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A few final pics of the Zen Ten.

Magwell. In 2002 I had been welding up the mainspring housing for about four years to make a forward-projecting feature so it could be machined to give a horizontal "landing spot" on the frame. This way, when it was funneled out to the rear there's no knife edge or gap. I made some from bar stock that way so I didn't have to weld them up, making them onesy-twosey. In 2005 I gave my specs on this to Stan Chen who started making them that way, and I used several of them. Eventually I worked with a shop to make a batch of them for me with the additional feature of being extra wide so there was enough material to precisely fit the MSH to an individual frame. They tend to vary a lot on that area. I like a nice slide-in-but-no-wobble fit there. The magwell is made here from a block of prehard 4130.



In previous pics it can be seen that the rear sight is not dovetailed in. It is machined with a square lug that sits into a square pocket under the sight. Then a pin goes forward through the lug, from under the firing pin stop. It is a "pull dowel" with a threaded hole, so it is removeable. The two holes in the underside of the slide are so you can get a punch in there and tap the rear sight up and out. The disconnector rail is polished as per SOP, but some of the machining marks from the factory were pretty deep so I left them as oil grooves


Front of slide detail.


Comp / guide rod interface. Keeps the barrel and comp aligned and not wiggling around during cycle.


Guide rod and recoil spring plunger. The plunger started out life as 1/2" socket head (Allen) cap screw. This makes it very strong. It blued a bit "purple" on the OD but is nice and black at the front where it shows. Plunger has a little cut in the front to help keep it oriented to the rod when the paper clip piece is inserted for take down.


The guide rod was made by inserting and brazing the rod into a modified standard recoil spring guide. Final step, peen it where it protrudes from the read for an extra measure of "stays together forever".


Underside detail of the compensator. It is threaded up against a shoulder on the barrel and a short pin dropped in and staked in place as insurance. They are meant to never again be separated, but if something happened to the barrel, you could get them apart. There is a little "register" mark at the shoulder-off. You can see here the T-slot piece is a separate piece T-slotted and silver brazed into the comp-- it shows a slightly different color. The comp is made from the same chunk of 4130 as the magwell.


Rear sight-- no dovetail as described above.


Pull-dowel pin under the firing pin stop keeps the rear sight in place as mentioned. Those palm swell grips-- may not be for every 1911 but dang they feel good.

Ned, I read through the photos and realized when i got to the end that my jaw was hanging open. One detail in particular caught my eye; the herringbone top. The two set of lines don't just butt up against each other, they are interlaced at the top dead center. [blink] I can't imagine how to do that on a mill.

Oh alright, I get the message-- you can come over some day when I'm doing the next one....

This gun, the Zen Ten, is more than just unique or creative or special or imaginative or exceptional... it is an intricately executed piece of art.

_________________
Heirloom Precision
http://www.heirloomprecision.com

Highest compliment right there considering who it's from, thank you, Jason.

If someone said "I want one just like that," I'm not sure I would be willing to do it again! I did a very elaborate one recently that just seemed to go on forever (a very patient customer, fortunately.) I'm kinda hoping for a vacation period of "sights, trigger, reliability, no sharp edges".....

I heard that even Michelangelo needed a weekend now and then to just sit back, pop a cold one and watch the sunset.

Wonder what "a cold one" was in those days...? A flagon of wine, I suppose. Bet a guy could have done a brisk business Friday afternoons by putting up a kiosk by the river with flagons-to-go (two denarius deposit on the flagon) sitting in the water chilling. What passing artist could resist?

When your new carry gun doesn't have a rail and you don't want a new, new carry gun.











...to be continued.

Thanks for continuing to post here Ned. Some pretty amazing pics and details - just great stuff for us to admire.

Thanks for joining us. I'ts just my place to kinda archive and share what I'm doing, glad you enjoy it.

The final result with the weld-on rail.


The Dan Wesson Specialist below came with a rail. All factory rails I've seen wisely have it tied back into the frame behind where the slide slams the frame. Frames tend to crack at that point (you can see a few faint Sharpie dots indicating that area on the outside of the frame. Don't worry, this one is not cracked and in fact is as yet new / unfired).

The mandate here was, put a rail on it that will fit the provided holster. That was a big part of the job; of a few railed guns I had here, none would fit as the bottom of the rail was too low. So, I had to make sure this rail was high enough. On the DW Specialist pictured, the dustcover end and rail are also .100 longer than a standard frame; I wanted to rig this so the rail did not protrude forward of the original dust cover. I also wanted to tie in in somehow to the beefier part of the frame, hence the gusset welded to the front of the trigger guard. This makes the whole dustcover / rail unit pretty rigid and should reduce / eliminate the flex that causes the crack. I was worried that just welding the rail to the dustcover without this reinforcement might increase the flex tendency due to the added mass.

I was wondering what kind of silver-solder/brazing you;d be doing, but the welding looks great.

I assume (you being Ned and all) that the weld line will be dressed down until it appears to just be part of the frame. And I'm looking at the gusset wondering if it should be blended back until there's no step at the bottom, where it joins the trigger guard.