today I went to the holidays at my in-laws and spent probably an hour talking to one the relatives there (my wife's stepmothers stepfather to be precise), what started as a general conversation about machines rapidly turned into gunsmithing.

I knew the guy was a machinist, we've talked in the past about the big machine shop he used to have building things, and then lost due to economic changes. He'd restored a south bend to use at home, etc. Well last month he got his FFL and other CA necessary stuff to do work as a gunsmith. That's great, I just don't know from talking to him how good he'd be at it. (I couldn't get him to actually tell me anything he HAD done, he just kept saying he could do anything).

the part that surprised me was he says he doesn't understand people wanting gun work done when they can usually buy a commercial rifle for less than the overall cost of the work. I think I did a pretty good job explaining to him some of the reasons guys wanted customs or unique pieces, and that ultimately it was those guys that kept the gunsmithing industry going. I'm not sure he fully understood, but I hope I got through to him. I also hope he does good work, Lord knows my area needs some good gunsmiths.

I did tell him about the ACGG and Mark Strattons book. when I mentioned the book and the fixtures it showed he said someting about never making fixtures ahead, just doing what he had to do get the job done. well.......

I'll cross my fingers. He's a nice guy, maybe he is a really good machinist and will do well.

Red

A couple of things.
A good gunsmith may not be a good machinist, and a good machinist may not be a good gunsmith. Just because the two trades share the same machine tools doesn't mean it's a lateral transfer.

The other thing is he doesn't sound to "into" guns if he can't understand why some spend what they do on guns. Personally I can't afford all the rifles and shotguns I would like and my "wish list" is right around $45K and that's being realistically conservative.

You need to explain it to him like this. Custom work is a luxury item. Granted he will be doing basic work till he gets the hang of it and develops an interest in the finer points of custom work. But there is a reason Porsche, Ferrari, Lotus etc. are in business.
Not to mention Shelby cobra's and the like.
Sure you can buy $10K Honda civic but why buy a Remington 870 when you can have a Kreighoff, Purdy, H&H etc and BTW I could only afford an AYA

People will buy and have no problem spending money on quality firearms. And I mean firearms that cost more then a decent house.

If he has a good interest he should do OK but a passion for firearms would be better. He may be thinking it's easy money. And there's nothing easy about it.

He's retired now and I think just wants something to do on the side. I hope he develops a love for them, how can you not?!

I don't know what my current list would end up being money wise, but gives me something to work on tonight

Red

I would be tempted to let him apprentice on somebody else's stuff for at least a year before I took him anything. When a gunsmith fits, chambers, and headspaces a rifle barrel he has created a pipe bomb if not done properly. It is a good excuse to go visit him once a month.
That bonding thing, y'know.

Rich

quote:

Originally posted by Idaho Sharpshooter:
I would be tempted to let him apprentice on somebody else's stuff for at least a year before I took him anything. Rich

2 years.
Regards, Joe

quote:

Originally posted by Dago Red:
I hope he develops a love for them, how can you not?!
Red

Ask my former Boss.... Democrat Liberal no sense moron.

Now the democrat and liberal part I'OK with as I live around a bunch of them and they really aren't anti gun for the most part. It's his ignorance about guns and his closed minded attitude that pisses me off.

without the gun bug, I dont give him 6 months

A passion for something sure helps a person excel, but I don't know if its always necessary.

There are lots of great gunsmiths who personally don't own many guns and almost never shoot. Not that they don't have a passion for gunsmithing, it just takes on a different face.

My brother isn't a gun person, but he's a good machinist. I've had him do a bunch of gun projects and he's done well. He claims guns actually have pretty low tolerances and plain materials compared to many other projects he does for work.

I'd have to see quite a bit of good work before I took my stuff to him. I like the guy(s) I've got now, problem is I don't have a lot of money.

I did however just sell a 5hp craftsman motor for 35 bucks. How much closer does that get me to my next project?

I really need to get some regular poker games going......

Something else I remember talking to him about now. He thinks tig is unnecessary and plans to do all welding with a torch. Is that possible/good idea on guns?

Red

quote:

Originally posted by Dago Red:
He thinks tig is unnecessary and plans to do all welding with a torch. Is that possible/good idea on guns?

Red

You/he can't be serious?

quote:

Originally posted by Chuck1911:
without the gun bug, I dont give him 6 months

3 now. Why would you give up the better tool to use one of less versatility? I am basing this purely on your statements. I have known a few machinists that tried to be Gunsmiths. 2 out of 3 lost there butts.
Too much time re inventing the wheel instead of applying their considerable skills towards efficiency. I hope he does better than that.

CW

He was serious. He thinks welding with a torch is a lost art and he can do just as good a job as a tig. I tried telling him that I had even read on here that there was a type of rod a guy used with tig that would blue the same as the original metal so after bluing would all look uniform. I don't think he knows how detrimental the heat can be to an action.

Red

quote:

He thinks welding with a torch is a lost art and he can do just as good a job as a tig

Mooris code is a lost art too, maybe he should become a telegraph operator instead of a gunsmith



.

He sounds like an accident waiting to happen.

quote:

Originally posted by Dago Red:
Something else I remember talking to him about now. He thinks tig is unnecessary and plans to do all welding with a torch. Is that possible/good idea on guns?

Is it possible? Sure, that's how it was done until a couple of generations ago.

Is it a good idea? Give me a break! If he plans to do any volume he is a fool to think that he can get by without a tig.

Gas welding is just too slow, too dirty and puts too much heat into the surrounding area to be used exclusively in professional gun work.

Passion or not, your FIL is going to fail because he already knows everything and doesn't sound like he in interested in learning anything new. (I'm going on my interpretation the picture you painted.)

Lassen community college has a gunsmithing program in which each class is a week long intensive course. I have always thought this would be ideal for a retired guy who wanted to break into the trade as it could be done in one or two week chunks.

I just want to point out, he's not my father-in-law. He's my wife's stepmother's stepfather. I know, weird.

I'm going to watch progress with interest, see if he screws a bunch of pooches or wakes up and starts looking for better answers.

Red

The more I think about it, this guy is more than a little frightening, he's a lot frightening.

I think maybe I just send Christmas cards and chat on the phone on his birthday. What he's got could be contagious...

Rich

quote:

Originally posted by Dago Red:
I just want to point out, he's not my father-in-law. He's my wife's stepmother's stepfather. I know, weird.

Yeah, I know I just could not figure out how to abbreviate that.

Maybe SFofW'sSM......

Regardless, I don't blame you for trying to distance yourself as much as you can.

What Jason Said with Tig.

Gas welding has it's place but we as a country develop new technology to improve production.

Yes with the correct jigs fixtures and what not a manual mill can do everything a cnc can and then some. But it will only take a lot longer to do.

Same with tig. Lets see I plug in my machine, turn on the argon, turn on the machine, confirm the water cooler is flowing water, set my amps, and hit the foot pedal and I have 3000 + degrees of heat right friggin now. No what tip do I use, How much acetylene do I flow, adjust to a neutral flame and heat area till ready to be welded. It's just too damn slow.

The other thing is Tig can do things a Oxy/Acetylene set can't or at least can't do very well.

Stainless???? Yep I can do that...
With out discoloration or sugaring of the metal?
Sure can do that too...

Titanium??? Yep I can do that...

Not to mention 4130, 4140, 8620 the staples of the gun industry.

A 1/32" wide bead to fill in a gouge or other small imperfection. Yep I can do that too...
If you learn to use the new tools at your disposal they will show you new ways to use them. Micro welding would not be possible with out Tig

Sounds like this guy looks at gunsmithing as just another job of fabricating a couple of fadutenators.
If he is just fishing around for something to stay busy at in retirement, he should try putting little ships in bottles.

No thankee yankee.

Ya check these guys out, read their shop rates and services they offer, and check out some of the things they have for sale on gun broker, and read the descriptions. As if they didn't have a clue, an accident waiting to happen.
http://www.diamondbgunsmithingandsales.com/

couldn't stay in business with prices like that.
Need to take their price list a multiply it by five to get a respectable rate.

Sounds like he's got allz-hymer bugs crawling all over him. You need to clue him in before he gets badly hurt or makes a big FU that hurts someone else and has to pay a terrible price...

AS been said gunsmiths and machinists are NOT mutually exclusive to each other's trade necessarily.

Luck...sounds like you need it.

Having been around both disciplines for many years, Machinists are technologists, gunsmiths are artists. Are there machinists who are artists? Sure. And there are Gunsmiths who are technologists, yes, but because you are one does not necessarily make you the other.

Okay, I gave him a bit of a benefit of the doubt in my earlier post, but when you mentioned his thoughts on TIG vs. torch I wouldn't let him put a plug in a Mossberg.

Excessive heat on guns is bad news. TIG is hard enough to control correctly, but thinking it's acceptable to use a torch INSTEAD is idiotic.

Especially since a basic Tig setup is dirt cheep now days. And for what a gunsmith will need it for it would be perfect.

Miller diversion 180 $1900 out the door and add a little more for a argon bottle.

I'm going to sound like a sales pitch but this machine will run off 120 or 240 VAC up to 125 amp on 120VAC and up to 180 amps on 240 VAC It's inverter driven so that means it draws a lot less amps at the plug. being under 200 amps an air cooled torch is all that is needed. and it's AC so it can weld thin section of aluminum.

A smith does not need a $4000 system and $2000 is not that expensive considering what a tig, in the proper hands, can do.

Tig welding is cheep once you talley up a set of decent sized tanks and a good set of regulators, torch tips and body. You can be right at $1000 or damn close to the price of the tig.

Although you will need a torch too. Silver brazing, heating, etc...

I'd send him to work with Walter!!!! That should be good for a video or two

the chef

Blacktailer nailed it with the Artist/technologist assesment. Also, there are alot of "machinists" out there who earned wages as an operator in a plant or somebody elses shop who can't really even set up the work they were doing. You can't take anybody's word for it.

Converesly from a "Brit" I'll tell you another story.

Sleeving of shot guns.

Years ago if a shot gun's barrels became too thin the only choice was to either have a new set of barrels made of throw the gun away.

Nothing else more could be done said ALL the established gun trade.

It took a machinist to show otherwise!

Coming from outside the gun trade this man had used a "sleeving" process to repair either car axles or hydraulic pumps or something similar.

Anyway he was a skilled machinist in the East Anglia region of England.

When his shot gun barrels wore out he decided that he could repair them in the same way he repaired those car axles or hydraulic pumps.

It could not be done the gun trade said. The new "sleeve" would be shot out of the stub and all the rest of their hidebound and closed mindset.

How did the man disprove them? By sleeving a gun and using no braze or cement or "weld" to hold the tubes in place.

Why?

He reasoned, and was correct, that the explosion of the cartridge in the breech would create enough radial pressure to hold the sleeve in place whilst the shot charge travelled down then through and finally out of the barrel.

And he was right.

He died I believe just last year and in his workshop was still the original set of tubes with the sleeves not fixed in that he had used to demonstrate the process.

So don't condemn all machinists.

Sometimes their input is wiser counsel than that of an established gunsmith who cannot see further to do a thing the way it has always been done and so dismisses all others.

I will be the first to say that a european trained machinist is not the same as a US trained machinist. nor a toolmaker.

The level of training and apprenticeship is night and day different. The european schools are far better then the US hands down.

I've worked with more then one european trained machinist, and a few european trained Mechanical engineers. If the US would only follow the same standards of training our engineers would not be four year school rejects.

If I remember correctly the whole package including internship was something like ten to twelve years in europe to be come a Mechanical engineer. Here in the states four years at nearly any fly by night school and no internship

US trained toolmaker for twenty years

My point exactly. The man on the street skips the "operator", "apprentice", "journeyman" part and goes straight to machinist like he was talking to a girl in a bar.

Funny thing is you 'll see job offers for machinist's and it will say something to the effect of "CNC operation is not a qualifying trade skill for this position manual machine machine operation and set up experience required"

When my trade school shut down two years after I left the school board felt the Tool room approach was "behind the time" and "Not adequate for the current job market" So they stopped the program all together because to re fit the shop with CNC machines and train operators in one years time was "to expensive"

San Diego City college is still the only toolmakers and machinist Journeyman program in southern california. Five year course standard