Another M53 "re"weld tutorial

[fritsch]

This is my contribution to this site. I don't take a lot of pictures, but I'll try to cover importatint parts and not go over stuff thats been done 100 before. I'm welding up an AA M53 kit. After removing the rails, de-slagging, sandblasting, and removing the HAZ, I built up the "lowspots" with the TIG and shaped them.
In the last build I did, I kept the rivit holes the same size and drilled holes through a couple bars with holes the very same diameter and bolted the whole thing together. That worked, for that one gun. Any other gun you try to do with that jig wount fit. I ended up drilling the rivit holes in the receiver larger and drilling larger holes through the bar. The holes through the bars are larger than the holes in the receiver to allow for adjustment. It relies on the pressure created by the larger bolts to keep everything still.
Installed blocker and opened up grip slot. Then welded it together. I love welding in the winter. You don't have to stop as often to let it cool down Straight as an arrow as far as I can tell, but I woun't know for sure till I start fitting.

[www.Prussia.us]

Great work, and that is a nice bit of inspiration in the frame

Could you show what you did in the front, to overcome the slice through the channels where the barrel bushing/piston slides.

Looks great.

What mods are you doing for the bolt/grip?

[fritsch]

I ordered a front bushing from rtg and welded it in. I cut away only as much as I needed from the receiver to get the bushing in. I tried to preserve as much of the original "seat" the original bushing sat in as I could. I'm using the bolt and grippack from the other one I built for now. I used the single piece firing pin from RTG and built a simple ar15 FCG grippack for my first and they worked great. Drilling out the locking wedge thing sucks.

I fitted the camming section, topcover, feedtray, recuperator, and barrel. I'm close to getting the charging handle going. The buttstock is a little loose and the rails are a little tight. All in all, things are going great. A lot of this is going smoother than my first, but it has its moments.

[fritsch]

Oh, yeah, I forgot to get a shot of the front bushing. Just used the barrel and the "seat" in the shroud the old bushing sat in. Lots of tacking. If you cut it really well, the shroud is self jigging, but I wouldn't recomend it. A threaded rod down the barrel and a few washers is safer.

[waffendude]

looking good fritsch---the locking wedge is hard--even carbide cutters dont last long
keep up the picts---and good luck
waffen

[42rocker]

Thanks for the photo share. Any pics that are showing your jig work and string work is great as it shows a lot of needed pics. Why, due to an attack on the website a while back a lot of those types of photos were lost.
Would love to see any of your pics on the threaded rod and washers for the bushing setup.
Ok, some self help here, reviewing some of your earlier threads and found following showing your thre3ading setup.

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=11733

I liked your statement about welding in the winter. I believe that BRP makes the firing pins that rtg is selling.

Almost forgot --- what filler rod are you TIGing with???

Thanks Again.

Later 42rocker

[fritsch]

I'm using ER70S-2. I've only used a few other kinds of rods to be honest with you (love silica bronze!) and it's what a tig welding friend of mine recomended. I'll get some more pictures of the jig and its workings when i have some time. It's really just a 1" bar, a 1.25" bar, a few pieces of 18ga copper, a bunch of all thread, and a lot of nuts.

[fritsch]

p.s. I didn't use a jig for the front bushing. I really don't recomend doing it, honestly. Mine came out fine, but you have to cut the shroud at just the RIGHT place to use it to help jig it. You start with when you can just click the front bushing into the old seat. Hopefuly its REALLY tight and pointing "up". You then file, tap, measure, and curse it straight. Tack a lot rotating and checking straightnes a lot. Fill. The jig would really help with the "file, tap, measure, curse" circle. Once the bushing is in, the jig would force it to straight.

[www.Prussia.us]

I wish we had pics of that , very impressive, I take it you are not just a "weekend warrior" when it comes to metal work

[fritsch]

Lol!, No, I'm a formally trained metal smith and work profesionally as a goldsmith. Metal working in all forms is my life. I'll be welding another one up here later on in the week, so I'll take some more pictures of the bushing and jigging process. I'm getting antsy as I didn't think BRP and RTG would start running out of parts like all the AR15 crowd, but they seam to be. I thought "how many guys have mg42s?". Apparently it's more than I thought.

[fritsch]

Heres a couple more pics. I relized that my last pictures were technically wrong. The jig in my last picture was just an alignment practice and didnt have all the components I used when I welded it. I know the differences are slight, but if a was studying the others he might under-engineer it. Note the nuts used on the shrowd inside and out!

[Bradrock]

Nice flooring! I would be lost without my assortment of optivisors & foredom.
Faceting is one of my hobbies along with gold dredging.

Thanks for the tutorial & pics as I'm fixing to start one or two here shortly.
Of course thats what I said when I joined in 2005. These things are intimidating!
I think you have broke the ice for me though.

Brad

[42rocker]

Side note Brian and brp is going to keep making parts for mg42's as time permits and of course demand requires. Or at least I think so. So if it's something that brp makes it should show up again.

Thanks for all of the great pics of your build.

Later 42rocker