Franks patching board

[Don McDowell]

Good luck with this one Frank.

[Don McDowell]

: Paper Patch Cutting toolset-with photos
OK guys, I just hope the folowing won´t be taken as an unlawful advertisement and/or breaking the rules here. But probably have no other chance how to say the folowing, so if found unacceptable here, please move this and/or let me know to find other place to play.

Getting pokes here as well as by other means from this forum, I will pick the glove and will go for it, at least from the wood I have on hand-will check for how many sets is it worth, as I got some of it stolen (finished parts of my wagoon box, ready to assembly included...).
Checking posibilities of shipping since I´m from europistan, as well as getting more wood. The wood will take some time, about three weeks. Almost for sure, the next one will be of some other kind, but will try hard to be it some of the dark coloured kind. If someone would be interested in light coloured one, let me know.
Also, since the wood are pieces from sliced veneer mfg, the back side has some flaws from retaining pins. They are not of even thickness, as well as level in crossection. The cutting lane is OK, no bumps there, but realy it´s not a square plank. About 1/32-1/25" of thickness variation from back to front is not uncomon. Planing it even is a no-go option, tried it half day on +/- $110 000 variable speed planer with several knive sets some years ago-no way when dry, maybe when soaking wet from two weeks in steam furnace. Horrible grain tearing and cracking from vibrations, as it has some waves and stripes in grain all over and through. I´m happy I can plane it by extra sharpened hand plane on the edges.
I´m on hand tolls only, so the slots are cut with jewelers saw and I´m no master of it, so regardless some file and sanding work, you can stick as much as three or four papers between the slot wall and the leading/retaining bolt boss in some positions and transitions from the paralel part to round ends are way not uniform. Will post a photo for those interested if they find it acceptable, albeit I will try to make it all even and not abusive for eye. If it happens that more folks will be interested, I´ll have to tool up at least to some degree, but even after that there´ll be a lot of pure hand fiddling, so every each piece will show different course and process of work and worksmanship-it´s a must due to wood properties, which are quite strange even in comparison with curled mahagony. Hope to retain the worksmanship level constant or rising Wink
Along the wood (which is quite crucial, as from my point of view it would loose quite a lot of charm if made from plywood), I´ll need some time to sort it all out. As an self-employed, I have only quite late evenings to start with, so please bear with me. But surely will try as not to make it over 150 buck deal, because with shipping included it would loose most of the appeal seems to me. If you consider it too low and will do so even after flaw report, please let me know Big Grin A group buy would help shipping costs alot. Also, will do hard to make them delivered by begining of the match season, at least those first ones.

[Old Jim]

Can we see a pic of the finished above described item, if available?

[Don McDowell]

Jim look at Franks thread just below this one. I tried to move the pictures over to this one but didn't get very far.

[Old Jim]

Don, it takes us ol' geezers a while to see stuff, sometimes. TY,

[Frank Savage]

OK, since being low on time, I´ll by low down lazy b*/-- and just repost the begining of all this. And no, it´s not any ole geezer eye related problem .)


Always I was of that opinion, that lazyness is the most powerfull mother and moving force of development. See it on myself. Having faceplanted myself into bullet shape search and moldmaking in furious battle to make one pretty old beauty shoot its very first version of original ammo (after 125+ years), I quickly found out that usual "find a ruler of apropriate width or use paper cutter, then position your template according to marks" is absolutely no-go option when you want to make small test batch of four nose shapes, three diameters and several bullet weight (read lenght), so in total at least 14 different PP templates needed, when I dropped combos I just didn´t like or were technicaly nonsensual. Add two differnet lenghts for one bullet dry vs. wet patching and count up. Not speaking about possibility to easy return to one particular anytime in the future.
So I made myself two easily adjustable jigs-one for strip cutting, one for lenght cutting:



The sliders and ruler on the strip cutter are pretty straightforward and self-explaining. Accomodates anything between 0,5"-1,7" width, albeit I´m not sure if I want to patch 22LR bullets nor shooting a beast where 1,7" patch width would be realy needed. Accepts untrimed Legal size of paper.


The angle&lenght cutter allows lenghts for cals. from .200 to .520 right now and easy to adapt both ways for more if needed, due to two positions for the slider retainer bolt.
Just stack the strips against the rest, push them as to cut first angle, ram them against the stop, cut to lenght and so on. Want again patches I´m short of? Take one, or sample made from sth thicker, rest it against the stops or ruler, set up the sliders and here we go.





Slightly tapered bullet shank, or wanna put the paper a bit onto the ogive for slump purposes and dont want overlap? Adjust the excenter as to make one side a tad shorter.




For padding, I used a heavyweight PVC flooring. A self-healing cutting pad would be better, but I hadn´t any availible and since you don´t press much on the pp cutting, no big need for it. Padding is glued on the strip cutter, on the lenght cutter is held by ruler rest retaing bolts, as well as by the slider.
The wood is better of hard, long-grained kind, or there will occur marring of the angled slider lower corners and inconsistent pp lenghts. A piece of brass bolted as to create the face of the slider will solve this, as well as allow for even more carelessnes at setting up the strip stack for next cut. Probably will do that.

Best time-saving devices I ever made for my shooting yet.
Frankly, I´m pretty surprised that I haven´t ever seen sth similar mentioned anywhere. So I posted it from curiosity and (by Freud´s terms) to bump up my ego or immaturity, got some pokes from several people and found sticking my head into rope


Thank You Don, heartfully.


Enjoy&Regards

[Kenny Wasserburger]

When ever your ready to ship me one Frank let me know, Be glad to pay.

Kenny W

[Tombstone 71]

Same here Frank, would like one too.

Tim Caldwell

[Don McDowell]

Well looks like you got 3 including mine now.

[J.B.]

It's a work of art ..just sitting on a coffee table ! The fact that it works really well... that's just a bonus. I know I'm the weak link in my paper patching to date...so I'll persevere with a sharp knife and a template for now.. That is mighty tempting though.