Posts by Slurryseal

Man, if I hadn't just built a gun I would be all over this. Those are great deals!

-Lance

I don't think that I'll epoxy the next gun... I was having all of the problems others have with epoxy - fisheyes, contamination, dust, bubbles. I think many of my problems are because of the epoxy I am using - Kwik Kick by Resin Research. Not that the epoxy isn't doing what it is supposed to, its a quick setting, thick epoxy.

I think I would have been better with an epoxy that was slower and thinner. I did add a little of the Additive F (I think its some sort of xylene based additive) to think it out and it helped a bit. Next time I'll give Phill's epoxy a try.

One hassle is refitting everything once the gun is epoxied, definitely takes a little tweaking here and there. The final coat is by all means not perfect, but you can't say there isn't a lot of epoxy on it...

The but pad is temporary, maybe for a season, right now I just want to get some blood on the gun.

-Lance

Overall the build has been easier than I though it would be. I think the hardest part is balancing your skill level and your expectations. The thing that has been slowing me down the most is trying to get everything 'perfect'.

The micrometer has been my biggest downfall, causing me to chase 1/100" and that leads to more problems. Things started moving faster once I accepted this would hopefully be the first of more guns, and nobody is going to notice an extra 1/64", especially the fish.

-Lance

Fuz, you're right I just rotated it, next time...

-Lance

I did flip the lams before laminating them, but grain pattern makes it look like that are glued back the same way they were originally cut, (with the exception of one piece that came from a horizontal cut rather than a vertical cut of the original piece of would). I had to double check as well when I was lining the pieces up for glueing because the grain matched so well even though it had been flipped.

-Lance

Spent some time after work on my today. I think the hardest part of a gun build is just building up the courage to start cutting into the wood. I spend most of my time thinking about what to do and testing out stuff on 2x4's.

Today I cut band holes, recessed and area for the handle, recessed withing that area to make the handle flush, and drilled the wholes for the trigger pins. I used the mill at work for all of this. First let me explain that while I have a mill at work, its basically used as a drill press, so its not as precise as it should be, but as good a drill press.

For the band holes I first used a 1/2" router bit. The holes seemed to small for 5/8" bands, I could barely pull them through. I ended up re-drilling them with a 5/8" drill bit, and i'm sure with the addition of epoxy the bands will still be tight.

For the non-wood worker (like me) be sure to clamp a piece of wood to the back of your blank to prevent blow-out. I first drilled holes on a scrap piece of my blank and found that drilling on a mill caused bad blow-out of the wood without a backing of scrap.

For large portion of recessed handle I used the 1/2" straight router bit again and made repetitive cuts from the side a-la etch a sketch. Again I practiced on a piece of scrap to make sure it would work. One thing I found was to make sure you are pushing the wood against the direction of the spinning bit. If you do not you are likely to splinter the wood. I think this is more prevalent with a mill because of its slow speed.

I then used a 1/4" router bit to make another recessed area so the handle would sit flush.

For drilling the trigger pins I first used a 3/16" drill bit, then went back with a 13/64" bit. ReefGeek had posted about the 13/64" bit to allow for the epoxy coating. I'm using the Neptonics Tuna mech. and the close tolerances of the opening does scare me with a 5/16" shaft. The pinned trigger mech works now when the pins are loose, but I'm afraid it may be out of adjustment when I epoxy the gun.

Nothing I'm doing here is new, but I'm just trying to post some of the things I've learned as a non-woodworker building a gun.

Now for some pics.... Oh and the nose of the gun will be shortened and rounded a bit, I just trimmed it with a miter saw for now.

-Lance

I think with all the debates on stainless steel screws and aluminum handles, threaded inserts, etc. I am just going to go with zip ties for securing my handle

I've dove for a while, but it wasn't until the last few years that I would get heartburn/acid reflux while diving. It makes for a miserable dive, and I have the after effects from it all day. What has worked for me is a generic acid reducer pill. I take one in the morning before I dive and everything is ok. Each time I forget to take one sure enough the heartburn/reflux comes back. Outside of diving I don't take the pills.

It didn't seem to matter what if anything I ate before I dove. I experimented with eating nothing, oatmeal, big breakfast or small, I still got heartburn/reflux. Like others have said, I think it has to be with being inverted so much, and then possibly swallowing air in the process of trying to keep the acid down.

-Lance

Steve - I've started a thread about my build over here - http://spearfishing.world/spea…enclosed-track-build.html

-Lance

The tape marks the cuts needed for a 60" gun. The handle is held on with double sided tape to get an idea of positioning.

The thin lam on the right is because of my electrical tape screw up. The ruff edges are from me leaning the blank up on a concrete floor. I've got plenty of extra blank to cut off.

Trigger pocket needs to be cleaned up.

Steve's tube idea was fairly easy to implement and looks clean.

I don't exactly know where to start but I've been building a gun, final length to be determined, based upon Steve Veros' very good gun building threads here - http://spearfishing.world/cust…/2567-bluewater-euro.html and here -http://spearfishing.world/spea…how-to-make-a-hybrid.html

I'll try not repeat things covered in Steve's thread, but give my insights to building a speargun with virtually no woodworking experience. I've hammered nails in things before, but my closest experience to building a speargun was probably the pine-wood derby many, many years ago.
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The tools I'm working with (mostly acquired from Craigslist or Harborfreight):
13" Planer - CL
Craftsman Table Saw with built in Router-CL
Plunge Router (bought this new because the router that came with the table saw was missing the 1/2" collet and I could not find a replacement) -OSH
Various router bits -Ebay,Lowes,HD,
Roller Stands - HF
72" Level - HF
Dozen Clamps -HF
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I made my blank out of Paduak with 6 vertical and 1 horizontal laminations each 3/8" thick. I wasted a lot wood making the lames as I got used to using the table saw. The planer was a life saver and allowed me to get all the strips the same thickness. I really wanted to try to keep all the laminations equally sized throughout the build, unfortunately I was unable to do that.

I'll skip the gluing process because that is covered everywhere else, but offer tips that I use on my next gun build. The epoxy resin I used thickened up pretty quick I used way more than needed. The extra epoxy was squeezed out during clamping and I should have wiped the excess while I still could. Leaving the epoxy oozing from the seems just made more work planing the blank.

The blank has taken the majority of my time so far, mainly because I had access to a micrometer. The micrometer caused me to spend too much time trying to get the blank perfectly straight and square. I was using a micrometer, feeler gauges, a square and level. My blank kept getting smaller and smaller each time I ran it through the table saw or planer.

I tried the squaring method from Steve's thread that used a flush trim router bit and piece of laminate. Unfortunately it chattered so much when I practiced on a 2x4 that I never used it on my blank. If I could get it to work it seemed the simplest way to square and true a blank.

I ended up using a method that Woodguy suggested on the other forum. Using two strips of electrical tape on one side of the blank when putting it through the planer to square it up. Unfortunately the electrical tape did not slide well through the planer and started bunching up as the blank went through. This rose the height of the blank progressively so the plane was uneven. This caused me to have to shave off even more wood from that side and I gave up on the idea of keeping the lam widths even. Woodguys method worked in the end, but I sprayed some table saw lube on the electrical tape to make it slide better.

---Thats it for now. I'll add more text here later and some pictures of where I am at in the next thread.
-Lance

I ended up using a 3/16 bit and it looks pretty good. I did have a scare as a 5/16" shaft would get jammed going down the track. After a lot of swearing I figured out that some epoxy had dripped down the tube. It was difficult to see where the epoxy was because it was near the top of the tube. I was able to use a small pin to get under the epoxy and pop off a strip the length of the tube.Just like Steve said the epoxy did not stick to the tube. I did give a quick sand to the outside of the tube so hopefully the epoxy does stick well there.

-Lance

Finally back on track for my gun build based on Steve's design. I'm ready to cut the slot in the tube, but I'm not sure what size shaft I'll be using, 5/16" or 9/32". Would a 1/4" slot be too big for a 9/32" shaft? I was thinking about using a 3/16" bit instead.

-Lance

While I'm still working on my build I wanted to add a link to this thread for the bit to cut the tube track. I think there is a typo in that what you have pictured appears to be a ball end mill, not a bull nose bit. I had a hard time finding ball nose router bits that were 7/16", but there are plenty of milling bits.

Mill bits typically have shafts that are the diameter of the cut. I found stainless steel tubeing at Ace Hardware that had and outside diameter of 1/2" and inside of 7/16" that made a perfect bushing for using in a 1/2" router. Afterwards I found this one from Mcmaster that appears to have a 1/2" shaft http://www.mcmaster.com/#ball-end-mills/=ar1gzw

Hope this helps anyone trying to follow Steve's build. Now I have to finish straightening my blank...

-Lance

Good point, I wasn't calculating a wider open muzzle to make loading easier. 54" might be long enough for a 60" gun with 6" of wide track for loading purposes.

Thanks again for you thread, it is very helpful.

-Lance

Thanks, thats exactly the info I was looking for.

-Lance

Steve,

Do you glue epoxy tube together before attaching it to the gun? If so what do you use.

If you just lay the two pieces of tube in the track and use epoxy to hold them together, how do you get them lined up perfectly and prevent epoxy from getting in the tube?

Thanks,

Lance

Quote from Dan

Lance, who's the jelly fish in your avatar?

The jellyfish is one half of the terrible two. Shes 4.5 and hes 6.

Who needs a entertainment center in a car.....

-Lance

Just a halibut and calico blood on it so far. Hopefully I'll get something bigger this summer.

on another note is there any reason I can't pm?

Lance

Found this forum searching for ideas on a speargun build while I'm waiting on my epoxy, and I'm glad I did. Steve Veros' posts in the speargun section are very helpful.

I was an active scuba diver for about seven years, but the last three years I have been strictly freediving. I dive primarily orange county, but venture outside the orange curtain when time/family permits. Shot my first white seabass last year with one of phil herranen's loaner guns on a Horizon 3 day charter.

My diving has slowed down this winter quite a bit, brrr its cold. I hope to use the time to put together a speargun or two.

tack så mycket

-Lance A.

.the only other swedish I know is IKEA.