I had a thread about me being selected for the PA Gunsmith School, but it's apparently been banished to the archives. It's a 16 month course that teaches everything from stock making, bluing, parts fabrication, metallurgy, machine use (lathes and shit), and I'm pretty sure they have you turn your own barrels. It's pretty intense.  

Oh well. Anyway...

DAY 1


Today we we got our initial issue of tools, did a meet and greet with the staff, and finished all the in-processing paperwork. My dumb ass never filled out the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) paperwork, so I hosed myself out of a sizable pell grant. The financial adviser jumped my ass about it less than 5 seconds after I walked in the door. Whoops. Ended up cutting the school a check for $1700. The first of two kits they gave us had a lot basic shit in it. Hex keys, files, a ball-peen and a rubber hammer, punches, screw driver bits, cleaning rags, sand paper, gun grease and lube, and eye pro. There was other stuff, but it's basic shit everyone owns.

There was other stuff that wasn't so standard though. They gave us steel rods so we could forge our own chisels for the wood working we're going to do, clay and stone bars for polishing the metal finishes on various parts, plus a couple tubes of various grit polish; calipers,  a multi grit whet stone, and a scribe. They also threw in a good size (but cheap as fuck) tool box.

After that, they handed us a book on machine tool operations. During the reading of the various chapters they wanted us to go over, I'm fairly certain my brain tried to claw it's way out of my nose. Holy balls is it boring shit. Without doing the stuff described, I had no idea what the fuck they were talking about. I had no idea what a hermaphrodite caliper or a sine bar was until today. Once I get my hands on the various tools and figure out how to use them I'll be good though.

Overall I'm excited as hell and am looking forward to the next 16 months. I have a few projects in mind, one being a bolt action varmint gun in 5.7x28. Also the staff had never heard of arfcom, so I put a good word in with them and maybe they'll want to be sponsored here. Who knows.

I'll try to update this as I go. They specifically requested no pics or vids of the shop areas, but as I go through the motions of making and fixing the various guns I'll get my hands on I will take photos (if i remember) and put them up.

Good for you and good luck! I look forward to the updates.

I went to MSC

we had to buy/bring all our own tools...



stay with it...treat it like a "Job" and you will do well

Looking forward to more updates.

What's the school?

PA gunsmith school

Tag

I graduated from there in 2008.
Yes Gary pronounces Mauser wrong
He can also scratch metal with his eyes. You will polish something, think it is perfect and he will "find" scratches. By scratches I mean he shoots lasers from his eyes and fucks your shit up.
You will learn a lot, if you put in the effort. The course is set up so you could come in and never once hold a tool in your hand, or already be working as a gunsmith, and I saw both in my time there.
The grading scale is tough, the jump from a 3.5 to a 4 is huge. I think I only saw one or two 4s while I was there.





ETA: I was lucky enough to be in the last group to be taught by Chief, sadly he passed while I was there.





Gary and Jim still instructors?


The stock making instructor was a student when I was there, george is his name I believe.



ETA2: The course work is geared heavily toward bolt actions and 1911 style handguns, don't worry all the skills learned apply to modern semi autos as well. Though I've heard they are adding in a bit more AR type stuff now.



 

A Friend of mine just completed that course earlier this year, he had nothing but good to say about it.  As far as the machine tools stuff,  Youtube is your friend,  users "Opensourcemachinetools", "MrPete222", and "ThatlazyMachinist" have a bunch of REALLY Beginner/basic stuff so you can see what the books are talking about

Good luck and keep us posted.

That's awesome. I used to work with Bob Thackers Tae Kwon Do instructor, so he kinda lit up when I mentioned that.

Edit: I haven't met all the instructors yet, just the front staff and two other guys. The first thing we discussed was the cycle of operation and a gif they had playing was a digital cut away of an AR 15 firing in slow mo that showed how the internals worked. I won my "team" a prize for correctly describing the operation of a firearm. I felt smart.

No dremel tool issued?



Waste of money I say......

Good luck!

Thanks!

I was actually getting ready to attend when my wife and I found out about our upcoming son... That was almost 4 years ago now, still wish I could have gone. But that's how it goes sometimes. Do well, for me. Sincerely, the jealous dude with some kids.

Sounds really interesting, and thanks for posting. Please keep us up to date.

 

Good luck. Hang in there. I wouldn't mind learning how to do that myself

Good luck and I'm somewhat envious

Good luck dude

In on 1.

Please keep updating. Once my kids are in school, I might end up there for the program.

DAY 2

So today we got to get our hands to work. Simple shit, though important. We recieved a piece a piece of 1/8" thick cold rolled steel, and trued up one of the edges using a 6" square ruler, a half round file, and a flat file. We were also shown the proper way to use a file. Sounds dumb, but apparently I had no idea how to use a flat file right. Took a bit to get it done, but was pretty easy. Then we threw some Dykem blue on one side and started laying out the outlines for a V block, parallels, a surface plate, sine bar, a couple spots for small and large buttstock caps, and a outline for a recoil pad.

We were given a compass and a french curve to deal with the caps recoil pad outline and we're shown how to manipulate them. The sine bar, parallels, surface plate were all pretty easy. I had to redo a a line or two a couple times, but hey, I'm new at this. I've never done machine work or used any of the tools we're using with the exception of a drill press and a bandsaw. Then I got to laying the lines for the stock caps, and my brain decided to call it a day. I started mixing up the measurements of the two size caps, and tried doing both at once. Thankfully I caught my mistakes and after attempting to correct them (and failing), I decided to call it a day. It was the end of the day anyway, and there was no sense in rushing as I would probably just get frustrated with it. Tomorrows another day!

Interesting thread,will be following for updates.

I get a lot of use out of the tools you make the first week. I use the chisels all the time for all sorts of stuff



 

I talked to Rich about Chief today. He sounded like quite the man. Damn shame.

How many hours a day is it?

0800 to 1630, with 45 mins for lunch at 1145. So 8 ish hours.

DAY 3

I finished up the templates this morning. Had Rich, my current instructor, look over them and he made a few small corrections. Other than that he said everything was fine. I was worried about falling behind, but I'm slowly subconsciously realizing this isn't the military, with their run, sprint, puke, sprint, puke, sprint approach to education.

Anyway, once they were done the hack sawing began. So. Much. Sawing. My right arm is semi numb from all of it. After cutting out the chunks, I started to file the edges down to my layout lines that I made. I filed for about 4 hours today. My right arm is heavy and sore and I swear I'm going to look like this dude. I still have 6 pieces to file on

No school tomorrow. Dunno what the deal is with that. I know Monday is labor day, but I have no clue why we have tomorrow off.

Just wait until you refinish your first gun. all by hand

LOL school for gunsmithing! Shit dawg all you need is a numrich catalog, a dremmel, and a airbrush for paint and your set..

LOL gunsmithing school..

Well shit, if I had know that, Id'a just stayed home!

If you are going to be a gunsmith, you gotta start acting like one.

Promise daily updates.


But don't ever deliver them.


Post often about why you don't have time to do the promised updates.





Good luck

LOL its a lot of fun.. And a lot of work.. make as many tools as you can now.. I still use all the stuff I made in school in 91..

Oh and let me add.. You learn to make what you need because most of the time thats the way its going to be down the road. Either the tool you need is not offered, or crazy $$$. So you make it your self..

I was in school in 91 too! 2nd grade though....

That's what Rich was saying today. He wanted to take the barrel off his Cx4 Storm, and Beretta wanted him to send it back to the factory. He said fuck that and made his own rod to take it off.

Sounds like a blast OP! Would be a lie if I said I wasn't jealous.

this x1000



One of the best things about the program at the PA school is it really teaches you how to make tools when you need them. I don't mean they teach you how to make specific tools, but the thought process that goes into figuring out what the tool needs to do and making it from there.



Then you get into making tools to make a tool you need



 

Parent-Teacher conference day.

My family is a bunch of libs. I don't think they're going to show up.


Also, bump so this doesn't disappear into the archives.

All the hard core conservatives in my family have died and beside me all the rest are full on demtards but I give them all enough hell that my mom disowned me and took me out of her will



She did email me about 3 weeks ago because she is in bad health and I still giver her shit as she wants all guns banned except the 2 pistols her FSA cocksucker husband owns



Well back to work tomorrow for you OP. Do good and update this thread



 

Days 4 and 5.

Yesterday was just more hand filing my templates down, nothing too exciting. Today we cut down a rod of tool steel and hammer forged them into basic shapes for wood chisles and scrapers. I royaly suck at this. I felt like Magilla Gorila banging on a hunk of metal. They turned out like doo doo, but with any luck I'll be able to shape them fine. Worse case, they go back in the forge and get pounded into a better shape. I also finished up shaping my buttplate template, and found that the curve angles are a bit off. Not hugely, but enough that I can notice. Rich was impressed that I had the eye to notice the impreciseness of it and said that a lot off guys have trouble shaping that particular piece, and come reshape it using a different material later on in the course. I'm not too worried about it.

A bit of drama unfolded this morning. One of the young guys (21) in my class thought it'd be funny to put chunks of metal in one of the other guys gloves. The other guy is a retired Army captain (21 years of service, former enilisted), and that put him squarely in pissed off mode and the kid was on the recieving end of a well deserved ass chewing. I talked with the capt a bit later asking if he was alright, and he mentioned with his PTSD his temper is kinda short these days. Bit of back story, guy was an Abrams commander, had been on the receiving end of several IEDs both in and out of vehicle, and picked up a purple heart for his troubles. I respect the guy a lot, He's fairly soft spoken, but today, I could hear the stress in his voice. The kid certainly deserved it though, and I backed the capt when we spoke. He seemed to calm down after that, but still seemed a bit off all day.

Tomorrow I'm bringing my M53 in just to be a show off, and because everyone loves belt feds.


You all do love belt feds, right?

There were a lot of joking going on when I was there, mostly good harmless fun. A good one was putting Rig on a vise handle, even the instructors would do this, a meaner version was doing it with inlet black.



The problem with jokes like that is there are always people that don't know when, where, and with who they are appropriate and when they aren't

Make an M-53 receiver (Semi of course) out of a $7 piece of rectangular tubing and you'll impress me  (Thread on it over at Weaponsguild in the belt-fed section)

This was the biggest deal. The kid was constantly fucking with the old man, and the old man finally said get the fuck off my lawn. Kid figured it out pretty quick after that. I mean, I talk some shit to him about being in the Army, but thats because he talks shit right back.

Challenge considered. I just need to strip the one I own down to get the dimensions. Getting a parts kit for the shit I'm not make (barrel cage, flash hider, booster, etc) is gonna be tough though

DAYS 6&7


Ooookaaayyy so yesterday we drilled holes in our squares so we could peen them together using a bit of 1/8 inch copper plated welding rod. Scribed out intersecting lines where we would be drilling the holes. I started with a #2 center dill bit and the first hole I started was a bit off center. For a minute I thought I had royally fucked it up, but I had only drilled with the nipple, so a quick readjustment corrected it. The chamfer took care of the off center hole and I was good to go. The second one went quick and painless. Back to bench, and I knocked in two 5/8 sections of the rod and started whacking at it with the hammer. Apparently I'm really good at this (yaaay ). After a bit of filing, you could barely tell the rod was there. Spent the rest of the day trying to get everything squared up.

Today we took our chisels and scrapers and shaped the tangs. Easy peasy. Lots of sandpapering the metal to make them shiney and chrome. I also filed the edges down to get the blade angles on them. Later on in the day we were shown how to put the bends in them using special jigs. Only a couple ofthe guys managed to get them done. I still have mine to do. I spent a majority of the day suffering from a caffine withdraw headache, and getting annoyed with my square that refused to be squared up despite my attempts to file down the tiny high spots. I got it close enough to be useable, but the very last half millimeter is a bit rounded (see below), and would require further filing and I don't want to risk fucking it up. I'll take the grade hit. I don't plan on using it unless I have to. I'll be buying an actual quality square and using that instead. I get what they're trying to do by having us make our own tools, but I'm nowhere near good enough or confident enough to trust my work yet, especially when it could affect my work later on down the line when I have developed my skills beyond that of a troglodyte. The chisels are in the same boat. Most are solid and will be kept, but a couple are destined for the recycling bin . Once we're allowed to use the sand belts, grinders, and lathes I should do much better.

I I
I I
I I                
I I                  
I I___________ <---- this corner is rounded a bit
I I___________



Also, I got called a chairforce pogue today by a former army guy from an older class. I responded with how rough I had it when my fiber optic internet went down while in Bagram. I got a glare in return .

Machining school had us making tools very early in the program too. Stuff that would have been more practical had we had more experience. But if we did it later in the program, we wouldn't of had time for the important stuff.

I bought most of that stuff. After working 50 hours a week, there's no way I'm going to waste hours building stuff I can buy

tag

Good luck.  As far as  bench metal is concerned, it is an important part of gunsmithing. It's learning how to use the tools and care for them and not just finishing a project that counts.

Yeah, most of these first projects are to teach you how to file and build confidence with that, you will use a file for everything. It is better than the old timey way of doing it, where they gave you a hunk of steel and you had to file a 1" cube. The same fundamentals are taught, but you do something useful in the process.





Anyone drop their chisels and have them shatter?



 

i like to open holes and pound tang also.  



oh wait this was about guns.    good job OP!!

Not yet. We haven't hardened them yet. I did drop one of my scrapers and it screwed up the point on it a bit. A little love from a needle file fixed that though.

Opening holes and pounding tang