Rail whith picatiny mount for Tac one?

[river031403]

I was thinking of sending my slug rail to luke have him do the ule milling and one of the designs he offers and at the end have him mill picatiny into it Emag length tails seem long enough so you can have in this order
Grip frame
Forgrip
Picatiny milling

[bbotts77]

Can’t see what you’re saying. Literally.

I’ve never used eMachineShop’s “CAD” program (looks like it’s a solid modeler), but it took me like a minute to find and download the parametric picatinny OpenSCAD file from thingiverse, set it to 5 segments or whatever, render it, import it into Sketchup and slap it onto my rail.

Drawing picatinny rails is probably about as fun as... drawing screw threads...

My example is up on Shapeways for a reason. My next rail isn't going to be milled...

Please, forgive my ignorance on the subject modeling. My only experience with it was building a female input fitting for the Tickler LPRs. That was easy.

Being that I have no formal training and very limited experience with modelling, I don't want to spend a big chunk of change on software and really don't know much about it. I didn't realize you can import objects into drawings.

Last night, I was attempting to model a rail with a physical rail and calipers. It's a lot more difficult than a fitting, where everything is round (or hex) and easily measured.

Anyway, what I was saying is, rather than add material to the rail for the picatinny rail, it would be nice to remove material from a non-ULE rail for the picatinny rail.

So, if you are going to have the rail 3d printed, what material are you going to use? I would be concerned about mounting anything to a rail made out of most of the materials they have available.

[GoatBoy]

Please, forgive my ignorance on the subject modeling. My only experience with it was building a female input fitting for the Tickler LPRs. That was easy.

Being that I have no formal training and very limited experience with modelling, I don't want to spend a big chunk of change on software and really don't know much about it. I didn't realize you can import objects into drawings.

Last night, I was attempting to model a rail with a physical rail and calipers. It's a lot more difficult than a fitting, where everything is round (or hex) and easily measured.

No problem; I’m just telling you that there is a better way to do some of this so you don’t waste too much time. I don’t have any training either. But with 3d printing becoming more common, there’s been more incentive for me to learn this stuff. There’s kind of this sadistic attitude floating about where people actually encourage others to waste time doing stuff like reinventing the square wheel in CAD.

Drawing stuff sucks (IMO), so take reasonable shortcuts wherever possible.

All the software I use is free. (Sketchup, Draftsight, Openscad.)

Anyway, what I was saying is, rather than add material to the rail for the picatinny rail, it would be nice to remove material from a non-ULE rail for the picatinny rail.

I can understand removing material from a non-ULE rail to get a picatinny basically flush with the bottom of the rail itself; I guess I don’t understand the method you’re using to “go back” to the RT foregrip, which involves that forward steel mounting plate and the 6 frame holes?

I’d just ditch that altogether, put the two-hole pattern right through part of the picatinny rails themselves and be done with it.

So, if you are going to have the rail 3d printed, what material are you going to use? I would be concerned about mounting anything to a rail made out of most of the materials they have available.

Nylon. I think it will be strong and accurate enough for this part, but I guess there’s only one way to find out.

I printed a mag2cocker adapter already in nylon, and it works great. I calculated the weight for the rail that I linked to be about 1.3oz, which is lighter than any aluminum ULE milled rail at least in my possession. And this is a full-length rail with picatinny rails I’m talking about.

[bbotts77]

No problem; I’m just telling you that there is a better way to do some of this so you don’t waste too much time. I don’t have any training either. But with 3d printing becoming more common, there’s been more incentive for me to learn this stuff. There’s kind of this sadistic attitude floating about where people actually encourage others to waste time doing stuff like reinventing the square wheel in CAD.

Drawing stuff sucks (IMO), so take reasonable shortcuts wherever possible.

All the software I use is free. (Sketchup, Draftsight, Openscad.)

Cool. Thanks for the info on the tools you use. Being a DBA and amateur programmer, I really like the concept of OpenSCAD. It will probably take a little bit to get used to the language. But, it looks like fun.

I can understand removing material from a non-ULE rail to get a picatinny basically flush with the bottom of the rail itself; I guess I don’t understand the method you’re using to “go back” to the RT foregrip, which involves that forward steel mounting plate and the 6 frame holes?

I’d just ditch that altogether, put the two-hole pattern right through part of the picatinny rails themselves and be done with it.

I'm actually talking about milling the picatinny so it sits higher than flush with the bottom of the rail, so it can be completely covered with a sleeve. The bottom of the sleeve would sit flush with the bottom and sides of the rail and the two RTP foregrip screws would hold it in place with the foregrip.

Nylon. I think it will be strong and accurate enough for this part, but I guess there’s only one way to find out.

I printed a mag2cocker adapter already in nylon, and it works great. I calculated the weight for the rail that I linked to be about 1.3oz, which is lighter than any aluminum ULE milled rail at least in my possession. And this is a full-length rail with picatinny rails I’m talking about.

very cool. Let us know how that works out for you.

Now, I just need to figure out all this fun new software.

[luke]

Has everyone forgotten that it may take far less time just to draft the idea on paper; it’s real simple to draw the top, bottom and side views. Bust out the paper, rulers and pencils and go to work. When I was in school (In wood shop) you couldn’t build anything until you had full set of drafted plans and a bill of materials to be then taken to the office to pay for everything involved. If anything was incorrect on your drawings or bill of materials the shop teacher would make you start over again, you built nothing unless the paperwork was correct. That was in the 7th grade, do they teach this anymore? It should be real easy to come up with a basic set of drawings.

[Swampy]

Has everyone forgotten that it may take far less time just to draft the idea on paper; it’s real simple to draw the top, bottom and side views. Bust out the paper, rulers and pencils and go to work. When I was in school (In wood shop) you couldn’t build anything until you had full set of drafted plans and a bill of materials to be then taken to the office to pay for everything involved. If anything was incorrect on your drawings or bill of materials the shop teacher would make you start over again, you built nothing unless the paperwork was correct. That was in the 7th grade, do they teach this anymore? It should be real easy to come up with a basic set of drawings.

Not everyone. Never use'd to do design work at all until I had a customer that asked to put something on paper, kind of caught on and started to offer it.

Never used any "CAD" type programs all paper, pencils, and a eraser. Honestly generations before used those tools before a computer was even thought about.

[bbotts77]

Has everyone forgotten that it may take far less time just to draft the idea on paper; it’s real simple to draw the top, bottom and side views. Bust out the paper, rulers and pencils and go to work. When I was in school (In wood shop) you couldn’t build anything until you had full set of drafted plans and a bill of materials to be then taken to the office to pay for everything involved. If anything was incorrect on your drawings or bill of materials the shop teacher would make you start over again, you built nothing unless the paperwork was correct. That was in the 7th grade, do they teach this anymore? It should be real easy to come up with a basic set of drawings.

I dropped drafting to do an independent study in C++. But that was almost 20 years ago. So, I don't know what they teach now.

I'm really just playing with the software to play with the software and learn. I'm in no huge hurry to get this rail. I mean it's something I'd love to have for scenario games. But, that's only a few times a year, anyway.

If I get to the point of wanting it now, I'll draw something on paper.

[luke]

Not everyone. Never use'd to do design work at all until I had a customer that asked to put something on paper, kind of caught on and started to offer it.

Never used any "CAD" type programs all paper, pencils, and a eraser. Honestly generations before used those tools before a computer was even thought about.

I have designed and made hundreds (more like thousands, but it sounds like an exaggeration) of parts without ever putting a design on paper or in a cad program. Most of the paintball parts and mods I’ve done in the past 10 years or so were designed while standing in front of the milling machine; most were done without ever doing a prototype. Granted most of that stuff was not real complex but I’ve been making stuff since I was a kid and can figure out most stuff in my head first, which really is the first step anyway.

CADs or hand drafted drawings are necessary if you have an idea you want to relay to a machinist or CAD designer. For most designers a hand drafted plan is enough to get the part modeled.

Really my only point is a ruler, piece of paper and a pencil goes a long way to get an idea across.

[GoatBoy]

The wonderful thing about high school, for most people, is the fact that it ends.

There are many benefits to drawing things up in CAD.

The primary one is "sharing".

I can share these CAD files with others, and they can manipulate and build upon them if they want. So that they don't have to waste their time redrawing what you just drew up in order to make something new and interesting.

You are either behind this idea or against it, and everything flows from there down.

[luke]

IF you have CAD available to you and know how to use it, it's a powerful tool.

[GoatBoy]

What was that quote from Watchmen?

"I would only agree that a symbolic clock is as nourishing to the intellect as photograph of oxygen to a drowning man."


The tools are free, so clearly it's a matter of skill.

I sat down and taught myself how to actually draw something in Openscad yesterday evening (instead of just using other people's libraries) and converted my mag2cocker adapter, which went very, very smoothly. Far more smoothly than trying to intersect curved surfaces in Sketchup, which is a nightmare.

So I started on a rail tonight:



Sample code snippet is shown for the body cutout.

[GoatBoy]

So after a little bit of tweaking, I can pop out multiple versions of rails at will now.

It all starts out with the super basic rail chunk with the minimum cutouts:



So I can add the cuts to make it more like a stock RTP rail (minus wings; none of my stuff has those stupid wings), plus a warp left notch:



Really, the rail I'm after is something like this uber ULE rail with the pim converted to a classic, and accepts a classic vertical ASA:



Just for giggles I did the Picatinny on a stock rail, roughly as described earlier; has clearance at the bottom so you could fit a plate over the whole deal. Again, I didn't draw the Picatinny, I straight instantiated it from another openscad library. I think the idea is a bit fruity and really interesting only as a CAD exercise:



And I went ahead and cut-and-pasted my ULE and the warp left cuts over to this module for funsies:



Pretty much any permutation between these is a cut-and-paste operation... in a text editor.

Seeing as it's all text (235 lines for everything combined), I went ahead and checked it all into a git repo, just in case.

[bbotts77]

So after a little bit of tweaking, I can pop out multiple versions of rails at will now.

Just for giggles I did the Picatinny on a stock rail, roughly as described earlier; has clearance at the bottom so you could fit a plate over the whole deal. Again, I didn't draw the Picatinny, I straight instantiated it from another openscad library. I think the idea is a bit fruity and really interesting only as a CAD exercise:



And I went ahead and cut-and-pasted my ULE and the warp left cuts over to this module for funsies:



Pretty much any permutation between these is a cut-and-paste operation... in a text editor.

Seeing as it's all text (235 lines for everything combined), I went ahead and checked it all into a git repo, just in case.

Thanks for chunking this together. As fruity as the design may seem, I think it would be fun to be able to mount a havoc launcher to my mag for scenario games.