I've been considering a 1911 build for a couple years now and the need for a new project finally made me go for it. Caspian Arms in VT was chosen for the slide and frame. They are the best in the business and only a couple of hours away from my parent's house in Rutland, VT.
I placed an order Nov 11 and was told to expect an 8-12 week wait. I gave them a call just after Christmas when I was in VT visiting my family and I was told they were ready. I would be leaving by the time they could be shipped and transfered to me so I drove up there to pick them up.
I was greeted by a very frendly crew at the Capsian shop and before I left, Gary, the general manager, was nice enough to offer a tour of the shop and walked me through the entire machining process.
I placed some large orders with both Brownell's and MidwayUSA to get everything I would need. This was going to be an expensive project already so I spared no expense and went with very high quality parts from EGW, Wilson, Ed brown, etc. EGW was chosen whenever an option. Their parts are machined from barstock, oversized in some cases, and absolutely top notch.
The first job was to fit the slide to the frame. Caspian offers to do this for you but I wanted to give it a shot. I wouldn't call this a mistake... but you will see this is where I first encountered issues.
The method to fitting a slide to the frame is to first measure all dimensions of the frame rails (which are oversized) and slide grooves, and file the rails to just barely fit. Once the slide can be started onto the frame most of the way, lap the slide to the frame with compound. Things were going great and the slide would go on smoothly until about 1 inch from the end. Well, one small push too hard and the slide hung up. It would not budge not matter what I tried. I spent the entire day trying to remove the slide, first by hand, then a soft mallet. This thing would not come off. Both the slide and frame are stianless steel and I had encountered the most dreaded issue with fitting stainless parts...galling. You can imagine my frustration. I felt like a hack because I had messed up royally on the first step. This is where I did something stupid. I needed the slide off the frame by any means and I gave it a few hard whacks with a hammer. This made things worst and the galling worsened. I also realized the slide was toast because the extractor hole and firing pin stop slot had peened and were mishapen.
I set it aside for a day to think. I came to the conclusion that the slide needed to be removed in hopes of saving the frame (which has a custom serial number). I have no pictures of this because I did not want to remember it. I split the slide down the middle and removed it from the frame. The galling was pretty bad but I was advised by Gary at Caspian that all was not lost and that function would not be affected. That was comforting but I wanted it fixed.
As though it was meant to be, I found a company very near me that does micro arc and laser welding, mostly for mold repair. They are also a gun shop! They were very nice and said I could drive it up after work one day. For $50, they did this.
