Playing Houdini on some hinge pins.

[Brian Dudley]

I find myself having to make 3 invincibles from repro A-1s. Two 20s and one 12.

I had previously done the upper rebates on the frame as well as the radiused corners on the trigger plates.

A major hurtle was doing the flush hinge pins. This required machining away the pin recess which is pretty large. And then turning a thick washer to weld in place of the removed material. Then new pins and pin screws were made and fitted.

The remaining tasks to do are the water table beads and the breech side clips.

I will likely update progress accordingly.

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[Robert Delk]

Can hardly wait to see the updates and finished products of this project.

[Brett Trimble]

Brian,

Spectacular work, thanks so much for sharing this!

[Mike Koneski]

Looks good Brian! That is a lot of work to make those hinge pins flush fitting. Was that done on the Invincibles to add more engraving surfaces?

[Brian Dudley]

That is the idea I think. For full coverage engraving.

[Bill Murphy]

Awesome work on the hinge pins, Brian. I can only imagine how the flush pins would look on a 00 frame.

[Mike Poindexter]

Brian, at what point do you change your moniker from "Gunstock Craftsman" to "Gunmaker?" Your metal working skills have equaled or exceeded your wood working skills based on what I am seeing here. Exceptional work, indeed!

Mike

[William Woods]

Looking forward to seeing the progress this project.

[Brian Dudley]

Today was about bending the tangs up and reworking the top levers/tops of the frames.

Getting rid of what I call the “Repro Hump”.

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[Brian Dudley]

Side clips are done on the frames. Now I need to fit the barrels to them. And each gun is a 2 barrel set… fun…

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[Brian Dudley]

I got all 6 barrel sets refitted to the frames with the new side clips. It actually was not as bad as I was expecting it would be.

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[Stan Hoover]

Very interesting Brian,

thanks for taking the time to show the process and the pictures.

Stan

[William Woods]

How long before you start manufacturing the Parker guns again?

[J. Scott Hanes]

Just fascinating to watch the progress! I have a great appreciation for metal work and have never done any, so forgive my ignorance, but how in the world do you get the side clips attached (I assume welding of some sort) and show NO seam? Incredible work and major project! Thanks for including the membership in this project.

[Brian Dudley]

The side clips are solid weld. And then machined/filed down to shape. I thought for a while about how do get them on there. Welding on small pieces of steel did not make much sense as there would be too much of a chance in cutting through a weld seam and being a mess to clean up.

I made up an aluminum jug to hold the frame in a good position to be able to mill a the angle on the clip using a 45 degree dovetail cutter. Overall this method worked out really well and did not take as much time as I had anticipated.

Obviously when the factory built the original Invincibles, they would have been using new frames that they could make the way they wanted. Vs in an upgrade case, things need to be done differently and worked around a finished frame.