Posts by Bretto

Quote from Dan

Looking very good. What did you use to stop the epoxy track on the bottom, a pipe? If so was it hard to take out once the epoxy was dry?

Thanks Dan! I trimmed so much off the rails on the carbon barrels so they were round and used cling wrap around the barrel ends that insert into the timber. I poured the epoxy graphite straight onto the cling wrapped barrels and let it set overnight. The barrels fit very snug and can be pulled out pretty easy, the cling wrap won't stick very well to the epoxy and it all just pulls out when you take the barrel out for the first time. Very happy with how it all worked out in the end.

It appears that my first attempt at the epoxy graphite tracks was a success! I trimmed all the excess epoxy off today and it's all ready to route the enclosed tracks later on in the week. With a bit of luck I'll have these guns all finished and out under the water in a couple of weeks for a test run.

Had a bit of spare time today and the conditons were right so i poured the epoxy graphite tracks into the back half of the hybrids. This was my first attempt at doing this but so far so good. With a bit of luck i can route the enclosed tracks in the next couple of days.

Quote from Tin Man

Glad you're happy with them. One other thing to keep in mind is that they can re-grind standard carbide tipped router bits into custom profiles as well. So if you ever needed a goofy size, like say a 1-3/16" ball cutter, then you could send them a 1-1/4" cutter and they could cut it to your specs cheaper than fabricating a whole new cutter from scratch.

Awesome, I'll have to keep that in mind then. Thanks again for your help Jeff

Cheers,

Bretto

Thanks Guys!

Yeah I'm not by any means experienced in making hybrids let alone epoxy graphite tracks so this is a huge learning curve for me. I also don't like the idea of a big bulky gun for everyday use and that is why i wanted to try and make it more streamline and thin, whether it will work well or not i am unsure of but guess time will tell. I only plan on running 2 x 16mm on one and 3 x 16mm or 14mm on the other.

The barrels are Rob Allen carbons sdeisen, i might keep one the same camo effect and have a play around with the other one but undecided at this stage

Tin Man & Wood Guy... I got the ball cutters in the mail today from SFS and I'm very happy with the quality of them! Bob is great to deal with and was very fast in making them and shipping them out, thanks heaps for you help guys and for putting me in touch with him.

Cheers,

Brett

Managed to get a little more done on the hybrids over the last few days. I have routed out the barrel holes and glued the two halves back together. I routed out the dovetail section for the epoxy graphite enclosed tracks and also routed out the slot to fit one of the mechs.

Thanks guys, i will add more pics up once it's totally finished when i get back from my trip away.

Dan... I drilled down from the top vertically with a press drill to my certain depth and then drilled from underneath on the appropriate angle and depth needed to line up exactly and meet the bottom of the vertical holes that i drilled from above.

If i use this style muzzle again i would do it in such a way that the top holes were angled out to the side more with slight chamfered sides on the top of the muzzle to increase the line of sight when aiming and also off set the holes to help stop the rubbers bunching up so much. The plan was to build this gun for big fish targets out in open water, Fads, blue water hunting etc. I'm trying to go for the perfect accuracy approach over line of sight so had to compromise with the muzzle design a bit on this one but next time i will design and build it in such a way to allow for both them factors

Sorry about my shocking drawing skills but kind of gives you an idea how it would be inside the muzzle.

Thought I'd post this up in this tread since i don't have a tread going for this gun. I've spent the last couple days putting some final touches on this gun. I have put three coats of oil on, made up and fitted all the test rubbers which i will need to replace once my new ones arrive in the mail. I also spent a bit of time polishing up my custom line anchor, i put some lead shot in the arse and i glued the butt pad on and tested out the router table for the first time by trimming the butt material flush with the stock. Very close to being finished now!
:excited1:

Edit: Just wanted to add in that the cord on the quick release muzzle is not set up right and i need to finished it off right when i get the new thinner cord and rubbers. I just wipped this setup together for a test run and the cord that i used is pretty thick stuff and i couldn't loop it through to go over the bar. I will post some more pics later on when i get the new rubber and cord and once it's all set up right.

Quote from Dan

What happened? Your test piece looked good, what did you do different?

First test piece was with west systems and added in a fine black powder pigment (looked great)! I then used a new clear coat epoxy which a had not used before and added pigment paste mixed with same epoxy through the clear coat and the epoxy was heaps thinner than the west systems so that is where i messed up, just way to thin and the colours would just mix in with the clear coat not give the effect i was looking for. I should of just stuck with the west systems for the whole test :crazy:

Haven't done any more tests yet but will do more soon and add them up, just been trying to finish off the last gun before i get to involved in the hybrids. Coating the other gun tomorrow so it should be done soon and i will progress more with the Hybrids in the new year.

Cheers,

Brett

Quote from Don Paul

Brett I looked back on some of my old gun notes. One of my poured (open)tracks on my guns is West graphite
#423 and the mix was 30%graphite and 70% MAS slow cure Epoxy.I waited 72hr before milling.
The graphite makes the epoxy more brittle at higher graphite ratios. I need to go back and read your build
to see if your going ET or open deep rail?
Cheers, Don

Thanks for the info Don, i went to my West Systems supplier but they are closed till the 4th of Jan and i will be away unfortuantly, so won't be able to do any tests till i get back from my holiday around the 9th. I was planning on doing a enclosed rear track, open front hybrid.

Also thanks for putting up them pics Dan.

I done some more tests today with the epoxy and pigment finish, lets just say it didn't go to plan :laughing: Will try a different approach tomorrow... No photos of today's mess

Quote from Don Paul

Top of the Morn Brett, I'm off to grab a cray in this cold Cali water, back at you latter. Do you have your
graphite particulate yet?
Cheers, Don

Hey Don, Not yet mate, I'm going to check out some of the west systems stuff today and might pick some up and test it out. Good luck with the crays.

Quote from Dan

Bretto, I did the first 8" of the front of a gun like that once, black color, looked just like your piece of wood. It turned out good, I used a chicken turner to turn the stock continuously to get the smooth finish. My purpose in doing so was to cover up some cosmetic faults that the wood had in that area. But I wouldn't do it for cosmetic reasons only to a whole gun. Wood is beautiful, and the epoxy finish is more work.

If your purpose is to give the gun a durable care free finish, as opposed to oil which you have to reapply often, I recommend penetrating epoxy.

Thanks for your advice Dan, the idea was to make one of these gun and leave the natural Tassy Oak finish and coat with a penertrating epoxy and the other was going to be something a bit different with the epoxy pigment coating but i will just have to see how things turn out with the tests.

I like your idea with the chicken turner, got any pics of how that gun turned out that you can throw up on here?

Cheers,

Brett

Thanks guys

I done the first epoxy pigment test yesterday in black, only done one coat. Looks pretty good but want to do a few for more tests with different colours and also try blending some colours together to see what type of effects i can come up with. Black looks very nice in the sun with a awesome glossy finish but i reckon it would look like crap once it starts getting a few scratches from being thrown around the boat and dragged through the reef

Quote from Dan

Thanks for sharing the build details.

No problems at all Dan

Thanks LunkerBuster

Unfortunately the weather has turned bad over here and one of my dive trips have been canceled for a few days till things settle down... Hopefully! Always seems to be the way when you plan a trip away :angry5:

Back to the gun build... I have been having a good chat with Ihab and i was interested about his mechs and parts and I've decided to use the Nile-tec mech (with new improved line release... not pictured) and a one piece Nile-tec handle in one of these hybrids to give them a test run and see how they perform. It's easy to judge something by looks but wanted to actually get my hands on one of these mechs and one piece handle frames and test them out for performance in a build and give my honest opinion.

Nile-tec mech

Nile-tec one piece handle with scales (without the ring on the bottom ;))

I'm also getting Tin Man to make me up one of his handle frames and i will either use this or a neptonics handle in the other hybrid depending on when i recieve the Tin Man handle (no rush Tin Man, I know you are a busy man)

Going to try and do a couple tests today with pigment mixed epoxy while the temp is good for it and see if i can come up with a nice finish.

Quote from sdeisen

brett is that wood (the tasmanian oak) somehwat available where you are, or is it still a real specialty type thing?
they are alla type of eucylptus no?

Yeah sdeisen it is a type of eucalyptus and is a pretty common and available timber over here, It's a real nice white timber and comes up looking great with the right epoxy, coating with west systems 207 makes it look really yellow and spoils the finish a bit in my opinion. Might end up keeping one of the guns with the natural white timber colour and the other i will experiment a little with.
Here is a link to a little detail on the wood... http://www.tastimber.tas.gov.a…sGeneral.aspx?SpeciesID=1

Done the last bit of work i can do on the hybrids till the core box router bit arrives in the mail. I glued the horizontal piece to the stocks and have stripped them in half ready to route the barrel holes. Won't be able to do anymore work for a couple weeks now till i get back from going away.

Everyone have a great Chrissy and happy New Year, hope you all spear plenty of quality fish!

Cheers,

Brett

By the way, Don the next gun will be Australian Lace Wood i promise

I had been planning on doing this build for a while and now that i have built the new router table it will be much easier to build so going to give it a go.

I have glued up two hybrid blanks out of Tasmanian Oak (Australian hardwood) and they are almost at the stage where i can start working on the them, i have just glued a horizontal laminate on both of them today and just have to wait for a router bit to arrive before i can progress with any of it. Still got to finish off the last gun as well at some stage, to much to do at once

Since this if my first attempt at this style gun i will be doing two at once and using the first blank as a sacrificial blank in case i mess anything up which I'm not planning on doing and hopefully i should have two nice guns at the end of it all.

The wood section of the hybrid will have a enclosed graphite epoxy track and I'm using a 28mm RA carbon barrel for one of them. I'm yet to get the second barrel but will buy one very soon to use for the job.

Going to be stripping the blanks in half and using a core box bit to do the barrel hole and glue back together.

Both guns will be around 60" mid handle guns and running 5/16 Riffe shafts, I'm not quiet sure on the other hardware as yet but looking into it now and deciding, one will definitely have a Neptionics reef mech in it at this stage.

Since this is such a new style build for me I'm sure there will be a few question asked on my behalf and a bit of advice needed along the way from hybrid builders out there and people with experience in graphite epoxy tracks. I will be doing some reseach on the graphite epoxy tracks throughout the forums to get a better idea on it all and do a couple practice runs on some scrap before i pour the tracks for the hybrids.

Also going to be doing a few tests over the coming weeks with different epoxy finishes by adding in pigments etc to see if i can come up with a nice finish for the guns. Once again if anyone has any tips on this throw them my way, i would love to hear them.

A few pics so far, i will post some more as i progress with it...

Cheers Don

Ended up doing a bit more work on the router table and it is now finished and ready to go! I decided to put a couple more supports in the middle section of the base to support the weight of the router. I added in two fence/guides on either side so it has a duel setup option so you can lock them both into place and feed the timber through with no movement for error, works brilliantly! Also secured the removable top by countersinking four bolts with wing nuts. The only other thing i plan to do later on is add a shelf onto the bottom supports for storage etc. It's been a fun little build and hopefully the pics can help out a few other gun builders out there that want to give it a go. Time to go and put it to use