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Jaxom · Senior Member

I haven't been around (again) for about two months now. Some major changes have happened in my life. Starting with, I've now moved in with my fiance and my daughter, as well as my soon to be mother-in-law. Sadly this was due to my fiance's father passing away the end of September...

I only mention these details because I'm still having difficulty finding work. In order to keep some income going my fiance and have decided to sell off a few of her father's firearms. Because of the stupid left-wingnut laws in our state quite a few of the corner gunshops have closed up. So I spoke to some guys over at our local BassPro Shop, and the recommeneded an FFL dealer that buys weapns.

He came over this moring. During the course of examining the collection of 6 revolvers and two shotguns we got to talking and I casually mentioned I wanted to get into "airgun smithing. He immediatly perked up at this. He told me he comes across many airguns/bb guns ect during the course of his buiness, most specifically when he buys whole collections from estates.

He also admitted to me, that while he know some nominal powder burning smithe work, he know abolutly nothing about airguns. He himself might be my first customer because he used a burner specific lub on two air guns (one his, the other his wife's) that they use to keep squirrels out of their garden and away from thier bird feeders. Needless to say, the seals are now shot and neither air rife fires.

Sooo...I need some advice on how to go about setting up my own shop. Tool wise, I have most basic stuff I'll probably need. But from there I don't know what else would be a good start.

For those of you that are doing side jobs tuning and such, how would you recommend that I proceed?

ANY and all advice on how to go about this would be greatly appericated.

Thanks much!

Jaxx

kanyon · Silver Status Member

Sorry Jax ....
But I'm going to be blunt here...
If yer NEED to ask those questions..
You should not be anywhere near some one ealses guns...
untill you no longer need to ask them...

Would you give your gun to a guy to work on..
then he asks what tools do I need Shocked

Yer would snatch it back off him and walk away...Wouldn't yer Question

You need to do the learning process first...On YOUR guns...

Pete

sniper · Silver Status Member

sorry times are still rough jax but I gotta agree with kanyon.

having seen Tim (mac-1) break down pumpers/springers and pcp's
in front of me I think airgun smithing is way more involved
then burners. seems a lot more to go wrong.

anyone can strip a 1911 or AR-15. way simple compared to an airgun.
JMO (though I'm not very mechanically inclined myself).
Apology

AirGunEric · Site Admin

Being a "repair guy" despite my best efforts to not be (one of less than a dozen authorized Crosman repair centres in the world and the Canadian Distributor/installer of the Vortek products, and someone who will look at anything if the customer is willing to pay)- airgun "smithing" is more complex in my opinion that regular burner repairs- a HUGE number of parts are not available- depending on age of the gun and/or the manufacturer, so often machining of custom pieces is required.

This is not to say if you stuck with some basic things you might be able to make it work without having to acquire a lathe and machining skills- all these "lots" your guy comes across- figure out which models that commonly appear that you can get parts for from the manufacturer(s) and that you are comfortable fixing. You could fix them for him to sell, or work out a deal where you purchase them, repair and then sell yourself. You could of course also buy up what he accumulates and then sell "as is" to other people (for example, I could use a couple of non-working Crosman Mk I's and/or II's right now to use for "hard parts"). Some models that would be common and can still get parts for would be something like any of the Crosman pumpers, Crosman 357s and such.

But- do not set up a "shop" to do this- find a spot in your garage/basement and try it out- if it doesn't fly you won't have spent a pile of money and have a pile of essentially useless equipment that you likely won't end up using again, or paying rent on something not utilized well.

Jaxom · Senior Member

I whole heartedly agree with everything said so far. One thing I'm very comfortable with is knowing when to admit I should NOT do something that I could other wise totally screw up.

When I mean setting up "shop", I'm looking to start out simple, ya know things like cleaning, perhaps and gradually as I gain experience go from there.

Of course I would start out working on my own first....

I think perhaps I may have worded my question wrong. I'm not in the position to run out and buy a lathe, mill, ect. Pretty much like the FFL dealer I spoke of, he does "minor" smith work on any thing he buys. I'd be doing the same, only with ag's.

Mostly, what I'm also looking at is buying stuff at garage sales and such as well. Unlike most here, where we all know the value of ag's, most have this impression they're nothing more then toys and often sell them for peanuts.

Jaxom · Senior Member

Something else I wanted to clarify...

Save for this dealer's personal weapons. Any gun that I worked on to being with, I would own. What I'm looking to do is to buy out (full ownership) of weapons, do repairs as nessary. And then resell.

Granted, like most mentioned alread, ag's are complex. I am fully aware of this. This is where one's patience and such comes into play. I would then only attempt to such things I'm confident I can successfully achieve.

If I'm even the slightest hesitant, I'd either shelf a gun until later or sell as is to other collectors or such...

kanyon · Silver Status Member

[quote="Jaxom"
Granted, like most mentioned alread, ag's are complex. I am fully aware of this. [/quote]

A air gun is a VERY basic machanical item...they are meany things but Complex is not one of them..
well thats how I see them..So don't let yer self be convinced they are some thing they are NOT..
Whats so complex about a spring pushing a bit of pipe with a bit of rubber on the end of it..Up another bit of pipe... Shocked