What is the Glock frame made of?
What is the Glock frame made of?
(OP)
I have been trying to find out what the Glock and other polymer pistol frames are made of. A few places have said that the Glocks frame is made of "polymer 2" but what exactly is that?
RE: What is the Glock frame made of?
If you shave off a small piece and burn it and it smells like burning hair then it's nylon.
If you do a TGA and measure the weight% of ash you will get the amount of filler because the polymer burns leaving the fillers.
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RE: What is the Glock frame made of?
RE: What is the Glock frame made of?
Regards,
Cory
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RE: What is the Glock frame made of?
If I were specifying a material for such I would be looking at stuff like Grivory, made by EMS Chemie - partially aromatic nylon, Ixef by Solvay a polyarylamide, or similar stuff. Mainly because (IMHO), customer service is better (in the UK)
Zytel by DuPont is an industry standard nylon sold at a premium price (IMO). Many others sell equivalent materials...
Cheers
Harryt
RE: What is the Glock frame made of?
Zytel is one of many first class nylon compounds.
For firearms chassis, I think heavily glass filled nylons are the obvious choice.
The more glass the less the difference between various nylon types, but 6 is easiest to mould and aromatic nylons like Grivory and Reny normally have the best overall performance.
PET and acetal also have a fairly similar balance of properties to nylons, but each has it's own special features that may suit some parts.
Long glass fibre has somewhat better overall properties than normal glass fibre. You can verify fibre length by dissolving the nylon in strong acid then looking at the fibre under a microscope.
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RE: What is the Glock frame made of?
Are there any sources explaining how to make molds/work with these kinds of polymers?
RE: What is the Glock frame made of?
The tooling for a hand gun chassis will be complex and if you don't already have substantial skills, you need to employ a toolmaker. The cost of the tool will be many thousands of dollars, probably several tens of thousands.
The tool will need to withstand hydraulic pressure from the plastic of up to 20,000 psi. It will need to be hardened tool steel to resist wear from the hot glass filled nylon.
You will need to predict shrinkage and tendencies to warp. The significant differential in the shrinkage of glass filled nylon for the across the flow and along the flow directions will take some skill, data and experience to predict.
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RE: What is the Glock frame made of?
RE: What is the Glock frame made of?
As they make thousands of parts, they will tool up for mass production and the tooling costs will be absorbed over thousands of parts.
It seems you are a cottage industry and not working on a real commercial project. It also seems you have little knowledge of engineering and I fear you might get dangerously over your head. Poorly engineered firearms firearms are as much danger to the person firing them as they are to anyone in front of them. They are a precision made highly engineered piece of equipment.
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RE: What is the Glock frame made of?
Your right, I don't know anything about working with polymers, thats why I am trying to get a little info( my area is metal, if someone want's to know the best steel for a knife used in a specific application, what S90V is, or the differnce between damasteel and damascus then no prob). If I wanted to start a small company suppling speciality frames then injection moulding would definitely be the way to go. But I already own one company (no it has nothing to do with fierarms) and that keeps me busy enough. So in your last post I guess you're saying that Liquid Resin Casting won't work for a part like this?
RE: What is the Glock frame made of?
I don't know much about making carbon-fiber either. The only things I have used it for is making knife handels and gun grips, but I am sure it will work for what I want. If I make the rails from aluminium or steel and lay the carbon-fiber to it, I should be able to make what I need. It would be light enough and more unique then polymer. Thanks patprimmer I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner.
I am almost sure I am gonna go with carbon-fiber now, way cheaper and I can control the results. But curiosity is still gonna make me ask would Liquid Resin Casting work or not.
RE: What is the Glock frame made of?
Fibreglass will work as it is stronger than injection moulding compounds. Carbon fibre is stronger in many regards but is expensive and has very little elongation at break so it can behave in a brittle manner. A lot depends on design, fibre orientation, fibre vs resin ratio, the resin used and how well it is cured.
Carbon fibre is a lot better looking and machines a lot easier.
Regards
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RE: What is the Glock frame made of?
RE: What is the Glock frame made of?
Look at the specifications.
http://www.armalaser.com/Glock-GLOCK-.html
Whatever material you choose you might want to talk to the gentleman at Mold Essence about your molding.
http://members.aol.com/skibelt/index.html