In Part II, I made the rough cuts to turn a rectangle piece of carbon fiber into a foregrip. In Part III, I tinkered a piece of titanium tube into an extended tube magazine. It was now time to shape the final two pieces for the tactical lever-gat's front end: Some brass highlights/protectors.
Let's work back-to-front.
After making the cuts in the carbon fiber that would allow the foregrip to mount on the Big Boy X's receiver, the interconnection between the two looked like it needed some classing up.
What better way to class it up than to add a touch of brass as an homage to the classic shiny receivers on many of Henry's rifles? I could think of none.
So, I bought a sheet of brass, and proceeded with the usual pattern of work: measure, mark, & cut. But this time I needed to add "score" and "bend "into the work stream.
I was concerned the Dremel would be too aggressive to do the scoring, but it actually worked pretty well. I had lots of control and it didn't try to wiggle off course too much. The scoring is really important to get a tight 90-degree angle without heat. Without it, the material inside the bend gets pinched and causes the bend to be more like a curve.
To get the bend as close to 90-degrees as possible without fancy tools, I used a square piece of steel stock.
Below you can see how the piece fits over the handguard after the initial bend. Not perfect, but pretty good for a first try. I can get a tighter fit with some more working on the vice and square block.
Once I had the bend tighter, I starting removing material so that the brass would fit around the Henry X's receiver and add some flair points. This was slow work, as removing too much would look really sloppy. Can't have sloppy accent pieces.
The main point of attachment for this brass collar is the front scope mount hole in the receiver. The next two pictures show the hole drilled, collar attached, and some of the accent cuts to the front of the piece.
Mounting the brass collar here meant that I needed to remove ~1/16 of an inch from the bottom of the front of the Henry Scope Mount. If I didn't, the front of the scope mount would be that much higher than the rear where there is no brass collar under the mount. A little bit of time with some power sanders removed this 1/16" in no time.
Below is it all together. I'll make a few more fine touches to the collar, but it's mostly set.
Now, the front end.
I'm concerned that the front end of the carbon fiber handguard is going to be too fragile if not reinforced. I wanted to make some sort of "cap" for it and decided to use some more brass to make one that matches the collar on its rear.
I picked up some brass angle iron, and began the usual process.
I had some 6/32 nuts and bolts left over from one of my revolver projects, which were the perfect size to secure the brass cap.
The next three pictures show the cap assembled and beginning to be touched up to follow the profile of the carbon fiber. I'm using a simple emory board to sand the brass to the right shape. I've also taped up the handguard so that I don't scratch it. I've got some more finish work to do here, but the major work is done. I'll do the final touch ups at the same time as the brass collar on the rear end.
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