Home Brew Pinning Tray

[HT4]

Hmmm. A gun thread and a knife thread? Where would I post this little treat?

Cool, that'd be at home in either the guns or knives subforums.
I've wanted one of those for years but never got serious enough to look where to get one.
I'm guessing high three figure or low four figure price tag for the gun/knife combo?
At least the $5 AOW transfer tax isn't prohibitive.

I don't remember exactly how much I paid... I think somewhere around $1,800. That was back when an NFA tax stamp took 9+ months to approve! It was bought mainly as a collectors' item/investment (and as a badass toy). Most of my guns get regular workouts, but I'll probably never fire this one. The unusual stuff always seems to appreciate well in the long term if kept in good condition. If you look on Gunbroker.com, you can usually find them listed in the $2,300-$2,600. But they always seem to be listed for a long time, so I'd say the market price is a little lower. If you are interested, it can never hurt to contact the sellers and make an offer.

[HT4]

About your DRO setup, I am looking to upgrade mine. What are the encoders you are using? By that I mean are they glass or magnetic? I am looking to get some magnetic ones with a 1 micron reading head, about $550 all in. The 5 micron head is about $75 less. Right now I am using the equivalent of large digital calipers and they work fine (better than planned tbh) but I would really welcome the extra accuracy/repeatability. All I have to do then is keep it on the quiet from the missus!

I used the AccuRemote scales (the blue ones) -- they are magnetic AND glass. If you look on the internet, all you will see about the rules is that they are ground stainless. However, when I went to cut one while doing my install, I found that inside the stainless rule is a glass strip onto which the actual scales are etched. It's hard to explain, but I have a picture somewhere... I'll see if I can find it. Thus, you get the rigidity of stainless and the dimensional stability of glass. I don't know too much about the accuracy other then it's .001" or better... at least it said that when I bought them. It's really pretty nice for a cheap scale. I'm very happy with them. That said, I don't know much about DROs... my scales could be completely crap and I probably wouldn't know the difference.

[HT4]

You are easily the coolest lawyer in history! Awesome work on all of your hobby fronts!

Thanks.

[HT4]

Though it works well, it turns out that I'm not altogether happy with my tray. My biggest issue is not being able to reliably and accurately pick up pins without tweezers. I was thinking about what I would change... (1) widen pin channels from 3/16 to 1/4; (2) cut pin channels more shallow; (3) cut channels with U-shaped bottom instead of V-shaped; (4) add a core holder so it doesn't roll/drop pins when I put it down; (5) make the whole thing smaller...

So I went on Amazon to hunt down a cheap small cutting board, but found nothing. Those little things are damned pricy! So I started looking at other materials. To my surprise, you can get an appropriately sized piece of billet aluminum (4"x6"x.25") for about 1/3 the price of a similarly sized plastic cutting board. Also, I thought a metal tray would be pretty cool.

My material came in last night... I bought a couple pieces anticipating a learning curve. I couldn't help but to start right away. Cutting metal takes much, much longer than plastic, and is more technically involved (especially when you have a crappy mill, like me), but it is turning out pretty badass IMO. I still have to round the edges and bead blast the whole thing to make it look pretty, but version 2 of my home brew pinning tray appears to be off to a good start. So far, I have about 2.5 hours invested. It's probably going to take another 2.5 hours to finish it. Pictures below.

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[Papa Gleb]

Looks great. Glad to hear the metal arrived much faster then you anticipated. Is it me or it seems kinda big? I think I need a plug or hand in the pic for scale lol

[HT4]

Looks great. Glad to hear the metal arrived much faster then you anticipated. Is it me or it seems kinda big? I think I need a plug or hand in the pic for scale lol

Thanks. We will see how it turns out, but I'm pretty happy so far.

Yes, the metal supplier used a much better shipping method than indicated! The website said it would take a week to ship, and they would send 1st class from CA... It showed up at my door in less time than that. It was a nice surprise.

Re: size - to give you an idea of scale, it's almost exactly 4"x6" (I took a little off each edge to square the piece and clean up the edges... The pin channels are 1/4", spaced on 1/3" centers, making the channels less than 3" edge to edge. The whole thing is pretty compact. I'll post a pic of the tray in use once it's done to give you a better feel... And if I'm happy with the results, I'll start using this in my videos.

[Papa Gleb]

It does look great and is exactly what should be sold commercially everywhere but yet its not. The only selection we have is LABs wooden one and A1s metal one which actually looks pretty good and the price is fair too. There is also Adrien's metal one which is good and bad at the same time. Good because its small and compact but bad because there is no place to put screws, cams, plug etc.

[jeffmoss26]

It does look great and is exactly what should be sold commercially everywhere but yet its not. The only selection we have is LABs wooden one and A1s metal one which actually looks pretty good and the price is fair too. There is also Adrien's metal one which is good and bad at the same time. Good because its small and compact but bad because there is no place to put screws, cams, plug etc.

YES BUT IT IS MADE IN GERMANY AND THE TOLERANZES! lol

[mickysickz]

I really like the aluminum, are you going to paint it or maybe duracoat? Or just leave it the way it is?

[HT4]

I really like the aluminum, are you going to paint it or maybe duracoat? Or just leave it the way it is?

The current plan is to blast the whole thing to give it a nice even matte finish, then air brush it with a light coat of polyurethane. I'll cover the bottom with a layer of adhesive felt. I had actually considered Duracoat because I actually have some black and OD green at home, but I think I will try the raw metal look to start with. That was my original vision.

[HT4]

I'll be the first to admit that my obsession with the perfect pinning tray is starting to get a bit silly... That said, after a few days out of town, I finished this one up this one up tonight. A few mistakes here and there, but overall I'm pretty happy. We'll see how it works out.

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For scale (Jeff Moss):

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I'm thinking about making a couple more for giveaways or a contest via my nascent YT channel... Maybe to celebrate 100 subscribers (if I ever get there). I'm open to suggestions.

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[l0ckcr4ck3r]

Excellent Job there!!!

You beat me to it... a milled pinning tray is in the future, along with many other things but i'll be holding off till i have built an anodizing rig. Whats your YT channel BTW?

[jharveee]

Sexy.

[jeffmoss26]

that is sexy

[Oldfast]

Yeah... VERY nice!