Superpolishing L10 piston

[legion]

Heyas everyone,

Im not sure which forum this should go in, tech, deep blue, or here, but I figured, this gets the most traffic so I'll ask here.

I was wondering if it would be possible to superpolish (1200-1800 grit sand paper) the piston on the L10 Superbolt II, so that it has less friction, which in theory, would cause it to have less bolt stick problems, and possibly run on a slightly smaller carrier...

Let me know!

Legion

[Cypres0099]

I would like to know this too.

[personman]

If you polished it.. wouldnt that eliminate the point of level 10?

[BajaBoy]

lol personman what u mean by that????

yes u could polish it.. it would work better with the smoothness but i think it wouldnt be as sencitive.. u would have to play around with it more.. (i wouldnt but it wont hert)

[AGD]

Yes this is possible but 1200 grit is too rough. Use brass polish or something similar. It must look like a mirror to make a difference. SEE more fun stuff to Super Tune!

AGD

[personman]

I thought level 10 was mainly adding friction to the bolt.. If you take away the friction, then wouldnt that eliminate the need?

[nippinout]

The main engineering feat of level 10 is not friction, but the stepped piston surface area while remaining retroactive.

By reducing the friction of the piston, you are now able to add a harder spring. The friction is no longer holding back as much, so you can add the harder spring to compensate.

Controlling the amount of force of the bolt is much easier by the spring. Using the piston's friction requires a constant lube on it.

Because the lube changes with play, it is much more desired to polish it and rely on spring force, not friction.

Springs are more predictable and consistent than friction of the piston.

[Cypres0099]

That's why I want a longer spring!!! Please! Longer spring?....please...

[legion]

Yes this is possible but 1200 grit is too rough. Use brass polish or something similar. It must look like a mirror to make a difference. SEE more fun stuff to Super Tune!

AGD


Yay! looks like i have a new project to undertake! I'm going to stop by a hardware store probably tonight and pick up some brass polish, and turn this baby into a mirror, I'll let you guys know how it works out!

Legion

[JEDI]

Legion, is the piston you're talking about, the pin that sticks out of the back of the new bolt? The part the carriers go on? I dont have my LX yet, but your idea interests me.

[legion]

Legion, is the piston you're talking about, the pin that sticks out of the back of the new bolt? The part the carriers go on? I dont have my LX yet, but your idea interests me.


Yep, that's the one I'm talking about, too bad i didnt get one of the dud superbolt II's that was separating ;-) would make this alot easier to polish, but it should still be possible...

Hey tom/anyone that would know... How difficult would it be to remove the piston section? Or is that brazed / perma-loctited in?

Legion

[AGD]

the piston is NOT removable. Remember, you have to polish the part of the small piston all the way inside the bolt to make a difference. The end sticking out does nothing to help with bolt stick.

AGD

[legion]

I'll see what I can do, I should be able to get all the way in there with some sort of modified tooly type thing

Legion

[legion]

Hrm, regarding brass polish, what brand / type would you reccomend, I went to home depot and asked about brass polish and they pointed me at some cleaner, not actual polish... Any information would be helpful, thx!

Legion

[the JoKeR]

I've got some extremely fine brass polish that I used to polish the brass barrel on my Palmer Blazer. Probably too fine, but you're welcome to try some. Just meet me at Sam's sometime and remind me before hand and I'll bring it. In the meantime, how about some type of chrome polish, like mag wheel cleaner? For brass, you shouldn't have too hard a time finding something like Brasso, but I'm not sure how abrasive it is.

[legion]

The only reason i wonder is wouldnt I want some kind of abrasive polish? Right now the bolt has what looks to be a brushed stainless finish.... I'll take you up on the brass polish though, we'll see how that works... I'm pretty much open to any suggestions

Legion

[ShinyGuy]

It is posible to get the piston too smooth. The surface of the piston should hold a little oil. If the piston is too smooth the oil will wipe off of it and friction will actually increase. You can look up the correct roughness for the weight of oil you lube your mag with... but then you'de need a roughness tester and those aren't that cheap.

[legion]

Welp, I took some brasso to it today, with some tools of my own invention, got the thing hooked up to my hand drill and spinning, then proceeded to brasso the piston. Final result of trouble:

1 level 10 kit with 0 problems and a mirrored piston ;-)

Legion

[Cypres0099]

Have you noticed any difference? I'm very interested in this.

What exactly did you use to polish?

[AGD]

High polish works best for orings thats why the on/off pins are so shinny.

AGD

[Lone Gunman]

Is there any other reason to polish the piston other than to prolong the life of your o-rings? If there isn't, I'll still do it when I get my LVL 10.

[Cypres0099]

Would it make any difference in the size of carrier we should use?

I'm using the 1 carrier right now but could stand to use the .5 I wouldn't want to go lower than the lowest carrier offered.

[legion]

It seems that the bolt travels smoother, and has a tighter seal. If you're close enough to using a .5, I would say polish, and try using the .5 ...

Legion

[Cypres0099]

Is the actual name of the polish Brasso? Where you able to polish the piston all the way to the top? Have you noticed any less bolt stick?

[legion]

Yeah, the name of the polish is brasso. I basically made something to cup the piston while I spun the bolt very quickly, with an amount of pressure it was able to polish very nicely. I have noticed quite reduced bolt stick from this, bolt always resets now.

Legion

[Lone Gunman]

Could you post a picture of your polisher? Thanks

[complicationjack]

polishing the piston seems like a good idea...

were you able to use a stronger spring with the polished piston?

if so...did you end up tooling with the velocity or not?? (turn it up or down)

last but not least, i too would like to see a picture of your setup for polishing/actual bolt as well!

thanks

[legion]

I will take pictures as soon as I can locate who I lent my digicam to ;-). Otherwise, Yeah, i was able to switch up to the next spring with minimal adjustment in velocity (up a little bit)

Legion

[Cypres0099]

I just finished polishing my piston. ;) One thing I noticed right off the bat was it seemed a lot smoother.

Before the bolt caught a little bit at the begining which would seem to cause more bolt stick. Now it now longer catches.

All I had was one carrier so I wasn't able to put a smaller one in so I'm not sure of the full effects.

[Lone Gunman]

I just got around to polishing my bolt piston. I can't test it yet since I can't fill my nitro tank, but I will tell you how I did it.

Ok, all you have to do it get a Bic pen (ya know, the white ones) or an other similar tube. Take it all apart and then cut about an inch and a half section off. Put about a half an inch of the section in a drill and tighten the chuck.

Cut a 1" square out of t-shirt material and stuff it in the tube. This piece will add friction to the polishing patch. Then take another 1" square of t-shirt, center it over the hole in the pen section, and push the patch down the pen with the bolt piston.

You should be able to turn the bolt without the cloth turning in the pen. If the patch will not go into the pen, make the patch a little smaller and vise-versa.

Now you put a little bit of gun-metal/jewlery polish (what I used, not as abrasive) or Brasso. Put the bolt in the pen tube and spin the drill up, moving the bolt up and down.

If you have anymore questions, PM me, I'll be glad to help.

[magman007]

im going to take this one step further and say use a drill press. you can drill a hole in a piece of wood, but the bolt in snugly, then using the u`and down movement of the drillpress you cna get a much cleaner, and easier polish. Now i just gotta do it

[Lone Gunman]

Yeah, that sounds like a good idea, but there is one tiny problema, no tengo drill press. ;)

[magman007]

ah... no bigie, i was just adding it as an option thats all! some people (AKA ME) dont realize these easier things before they do em, so i was just tryin to help out thats all