I've discovered that blisters come in more than one fashion. I got my first grade. Needless to say, I wasn't super thrilled with the grade. I did better than quite a few, but not as well as I would have liked. The grading seems to be quite stiff at school, but I can deal with that. I started a new project yesterday and I've already changed how I do things, I'm much more deliberate. I guess part of that is because of the learning curve, and part is just a chang in perspective. The project I started yesterday is a 1911 bushing wrench. Bushing wrenches are quite common and can typically be purchased for under $10, but again, the point of making a wrench by hand is not the end product, but what is gained in experience while making the product.
 

The silver part here is the bushing. It is a necessary part of the 1911 pistol as it keeps the slide/barrel assembly together during firing and can often be quite tight (especially on high-end pistols) which is where the wrench comes in.

 

 

Unfortunately, with the bushing wrench, I've already wasted a few hours simply by overthinking the project. It was after talking with two of my instructors that I elected to stick with the KISS principle. It didn't really need to be super fancy anyway, I've already got several bushing wrenches.

Happily, I completed another project today. My practice barrel (which was discussed in Just the Basics) is finally done. I unfortunately went over on hours, but according to our grading criteria, there shouldn't be a deduction for going over time. The project was supposed to take 20 hours, I finally got it done right under 23. Two hours of that time was spent standing around today waiting for the hot bluing tanks to heat up.

The process of bluing that we use starts with a hot soap bath to clean the metal one last time followed by a hot rinse (both tanks are 150 degrees). From there, the metal parts go to a cold bath for roughly 10 seconds, then into the hot salts (270-275 degrees at this elevation). The parts needed to sit in the bluing salts for about half an hour. From there, the get rinsed in the cold bath briefly, then placed into a boil-out tank. The boiling tank helps to remove all of the salts from the metal and took about 10 minutes. For something more complex, the times would be longer for the salts and boil out tanks. From the boil out tank, the metal parts get placed in a water displacing oil bath (NOT WD-40). After five minutes there, we then wipe down the barrel with a gun cleaning solvent to remove the oil from the oil bath, dry the part with a clean cloth, then apply a firearms appropriate oil to the finish to protect it.

Sorry for the blurry photos.

The bluing tank set up.

 

 



 

My polished barrel.

 

Barrels in the bluing salts.

 

My blued barrel.

 

 

 

Sorry the pictures are so small. I'll have to see if I can change the size later.