Eyeballing Things
I always start a new project by simply deciding what I want to be able to do with the gun when I am finished. That was easy … reach the hammer spur more easily to cock it. So how do I do that? Well, extending the existing hammer spur would work, but how? I thought about making a new spur using my milling machine, but then it dawned on me I could just shape a spur extension out of mild steel and TIG weld it to the existing spur. That takes advantage of the stock attachment bolt, making things much easier.
Digging into my metal cut-offs drawer, I found a small piece of steel about the right size. I band-sawed it into a rough shape, then TIG welded it to the existing hammer spur. It’s always just a bit scary to look at the rough part after being welded. It’s easy to think, oh Lord, I’ll never get that looking right. But there are few things I enjoy more than file work, so that’s just what I did.
After a half-hour or so, it started to look like I was going to win this war after all. I re-shaped the welded piece, blending it to the original spur, shaping the curve to clear my scope lens. When I had it roughed out, I installed it and found I had guessed right, and things were going to work out just fine. More hand-shaping, smoothing with various wet-or-dry grits and a final bead blast and I had a much better hammer spur in hand.
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