Benevolence Posted January 12, 2020 Share Posted January 12, 2020 Wondering what the best route I should do for this. The gun has been a project gun I’ve been building from oversized parts. I have access to mill, lathe, and welding equipment (mig, tig, laser, etc.). Long story short, I galled it a bit when lapping the frame-slide together but got it to work (some galling damage remained). I had a buddy PVD coat it with CrN but I believe the temperatures distorted it, along with the hard CrN perhaps cracking and regalling it. I’m planning on milling (with fresh 3/32” carbide endmill) in the rail to just touch it up but I’m a bit concerned of making it sloppy loose. I could also tig/mig it to build the rails up and remill them to size but I’m worried about cracking or distorting the rest of the frame. Any advice? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dwbsig Posted January 12, 2020 Share Posted January 12, 2020 Why not try lapping them together with lapping compound. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hawk21 Posted January 12, 2020 Share Posted January 12, 2020 Clean it up and send it to Doug Jones and have him accurail it. Best option for $215! http://acc-u-rail.com/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwhittin Posted January 12, 2020 Share Posted January 12, 2020 Clean it up and run it. Don't worry if there is a small amount of slide movement. As long as your barrel locks up tight it doesn't make much diff. I calc 0.18 inches per thousandth at 25 yards for a 5" barrel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RogueTactical Posted January 12, 2020 Share Posted January 12, 2020 My recommendation is to first stone the rails smooth, both slide and frame, then lap. You only want to stone down high spots causing the galling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe4d Posted January 12, 2020 Share Posted January 12, 2020 Depends on the original cuts and where its messed up, Almost thinking its a side load or non parallel issue. Just being tight shouldnt cause galling. They are all tight at first. Take off the high spots, good possibility it will do it again. You may end up having to accurail it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ltdmstr Posted January 12, 2020 Share Posted January 12, 2020 (edited) If the fit is reasonably tight and the galling is just cosmetic, I'd leave it as is and not worry about it. If the fit is poor, you'll need to remove any coating/finsh and get down to bare metal before you can do any welding. Then the best thing would be to TiG weld (that's the best process for controlling the heat) and remachine the rails. Alternatively, you can go the Accu-Rail route. But be aware that when you do the Accu-Rail, they cut the frame and slide substantially as part of the process, so you can't run the gun without the rails after it's done. Never understood why they do that, but it's one reason I'm not too hot on the process. Edited January 12, 2020 by ltdmstr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe4d Posted January 12, 2020 Share Posted January 12, 2020 yeh not a fan,,, IMO basically a last resort for a fubared frame, Which may be the case. Galling isnt tight, its usually an off center or bad cut issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benevolence Posted January 13, 2020 Author Share Posted January 13, 2020 (edited) I think the original galling that I caused was forcing the two together without having ground off enough material from the bottom of the slide when I was performing the lapping step. It galled at the top face of the frame (under the rails) and on the lowermost underside of the slide. I fixed it but combining the remnants of that damage and the heat distortion caused it to resurface I believe. Totally accept the s#!tty assembly, may have to spend $500 for a new frame/slide to restart but I’ll try taking just a few thousands of an inch off and see if it cleans up the damage without making it a tambourine. Thanks all for the input. Edited January 13, 2020 by Benevolence Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yigal Posted January 13, 2020 Share Posted January 13, 2020 2 hours ago, Benevolence said: I think the original galling that I caused was forcing the two together without having ground off enough material from the bottom of the slide when I was performing the lapping step. It galled at the top face of the frame (under the rails) and on the lowermost underside of the slide. I fixed it but combining the remnants of that damage and the heat distortion caused it to resurface I believe. Totally accept the s#!tty assembly, may have to spend $500 for a new frame/slide to restart but I’ll try taking just a few thousands of an inch off and see if it cleans up the damage without making it a tambourine. Thanks all for the input. can u post few pic. of this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benevolence Posted January 13, 2020 Author Share Posted January 13, 2020 8 hours ago, yigal said: can u post few pic. of this? Sure, attached. The lighting and shadows make it look a lot deeper than it is; I’d guess it’s about 0.005” deep at most, and less than that for the majority of it. Which isn’t great all though. I’ll post pictures after I touch it up with the mill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yigal Posted January 13, 2020 Share Posted January 13, 2020 it's not so bad. u can fix this. frame for svi barrel . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackfatbob Posted January 13, 2020 Share Posted January 13, 2020 Stone off the high spots so the slide runs smooth. Don't worry about appearance and divots. They help retain gun oil. A perfectly smooth as glass bearing surface is NOT the most desirable. Go over to practical machinist forum and search for "scraping". Try to avoid the lapping compound approach as it will remove material where you don't want to remove it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RogueTactical Posted January 17, 2020 Share Posted January 17, 2020 I've seen this numerous times with home builders bringing their frames to my shop. Stone the frame and slide down and don't worry about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe4d Posted January 17, 2020 Share Posted January 17, 2020 You need the right tool for the job.https://www.brownells.com/gunsmith-tools-supplies/handgun-tools/slide-tools/1911-slide-frame-rail-file-prod849.aspx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jcc7x7 Posted January 18, 2020 Share Posted January 18, 2020 19 hours ago, Joe4d said: You need the right tool for the job.https://www.brownells.com/gunsmith-tools-supplies/handgun-tools/slide-tools/1911-slide-frame-rail-file-prod849.aspx That's what I was thinking and some polite draw type filing, to just take the high spots off Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe4d Posted January 18, 2020 Share Posted January 18, 2020 works well, all I have ever used to fit slide to frame, got plenty of safe and cutting areas. Plus you can go slooooooooooooooooooww. Sometimes power is a bad thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benevolence Posted January 19, 2020 Author Share Posted January 19, 2020 Thanks all. I think I’ll get that for my next build when I eventually do a 9mm Major. I did some touch up with the mill and only took a few thou off at most. There is one last ‘sticking point’ that I’m trying to determine how far back the slide really needs to be able to go and where the remaining high spots are. Lesson learned; the temperatures for PVD coatings are enough to distort a tight fit frame-slide and require re-fitting Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gojo Posted November 14, 2020 Share Posted November 14, 2020 Goodmorning,I just purchaseda Colt 80 series Mark IV.IT has upper slide rail damage .After reading up on this gun correct me if imwrong but the lower slide assembly is made of a different steel than the upper part. shoots fine and i am leaving the damage alone and plan to use the distortion as a tool to distribute oilbetween the slides.it seems to work on the ways of lathes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
assaulter Posted November 18, 2020 Share Posted November 18, 2020 (edited) I wouldn't put it on the mill. You need to take off tenths not thousandths. Edited November 18, 2020 by assaulter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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