OK, I know it's been a while without an update, but I finally finished the first part - probably, one of the hardest, and longest to machine.
When I sit down and plan my strategy for work flow on a run, I take a lot of things into consideration. Minimizing chuck changeovers, common jigs for second turning ops, mill work, and a bunch of other factors. I was originally planning to attack this saber in a different part order, but then I started thinking about the need to line certain parts up. That lead me to change the order of part machining. I decided to start with the knurl section first, because I can use the holes in it to line up the lower grip, and the upper grip parts much easier then assembling, marking each part and then re-indexing the mill for each and every part.
As I mentioned, this part was a bit time consuming. It took 5 weekends (working about 8 hours a day Saturday and Sunday each weekend) to complete these. 3 days for the turning work and then 5 days for the mill work. And yes, that meant breaking down and resetting up jigs several times over the course of the part. The turning work took about 15 minutes per part. The mill work took about 33 minutes per part. So, that's about 50 minutes per part for 70 parts. About 60 hours of work time to complete.
I will be doing the front ring and box base next so that I can get the holes inthe knurl part threaded. ThenI will be able to move on to the lower grip, then the upper grip parts.