We left off part II of the build with the acetal barrel shroud fit to the revolver and cut down to its general shape. It was now time to shape the rough-cut shroud down to its final size.
The rough-cut shroud wasn't perfectly square to the barrel, so I squared it up by attaching a block of acetal to the grip frame and then running the shroud back and forth on sand paper. The block that is attached to the grip frame would slide back and forth on the work bench while the shroud slid on the sand paper. This was a slow process, but one that I could repeat on both sides to make them the same width from the center of the barrel and square to the K6S revolver.
The image below shows how the sanding guide block attached to the grip frame. To do the other side of the shroud, all I had to do was remove the screw and flip the block over the frame.
After many hours of sanding the shroud was squared up..... and much thicker than I wanted. You'll recall that the design sketch calls for a Hoptic USA .357 Mag Quiver attached to the right side of the shroud. This will add about 0.5" to the right side of the shroud which, with the current shroud width was going to be way thicker than the revolver's cylinder.
I first notched the back of the shroud to make a shelf for the quiver to sit on (shown below). This brought the extra rounds and the quiver closer to the cylinder, but the front of the shroud still seemed too thick.
So, I cut the whole shroud down to the width of the shelf I'd made and arrived with the thinner shroud shown below. This was looking much better.
There were still a couple problems though. The first is that the hole for the barrel at the front of the shroud was not centered. The second was that the top of the shroud was becoming paper thin. I was getting concerned that I'd have to find a way to reinforce it or it would break either during further construction or wile firing the future gat.
The images below shows both these issues. It also shows the steel motor shaft coupler that I'm going to use as a cap on the front of the shroud. This will protect the front of the acetal, reinforce the thin walls around the barrel hole and, most importantly, look cool.
I spent some more time sanding the left and right side of the shroud to get the barrel hole into its center and in so doing, sanded right through the wall of the shroud so you could see the barrel.
Not good. Time to start over with a new shroud.....
Make a template for the barrel and underlug hole
Drill them with the drill guide
Use chisels to remove excess material between the drilled holes until the shroud allows the barrel to be inserted all the way
Cut and sand the sides and front of the shroud to desired size
That's way easier to describe than do. It took me about two weeks to get the new shroud as far along as the first one was when I ruined it.
Below are a couple of in-process pictures of shroud #2.
Below are the two shrouds. The top one is attempt #2. You can't see it very well in this shot, but its barrel hole is centered, sides are parallel, and the hole in the front is centered. It's a much better shroud than the first.
Building a second shroud added many hours to the project, but I know I'll be glad I did it when the project is complete.
Here you can see that the hole in the front of the shroud is cleaner than in shroud #1 and centered.
Finally, a few more pictures of shroud #2 ready for the steel motor shaft coupler to be permanently attached and how it looks with the Hoptic quiver set in place.
Next up will be cutting a slot in the left side of the shroud to allow the revolver's cylinder to open and close. Then I need to drill several of holes in the shroud to mount the shaft coupler on the front, the quiver on the side, and some roll pins and screws to secure the shroud to the barrel.
Pray I don't mess any of those holes up. Restarting again will be a real morale killer...