Learning by Reverse Engineering or Why You Can’t Stop the Signal [Contest Entry]
By Joel Thompson
As a mechanical engineering student, I have a serious interest in firearms design, and I’ve been wanting to develop my CAD-modeling skills for a while now. So, I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone. I took one of my handguns (not my carry handgun), disassembled the slide and started measuring it with a $10 pair of Harbor Freight calipers and a basic set of fillet gauges, taking careful consideration into how the part may have been machined, and why each feature existed. I then started modeling the slide in SolidWorks, the same CAD software used by Smith & Wesson (I believe). I pecked at the model a little bit at a time until a couple days ago I created a “finished” model of the slide . . .
One way to know how accurate the model is compared to the real part is to measure its weight. SolidWorks allows you to define what material the part is made from. It then uses this information to calculate its mass properties. According to SolidWorks, my model would weigh …Read the Rest
Source:: Truth About Guns
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