The Next Level
If you decide you want to do some customizing beyond what you can do with hand tools alone, then you might want to start looking at a medium lathe and mill. If you’re going to cut dovetails, then you have to have at least a benchtop mill properly dialed in. That medium mill (along with about $1,000 worth of tooling) will have you doing custom sight installs and the myriad of other jobs a precision cutter can accomplish. Need to widen a rear fixed sight? Drill a precision hole? Mill a channel to fit a new front sight? Drill and tap a hole in a top strap? Slab a revolver barrel? The list is endless, and having the mill makes the job easier and more precise than trying to use files. Trust me on that.
A lathe allows you to make a firing pin, turn a screw down, bore a concentric hole, thread it if needed, turn a precision pin, bore a revolver cylinder, crown a muzzle, chamfer the front of a revolver cylinder and, like the mill, the list is endless. With a lathe and a mill, if you can imagine it, you can eventually do it once you get the skills and the tooling to go with it.
The tooling is something people don’t think of when they start this dream. If you spend $2,500 on a mill, expect to spend about the same on tooling eventually. Right off the bat, you’ll need a $350 milling vise, at least $100 worth of mills, indicators, parallel bar set, a fly cutter and a few other bits would get you going. Sure, a couple of end mills and a cheap vise will get you making chips, but you’ll soon be frustrated, so dodge that miss-step right off.
If you have the basic tools already, the add-ons for a lathe can be less, at least at first. Carbide cutters are the way to go for beginners, and I’d upgrade the tool post to a quick-release one. But just as with the mill, you’ll soon be nosing through the Grizzly or MSC Industrial Supply websites playing, “Gee I wish I had one of those …”
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