Magnus55
06-30-2003, 12:54 AM
Okay, I've been meaning to post about this for a while now, but I didn't have any pictures of it until today.
I made a custom 6"barrel out of a stock spyder barrel. I had the concept for making a small compact pistol-like barrel in my head for quite a while, and after buying some random spyder parts off of Hsuve, I now had a stock barrel to experiment with.
I started by sanding the barrel with the coarsest sandpaper I had. The barrel was originally a dull glossy black and gray color. It had clear machined lines on it from being mass produced, which gave it a rough texture to it. I started by removing the finish. It took me about half an hour to an hour of sanding while watching TV to remove the black and Gray finish completely from the area of the barrel I wanted. My hands turned black and I went throug a few squares of sandpaper, but the barrel started to look nicer and nicer the longer I worked. finish came away and below it was a sparkling silver.
So the first six to eight inches of the barrel were completely silver now with the muzzle of the barrel still the original dull black and gray. I didn't need to sand that part since I was going to cut it off anyway. So I measured 6 1/8" from the barrel's base (including the threads mind you) and marked it off with a sharpie. Then I got my hacksaw and cut through the barrel. I left the extra 1/8" of leeway because I know when cutting with a hacksaw it's hard to cut perfectly perpendicular to anything (I could have used my dad's mounted circle saw to be more accurate, but it was 11 something at night and I didn't want to wake anyone up). So after cutting the barrel down to 6 1/8" I sanded the tip of the barrel down with the same coarse sand paper until it was completely even and all the sharp burs and edges had been removed.
After that I just went over the barrel and barrel muzzle with finer and finer levels of sand paper until it was completely soft and smooth. Sanding it by hand gives the metal a much softer feel to it than what the machines can do. I used three levels of sandpaper in total (including the first). After that I cleaned it off with a moist rag and polished it up with chrome car polish. I measured my barrel and it came up to just a fraction over 6". I am very pleased with the results.
Here's a picture:
I made a custom 6"barrel out of a stock spyder barrel. I had the concept for making a small compact pistol-like barrel in my head for quite a while, and after buying some random spyder parts off of Hsuve, I now had a stock barrel to experiment with.
I started by sanding the barrel with the coarsest sandpaper I had. The barrel was originally a dull glossy black and gray color. It had clear machined lines on it from being mass produced, which gave it a rough texture to it. I started by removing the finish. It took me about half an hour to an hour of sanding while watching TV to remove the black and Gray finish completely from the area of the barrel I wanted. My hands turned black and I went throug a few squares of sandpaper, but the barrel started to look nicer and nicer the longer I worked. finish came away and below it was a sparkling silver.
So the first six to eight inches of the barrel were completely silver now with the muzzle of the barrel still the original dull black and gray. I didn't need to sand that part since I was going to cut it off anyway. So I measured 6 1/8" from the barrel's base (including the threads mind you) and marked it off with a sharpie. Then I got my hacksaw and cut through the barrel. I left the extra 1/8" of leeway because I know when cutting with a hacksaw it's hard to cut perfectly perpendicular to anything (I could have used my dad's mounted circle saw to be more accurate, but it was 11 something at night and I didn't want to wake anyone up). So after cutting the barrel down to 6 1/8" I sanded the tip of the barrel down with the same coarse sand paper until it was completely even and all the sharp burs and edges had been removed.
After that I just went over the barrel and barrel muzzle with finer and finer levels of sand paper until it was completely soft and smooth. Sanding it by hand gives the metal a much softer feel to it than what the machines can do. I used three levels of sandpaper in total (including the first). After that I cleaned it off with a moist rag and polished it up with chrome car polish. I measured my barrel and it came up to just a fraction over 6". I am very pleased with the results.
Here's a picture: