi Cup and numerous other titles.

 

Get a set of prints on the 1911 and study them to come up with a plan to lighten the slide.  determine the cuts and how much you want to remove to get the weight you want.  There is a limit to how much you can remove.

Purchase quality cutters. DON'T GO CHEAP. Stick to the proper speeds and feeds and lubrication.

Good Luck.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...
On 11/5/2016 at 8:39 PM, 38super said:

+2 on the blindhogg site. I did my first Bomar sight cut in 2015 with the Blindhogg directions. I used a Rong Fu R31 round post mill. For the LPA cut I used the Kensite drawing. +2 Mind your cutting speeds, use "cuttting oil" not WD40. For me I use carbide only. Wear safety glasses (hard to shoot with only 1 eye) Measure twice and cut once. All the best on your new machining hobby. 

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http://www.cnccookbook.com/FeedSpeedsCalculator/CCGWizardMill.html

As a hobbyist, I found this software to be very helpful for speeds and feeds. I think it was worth the fee, even though plenty of paper charts out there for free. 

A good source of tooling is maritool.com and lakeshorecarbide.com. They have speed and feed charts for their tooling on both sites as well. 

+3 on blindhogg for excellent tutorials. 

I started practicing on 2x4's, yeah wood. I was literally just figuring out how to turn the thing on. Then scrap aluminum from a local metal supplier's remnant pile.

You're gonna have a blast!Congratulations on the mill!

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