Home Made Tooling for your Lee Enfield.

Following up on Bearclaw's request for barrel vise info, I thought I'd start a thread where contributors could put diagrams or pictures of the tools they have made or modified to do some of the work required for their rifles.

I'll kick off here with my barrel vise.
It's a very simple construction, involving 2 pieces of 1" flat bar, six inches wide and about nine inches long.
Together with four 1" grade eight bolts, they form the clamp to hold together two blocks of hardwood which have been routed to form around the diameter of the barrel. The hardwood is cut for both standard and heavy profile barrels.
There is a bit of 1" x 2" flat bar securely welded to the base so the whole thing can be gripped in a large bench vise.

I would advise that the rear sight be removed from the barrel and the barrel pushed into the clamp to just short of the knox if the action does not unscrew easily (which none do!)
For our US counterparts, your closest thing to Aussie Hardwood (in this case seasoned spotted gum) would be high carbon steel... trust me, no tree on your part of the planet is as hard as this, and any may break before the clamp was tight enough.

Note in the last pic, you can see my receiver wrench... I'll do another post on it later.

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Thats very impressive Son. Even I could make that !

What an incredible (and interesting) idea!!!

We have a timber yard only an hour from here which stocks some pretty hard woods, mostly for cabinet-makers and marquetry, but I don't think they have Australian Spotted Gum. They DO, however, stock GREENHEART (Lignum Vitae), which was used in the old days for ice-sheathing the Sealing schooners out in Newfoundland. I do know that you can take the whole edge off a Sandvik axe with one smack at a 50-year-old slab of half-inch Greenheart. You have to work the stuff like metal, pre-drill your nail holes and all that. Works fine for shaft bearings, too. Is this hard enough?

But what an interesting project......
.

Brad, do you think ironbark would be ok. My neightbour has heaps of the stuff.

Myles

As far as the wood goes, try the hardest wood you can find, (something with tight, straight grain, and cut it so the grooves are on the outside and inside of the block if you can understand that- otherwise it will crack around the growth rings) if it breaks it's not difficult to cut two more bits out of something else. Myles- iron bark should be fine. Smellie- your timber sounds like spotted gum's cousin! Probably do a good job too!

Making the blocks...
I started with one piece, about 15 inches long and cut it down to the width between the bolts, and squared it off to uniform thickness. Then using a suitable "ball" router bit, cut a groove in the centre all the way along one face, then did the same to the other, plus opened that side up by widening it by half a mm each edge. By cutting less than half the barrel diameter deep and with a bit of trial and error, (on some scrap timber) this gave me roughly the sizes for No1 barrels one side and No1 H and No4 barrels the other. Cut the length in half and stamp the ends to match.

I have removed several very stubborn barrels without any signs of tool marks with this so far. By pulling the bolts down evenly a lot of grip can be got on the barrel. If it still slips, you can put a little rosin into to help grip.

When I go through the receiver wrench details you will see why it isn't a good idea to try to make this any lighter....

Now it's time to make a receiver wrench.
One thing to remember, the barrel was VFT to start with, and hasn't been disturbed for over sixty years. Anyone who has removed a couple will know what I am saying. The reason for stressing this point- if you don't use a well fitting wrench fitted to the receiver ring, odds are you will damage something. Worst cases- I have seen a receiver with a torque twist in it because someone stuck a pipe wrench (stiltson) on the butt socket. I have seen one with the side walls spread AND torque twisted because someone stuck a bar through the action at the mag well and tried unscrewing it. The most common one would be the metal vise marks on the receiver ring and the pipe wrench marks on the barrel knox.
The idea of a form tool is so it does not put any crush across the receiver ring which can act to hold the barrel tighter.

Here's a pic of what you will end up with.
Attachment 23691

Here's the instructions for making it.

Instructions For receiver Wrench
Material- 2"x1" (or 3/4") flat bar. (mine is 14" long)
Paint surface and edges, (easier to see scribed lines)
Mark centre line down front face
Measure 1 3/4" down from top and centre punch.
Measure down 7/8" from above point and centre punch.
Mark centre line on edge, measure down 1/2" and centre punch.
On face, drill top hole 1 5/16" NOTE if not available, scribe
a circle 1 5/16" and drill 1 1/4" (will have to be filed out
to scribed circle later)
On face, drill lower hole 1/2" if possible: may run into big hole.

On edge, drill through 5/16". Re-drill 7/16" to depth of 1 7/16".

If large hole is 1 1/4" file or use metal burr to open to scribed
line, taking care to keep edges square to face.
Hacksaw and file down from big hole to 1/2" hole, squaring bottom
so the joined holes are 1 3/4" from top to bottom, 17/32" wide
at the narrow end. Round out corners where holes join.

(NOTE; There is a slight difference in the No1 and No4 receivers where the front trigger guard screw lug joins the receiver ring. To fit both rifles, just test them both and remove the minimum amount of metal from the wrench to allow it to fit.)

Make 2 hacksaw cuts down into top of big hole, 9/16" in from each
side of bar. Remove centre and file/grind 1/16" off each cut side
Tap the 5/16" end of the transverse hole to 3/8 UNC, tapping from
other end, thru the clearance hole to help alignment.
A piece of brass shim should fit around the receiver ring, inside wrench,
to prevent damage.

The cut out end allows fitting over barrel without removing sights,
slide up onto muzzle ring, check position of brass shim, and
re-fit cut out piece with a 2"x 3/8" UNC high tensile bolt and tighten.
If not locked up on receiver, add another brass shim or file/grind
more off cut out piece to allow sides to close further.

Grip barrel in clamp/vise with wrench parrallel ground, check you are
going in the right direction and HIT THE BASTARD with something.

Here's a pic or two of it and the vise in action. I have had to use a three pound ball pein hammer and several full blooded swings on occasion to loosen a barrel. If the wrench isn't a good fit it can damage the receiver. If the barrel isn't into the vise to the knox, you can bend the barrel.
The brass shim may leave a smudge on the receiver which rubs off with some oil.
If the barrel turns in the vise, tighten it up some more.

Attachment 23692Attachment 23693

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Son

If the barrel turns in the vise, tighten it up some more.

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You CAN get it too tight, BTW, if your barrel vice jaws are metal. Squeezed an SMLE bore down enough to see the constriction on one occasion! It ended up becoming a 7.62x39 barrel that will strangely throw wild shots, but is otherwise "AK accurate".
:eek:

This was the first tool I made on my lathe when I got it a couple of years ago. It's made of 304 stainless steel (some threaded rod offcuts) and I've used it heaps, and on some really tight ones and it's stood up really well. It's a close fit, but I havn't come across a striker it won't go into yet.
I bead blasted it when I was done.

Simple but essential.

G'Day All

Sort of a new guy and this is slightly off topic however,
I am trying to put together a collection of tools for SMLE's,No4's and P14's/M1917's.
If anyone is in possession of any original tools, machinists drawings of these or machinists drawings of the part of rifle that the tool fits, can you please post the drawings and or pictures.
If I can get the machinists drawings I can make the tools on CNC.

Next project, I might try to make a common receiver wrench that will accept a removable brass insert to suit both SMLE and No4 actions.
Has anyone had a go before or am I wasting my time?

Thanks