I was expecting to find more budget and DIY Garand stuff

[Flyer]

Looking at Brownells, barrel vise inserts are $50 for steel, $60 for aluminum, receiver wrenches are $110 and timing gauges are $80.

They might be worth it for a professional gunsmith who is going to do dozens of Garands but those tools really don't need a terrible amount of precision to make something that could last for many Garand builds.

I'm going to make my own set using scrap metal and a bit of oak.

I bet I'll save enough to buy a pull through chamber reamer.

First thing, it seems that the GI barrel contour has diameters of 1.1" and 0.865" at the chamber end. I'll measure before I do any cutting but I have read that people have used 1 1/8" and 7/8" to make barrel vises so that is easier to find off the shelf.

I have been reading about the CMP receiver wrench and the Brownells wrench reviews so I will make a hybrid with an oak insert to protect the finish and the handle at an angle that allows it to tighten the receiver in an upright position with the handle horizontal.

The timing gauges seem very simple but might need some precision to work accurately. I might make mine adjustable so that I can dial in the precision with a screw and use a nut to lock it in.

Any way, I didn't see much that was made the way I would do it. If you know of cheap tools or designs that would be good to copy, let me know.

I am almost certain that I will not be making more tools than I need but I hope anyone who likes to DIY will copy or improve upon what I do.

[Orlando]

Trust me all you need is a cheap 18 " Cresent wrench for the receiver. I did several this way before making a receiver wrench andit works fine. No need in spending $$$ if you are just going to do one or two
Cut a piece of aluminum can to protect the receiver finish

[Flyer]

I'm sure you are right but guns are my hobby and I like nice tools.

If I could spend $60 and get a nice set for barreling Garands, my order would have been placed years ago. Since that doesn't exist, I'm going to spend some time in the shop and I'll wind up with a cheap purpose built tool and pride in ownership.

When I was young I got to visit my grandfather's garage on occasion. It was filled with home made tools of various quality. For him it might have been the result of living through the depression when you had to make and repair anything you need by yourself because the money to pay someone else was not there. I like to do similar things because I appreciate his creativity, determination and craftsmanship. I'm cheap too.

I'll probably be able to make a receiver wrench for less than the cost of a Harbor Freight Crescent wrench big enough to do the job. That means I'm billing my time at $0.00/hour but doing it is what I'm after.

[Orlando]

Since you were on a budegt I though maybe you had a Cresent wrench laying around you could use. Yes tools are expensive, thats why most people who only plan on doing a couple hire it done. It makes more sense financially
Heres a wrench my buddy made for me
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/Garandlover/misc/Garand%20tools/DSC00696_zps5jqmlyhw.jpg (http://s47.photobucket.com/user/Garandlover/media/misc/Garand%20tools/DSC00696_zps5jqmlyhw.jpg.html)

[Punch The Clown]

I'll probably be able to make a receiver wrench for less than the cost of a Harbor Freight Crescent wrench big enough to do the job. That means I'm billing my time at $0.00/hour but doing it is what I'm after.

I didn't think anything was cheaper than a Harbor Freight wrench.

[Flyer]

I think I have figured out a way to make a barrel vise out of some pipe nipples, scrap conduit and a pipe cap. A few cuts, some drilling and plug welding should do it.

I should really build it to fit in a bench vise but I need an upgrade. I should check out Craigslist to see if I can find a Wilton.

[Flyer]

Wow, it looks like the days of finding an old Wilton for $80 are gone.

One other thing I have been looking at is an interchangeable reloading press base. There is a company that makes some nice ones but their system has some faults I would like to correct.

It seems like I should make a flush mount plate and maybe hang a Garand barrel vise under it to keep it out of the way and solidly attach it to my bench.

That's one more project but not that big.

[Flyer]

Cheap barrel vise concept:

Black iron plumbing pipe is cheap, welds pretty good and is generally easy to work with.

It is available in different wall thicknesses but the dimensions are all nominal, in this case that fact will be used to our advantage.

Another thing about pipe is that it is welded down its length. If you cut it lengthwise, it will usually spring open a bit which we will also use to our advantage.

With the shape of the Garand GI barrel profile, there is a ledge that can take the torque of barreling so the barrel vise does not have to grab the barrel tightly. A tight grab would be better so I am going to try to make the pipe sections grab like a collet but if it winds up loose, no big deal and adding tape to the vise could snug it up.

As mentioned earlier, the GI barrel profile is two half circles, one 1.1" in diameter, the other 0.865". Bottom to top that is 0.9825".

1 1/4" schedule 40 pipe has a nominal I.D. of 1.380". That means I need to fill 0.140" on the bottom of the pipe and 0.2572" to fill on the top.

Forgetting the O.D. and I.D. for a while because they are close to what we need, 1" schedule 40 pipe is 0.133" wall thickness and 3/4" schedule 40 pipe is 0.113".

0.133 is close to 0.140 and that gap could easily be filled with aluminum tape.

0.133 + 0.113 = 0.246 is close to 0.2572 and that gap could easily be filled with aluminum tape.

Carefully trimming and shaping the ends of "C" shaped half pipe sections and plug welding stationary and moving sections should allow it to clamp using a drilled out pipe cap and the threads on the 1 1/4" pipe that holds everything.

The only negatives to this approach I see is that it will be a bit labor intensive, it needs a welder, a lathe is a good idea and you would need to strip everything off the barrel to make this work, the clamp style just needs the rear hand guard removed.

The positive is that I have pluming pipe scrap so the pipe cap and labor will be my only expense.

Now I have to plan my receiver wrench which will also be mainly built from scrap.

I think the one Garand tool I need to buy is the gas plug wrench.

[Flyer]

I tried the 1/4" socket extension to remove my gas plug and it was barely tight so no wrench needed. The gas cylinder was another story, it took some beating with a wooden block to get it off the splines.

Once that was removed, I discovered my parts kit is incomplete, there was no rear handguard retainer pin. Hopefully those aren't $$$.

Any way, I'm ready to build a barrel vise once I get to the shop. With Thanksgiving, I'm not sure when that will be but hopefully by December 1.

[Orlando]

I suppose you are talking about the lower band pin. Go to hardware store and buy a 1/8 x 1/2 roll/split pin I can send you plans for a receiver wrench if you are interested and if I can find them

[Flyer]

Thanks for the offer but I think I know what I want for a receiver wrench.

The metal part of it is going to be a 1*1.5 or 2" tube 2-3' long with a steel block welded to it that fits in the area under the barrel threads. I'll probably make a matching cheater for it.

The wood is going to be a roughly semicircular piece of oak with a cutout for the exterior of the receiver.

The reason for being semicircular is that I'm going to use a steel band to compress and locate the wood over the steel handle.

That will make close to 100% bearing surface for 1" of the receiver, non-marring and with the barrel mounted sight side up on the left of my bench, the motion to torque the receiver will be downward and the wrench handle will wind up close to horizontal to the right, parallel to the bench top when properly timed so that I can treat the bench top like a handle on the barrel vise, that should be ergonomic.

It might be a little more work than copying CMP style but I think I will have a better wrench. I want the horizontal setup after reading the poor reviews of the Brownells receiver wrench because one customer didn't like the way it points down. I saw a video of the CMP wrench and it was pointing straight up which is better but still not ideal.

[Flyer]

Yesterday was a bad day.

An exploding cutoff wheel ended my receiver wrench project before it started. My barrel vise is about 30%. I was hoping to do my gas cylinder NM modification but that didn't happen either.

One thing I did look at is how I can clamp the gas cylinder for the NM mod. It looked like a pretty sketchy grip in a standard Kurt vise. The jaws are just too short. I could make a set of tall aluminum soft jaws but I have a small CNC style vise (flat sides) with an angle locking jaw so I'm thinking I'll grab the gas cylinder in the top of my small vise and then grab the small vise sideways in the big Kurt to hold it vertical. That should be pretty stable and I don't have to buy aluminum or machine new jaws.

Next time...

[Orlando]

I hold the gas cylinder in one hand, Dremel tool with small sanding drum in the other. No need to clap it in anything, dont over think it

[Flyer]

So you open up the rear ring with a dremel?

I was planning on doing the rear lug mod with a stone in a die grinder (copying the shape of recent CMP style cuts) but I was going to clamp it to ream the hole in a mill.

If I use the mill, I will raise the piece with the knee rather than lower the reamer with the quill so that I don't take too big of a bite.

For people who don't machine, too big a bite can grab and a mill has enough torque to twist up the gas cylinder if it isn't clamped with 100% support. 100% support means milling a vise jaw to surround the gas cylinder which I don't intend to do.

[Orlando]

Yes I would clamp it doing it your way
I open the ring and bevel the tab with a Dremel and sanding drum. Either way will work

[Flyer]

I'm setting up a workbench for gun stuff including reloading.

A good work bench has a good bench vise. I have always had access to a shop with a good American vise like an old Wilton. Those are great, big and heavy. In the past you could find a used one and buy it cheap, maybe $80 but prices have gone up and I've seen some horrible examples with $300 asking prices.

99% of the time I'm not going to need that much vise so I started looking for something smaller.

Last night I found it and today I picked it up, a 3.5" Babco vise for $20. It's an Oakland model so made in the USA unlike the newer China stuff. It has an enclosed screw so it won't accidentally get hammered or loaded with junk. The base is drilled for two rotation locks but only has one. For $20, that isn't a big deal.

It should do everything I need it to do and last through a few lifetimes if it is treated right.

[Flyer]

After removing a layer of crud, made in Japan.

It is still entirely serviceable but not quite as nice.

So far I have torn down the vise completely and I also found that the anti-reversal clip had been replaced by a piece of wire that was getting messed up.

At first I looked for new clips but one vise restorer had a good idea to replace it with a shaft collar. It makes sense because the next time I have to service it, I won't have to battle with an anti-reversal clip or try to find a new one.

Now I just need to wire brush it, degrease it and pick a new paint color.

The jaws could use a little work too but in general it is going to be a pretty easy restoration and a nice vise.

[Flyer]

Back to American made vises, I got out my CNC vises. I wasn't sure if I bought one or two back in the day, it turns out it was two.

They are American Sun brand and have an angle locking jaw, just like a Kurt but CNC style which means the sides are ground square and they have clamping grooves rather than a bolt down base. The idea is you can gang up a whole bunch on a CNC mill table or tombstone so you can run several parts at the same time on one machine.

In this case it is perfect because when I clamp my small vise in the big Kurt vise everything will be square.

Any way, I knew I had a 4" vise and thought maybe I had two. It turns out I have a 4" and one about 2 5/8" which fits perfect to grab the gas cylinder.

It's a lot easier to fool around with a 10 pound vise than a 30+ pound vise so the small size is going to work great.

The best thing, I think I spent less than $100 total on the two CNC vises. Original sticker price was around $1,500 for the pair.

When I get around to owning a hobby mill, the 4" is about the perfect size and the small one comes in handy too.

I'll probably get a big Wilton if I ever have the space to put together a full shop but as it is, my vise hand is strong.

[timshufflin]

So you open up the rear ring with a dremel?

I was planning on doing the rear lug mod with a stone in a die grinder (copying the shape of recent CMP style cuts) but I was going to clamp it to ream the hole in a mill.

If I use the mill, I will raise the piece with the knee rather than lower the reamer with the quill so that I don't take too big of a bite.

For people who don't machine, too big a bite can grab and a mill has enough torque to twist up the gas cylinder if it isn't clamped with 100% support. 100% support means milling a vise jaw to surround the gas cylinder which I don't intend to do. I used to do it that way, it's not a critical spec to need a mill. Just dremel, blast, repaint (or not as you can't see it), done.

[Flyer]

You are right but since I have the vise out an appropriate reamer and I will know it is there, I think I will ream it on the mill.

Some times my brain is totally fine with quick and dirty solutions that you never see but if I can do it nice and instead I take the easy way, that can bug me.

If I had read about the NM gas cylinder mod as "hog out the rear ring" I wouldn't think about reaming it but the wording I read mentioned reaming so I want to go that way.

I will get it done next week.

The thing that is currently slowing me down is the roll mark on the heel. I have been trying to contact "European Hand Engraver" for weeks but the phone just rings, no answering machine, no email address.

Hopefully he will pick up some day and I can get the markings deepened. By the time that happens, everything else should be ready to refinish.