I only wanted to remove the extra metal near the trigger and front LPR housing area. I also considered a new set of front panels to cover the extra air input hole.
I asked around with the airsmiths online and everyone was pretty tied up with other projects so I looked locally to me for a gunsmith. I found a guy not 20 minutes from me that agreed to cut out the piece for me. He used a manual mill to get as much as he could then he resorted to a hand file. He beveled the edges like the original was and tied it together nicely. It was just a small piece to remove but to me it cleaned up the look just right. With the piece left in there it just looked like a bridge support to me. I really like how it looks opened up. I haven't gotten new panels yet as it seems they are quite a bit of work to produce a one off pair. The local gunsmith was also busy but he had the part back to me in 10 days. Heres a pic:
And of course as it goes, while waiting for the frame to be done I started looking at the body and thought about having it milled also. I wanted the windows in the back over the top of the valve cut larger to expose more of the valve. Heres a pic to show what I wanted:
I sent the pics to CS900 from PBN. He agreed to cut the windows larger and I sent him the body. Within 3 days he got back to me with a CAD drawing for approval. Once I approved he made the cuts and shipped back to me. All this took only one week. Quite impressive turnaround time with great communication and quality work. More pics:
So here's how it sits now. It still needs to be sent out for some sort of finishing. I am contemplating several different ideas. I want something out of the ordinary to compliment the milling work that was done.
Well its time for an update as I have made some progress. I found the barrel I wanted to use , which completed the list of parts that needed to be sent out for finishing. I thought long and hard about what I wanted and I decided to give powder coating a shot. I found a guy in Maine that has 30+ years experience and I felt more than comfortable with his ability and he has a great selection of colors. Heres a few samples of the color I am going with:
And heres a video that he posted on Facebook for me to see before he coated my parts.
I will have pics in the next day or so of the completed parts.
The powder coating guy is also very aware of the tolerances on paintball guns and he took a lot of time talking with me to make sure he masked the proper areas. Heres some pics of the body after he masked it off.
Well I got the parts back today and did some final assembly. Well sort of. I haven't yet decided if I'm leaving it as a mech or putting the pneumatics in it. I also have not picked up the new asa I ordered from my local shop. Heres a few pics and a video is being uploaded right now. Its really hard to capture the amount of color change with a pic but the video looks better.
And heres the video:
Thanks again for all the kind words and everybody that helped on this project.