If only I had tried out the cardboard mockup while the gun was in the mount, I would have discovered that the thing would not fit on the gun when it was in the mount. I pointed my finger at my head and pulled an imaginary trigger. It was yet another of the many paperweights I had made in order to bring you build sites that produce something that actually works.
M37 link chute
The first link chute
This is the new link chute, assembled.
The three parts making up the assembly.
A rear view with bag attached.
A closer shot. The belt feed slide rides above the the long guide .
I think this is an old bank bag. It has four metal eyelets. The front
holes are fed over the front of the rods until the back ones can be slid
over the rear pins, then the front ones are stretched over the front bends.
Easy on & off. I guess a cloth ammo belt could be fed into the chute,
in which case the bag becomes a laundry hamper.
I will have the chute parked when I redo the entire gun, M2 tripod, etc.
You can make any type of bag holder. I don't
really know why I designed mine the way I did. It seemed to suit the bag
I had. Something with a draw string would be trimmer.
The joints are tacked at the stress points. Welding
22 Ga. sheet is a delicate operation. Go slow - one hit with the welder
set too high and a section of plate will simply vanish. When you can,
back up the place to be welded with a piece of metal to act as a heat
sink. I used two 10-24 button head
screws to hold things together.
These are links to the templates. Click on an image to get the full sized template. Right-click and save to your hard drive and use Windows Paint (in Accessories) to print it. I didn't use dimensions because you would get crazy trying make this thing using anything but a template. I sprayed contact cement on both template and sheet metal put them together, and cut away with a saber saw.
The backplate and brackets are 16 Ga.
sheet metal and the housing is 22 Ga.
Side cutaway
The guide that fits into the gun's feedway will need to be strengthened so that it does not flop down during firing and obstruct the feedway. If you look at the photo of the M37 link chute at the top of the page, you can see that the originals had a ridge running along the guide, so that's what I did.
The tools at left are crude, but served the purpose.
I suggest you practice this next move on a piece of scrap first to get the hang of it.
As shown n the photo, above, left, I cut a shallow slot in a piece of
scrap 1/8" x 3/4" x 1 1/4" flat bar stock using a fiber
blade on my table saw. I set the blade about 1/8" above the bed and
fed the stock along the fence. I used the same fiber blade to cut a deeper
notch into a 3 1/2" length of 3/8" square bar stock. The small
rod is a piece of shank from a broken 3/32" drill bit. The ridge
does not go all the way to the end, so I rounded the drill bit shank at
both ends to give it a smooth contour.
I put the flat bar on the top, with the drill shank on the bottom, opposite,
taped the group together as in A,
then clamped it in a blacksmith's pole vise. Pressing rather than hammering
will give a smoother impression. Keep everything straight! You will end
up with a shape like the one shown in fig B.
Next, I laid the thing, bar side down, on a steel block, then used the
square bar stock (with the groove cut in the end) and a small hammer to
flatten back the sheet along the ridge, C.
There's not much more I can tell you. Once you have made the mockup and test fitted it, everything will begin to make sense. The offset for the brackets will depend on what anchor points you choose. There is no point in my detailing the brackets I used as I have a home made pedestal mount. Good luck!
