30 replies to this topic

[AquaPsudo]

That's pretty rad

[Meaker VI]

Ok i've been reading what everyone is posting and thinking hard about it and i want to thank everyone for your input.

I had an idea after looking at a closeup of the wooden grip of a real steel AK 47. The darn thing is made of many many thin layers and is then sanded. There are prototyping services that have good rates for laser-cutting thin pieces of wood based on computer files and even line drawings. I could do the finishing work myself. Costs would be drastically cut. What do you think?...

I'm with T3K and The lord of Fish; you probably don't need automation to produce these accessories. The most likely reason you saw tons of layers in the real-steal AK is that layered wood (plywood) is much cheaper than solid stock and often stronger. I highly doubt it was formed from many pre-cut layers which were later glued and sanded as you suggest. Although you can get 100% accuracy and repeatability out of an automated (CNC; Laser; Water-jet) system, a bandsaw and roundover bit (which has already been suggested) would be the easiest, quickest, and cheapest route; you could throw in some sanding on a belt sander to get just about any profile in 10 minutes or so per stock.

I have essentially no opinion on the realism issue - you could sell them unstained/treated if it bothers you and let the end-user decide what they want to carry around.

[spacephrawg]

I'm with T3K and The lord of Fish; you probably don't need automation to produce these accessories. The most likely reason you saw tons of layers in the real-steal AK is that layered wood (plywood) is much cheaper than solid stock and often stronger. I highly doubt it was formed from many pre-cut layers which were later glued and sanded as you suggest. Although you can get 100% accuracy and repeatability out of an automated (CNC; Laser; Water-jet) system, a bandsaw and roundover bit (which has already been suggested) would be the easiest, quickest, and cheapest route; you could throw in some sanding on a belt sander to get just about any profile in 10 minutes or so per stock.

I have essentially no opinion on the realism issue - you could sell them unstained/treated if it bothers you and let the end-user decide what they want to carry around.

Noted. Well I'll do this much on the computer in that case: I'll make the outline of the form.

I wanted to do it via CNC because I like the precision. CNC costs as well as 3d printing are coming down as years go by. Ten years ago they were far more expensive. Of course by the time its properly affordable, the Nstrike series will be a footnote in the toy history books.

Assuming I can get my friend's girlfriend's dad to CNC it for me for cheap or free, I would still like to try the CNC route. If that doesn't pan out then I'll take your advice and do it by hand, which reminds me I need to get a whetting wheel for my wood chisels.

There's another option that just occurred to me but I don't know about the cost factors. I could make this out of layered sheets of PVC, no? is that crazy or could it work?

[Meaker VI]

Noted. Well I'll do this much on the computer in that case: I'll make the outline of the form.

I wanted to do it via CNC because I like the precision. CNC costs as well as 3d printing are coming down as years go by. Ten years ago they were far more expensive. Of course by the time its properly affordable, the Nstrike series will be a footnote in the toy history books.

Assuming I can get my friend's girlfriend's dad to CNC it for me for cheap or free, I would still like to try the CNC route. If that doesn't pan out then I'll take your advice and do it by hand, which reminds me I need to get a whetting wheel for my wood chisels.

There's another option that just occurred to me but I don't know about the cost factors. I could make this out of layered sheets of PVC, no? is that crazy or could it work?

Getting it done for basically free would be the only way I'd use CNC'ing when you could make a simple approximation in literally 10 minutes with a half-decent shop setup. Take an hour or two to build some jigs and you could get +/- 1/16" tolerance pretty easily. Take some more time building them/build a bunch at a time and you could do just as well without jigs. Time will still be against you, even with all that added - CNCs are slow machines.

PVC sheets are expensive. Looks like $80 for a 1/4x48x8' sheet. A very quick search shows prices of around $80 for a BC grade 3/4" plywood sheet (3x the material). Some form of molding would be better, since you wouldn't need to make it solid, but I don't know if you have the equipment/knowledge for that.

[spacephrawg]

Getting it done for basically free would be the only way I'd use CNC'ing when you could make a simple approximation in literally 10 minutes with a half-decent shop setup. Take an hour or two to build some jigs and you could get +/- 1/16" tolerance pretty easily. Take some more time building them/build a bunch at a time and you could do just as well without jigs. Time will still be against you, even with all that added - CNCs are slow machines.

PVC sheets are expensive. Looks like $80 for a 1/4x48x8' sheet. A very quick search shows prices of around $80 for a BC grade 3/4" plywood sheet (3x the material). Some form of molding would be better, since you wouldn't need to make it solid, but I don't know if you have the equipment/knowledge for that.

I do have the knowledge for how to do casting. I have not ruled that out yet. However what would make that expensive to produce would be the mold material. Resin, even impact resistant resin, is cheap.

Since I last wrote on here, I had an idea: making a G36-style frame stock in layers out of sheets of PVC. Technically I'd only need to buy one sheet, or even just one sheet of ABS (the plastic nerf guns are already made of) and do it that way.

Turns out I will not be able to get the CNCing done for free after all. However if I am to do a mold, I'll have the pattern CNC'd out of something disposable like foam, or that's the plan for right now.

I'm not ready to give up yet. Thanks again for all of your input. If you can think of any other suggestions for how I could do this, I'm all ears. The name of the game is custom nerf stocks put onto custom guns, so anything is fair game, including adapting stocks from crappy toy guns, which I'm on the fence about. Thanks again and have a great weekend, everyone!

[Devistator0]

I just decided to make my first post about my take on a n strike compatable wooden stock,here is a video about it.

video"]My link[/url]

(had trouble posting pictures read how but couldn`t get it)

Your video is related to the thread tangentally at best...and at any rate, the last post in this thread was in August. Don't necro threads. please.

Edited by Carbon, 02 December 2012 - 09:55 AM.