Introduction and Q&A (James Thorogood)

[JamesThoro]

Hello everyone!

I was kindly asked to join this forum a few months ago, but I was so busy with working on a product that I failed to act earlier. Bert thought that you guys might be interested in some of the things we offer, so here I am to introduce myself, talk to everyone and answer any questions you may have:

My name is James Thorogood, I run a small business in the UK known as Additive Airgun Parts. Since 2017, I have been designing, manufacturing and continuously improving gravity-fed magazine systems for the Crosman 22xx platform.
What started out as a hobby has now become my full time work and as a result now offer a full range of magazines and other products.

We specialize in utilizing the capabilities of additive manufacturing (3d printing), which when used correctly can achieve marvellous things. All my products use a combination of our own in-house modified FDM/SLA printers and parts created on a fancy Nylon-powder-based, laser printer in London (far too expensive for me to get one in-house unfortunately).

The best place to learn about everything we offer, is via my website: https://www.airgun-parts-shop.co.uk/

This page specifically has been crafted to help answer the most common questions regarding our popular magazine range: https://www.airgun-parts-shop.co.uk/pages/which-magazine-do-i-need

I also love making videos, so I upload all my creations to the YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/ZxZoVwS-a0M

We don't usually run promotions, but if any forum member would like to purchase something from the store, I have created the code "FORUM" which can be used at checkout for 15% off your entire purchase.

Please do let me know if you have absolutely any questions, I will try my best to answer them. Thank you 

[Brutuz]

Thanks for joining James and please keep updated 

[Sweller]

Hi, James. Welcome to CAPOF. Good to have you here.

I just came from your website. That sucking sound is my wallet getting ready to implode. 

[Sweller]

Product suggestion. How about a precision fit replacement for Crosman's sloppy two-stage trigger? I love how simple it is to adjust. But it has a 0.130" hole to fit a 0.125" pin.

And if ever you should need a tester... 

[JamesThoro]

Product suggestion. How about a precision fit replacement for Crosman's sloppy two-stage trigger? I love how simple it is to adjust. But it has a 0.130" hole to fit a 0.125" pin.

And if ever you should need a tester... 

Cheers Stephen, and thank you for the idea. Trigger mechanisms are currently outside my knowledge range at the moment, but its definitely a fun idea to play around with to see if I can come up with something. The trigger on the standard Crosmans is absolutely the worst part of the gun, so anything to address it sounds like a good thing to work on!

[mudduck48]

Welcome to the CAPOF.

[A29Adriver]

Welcome to the forum, looking forward to visiting your website.

[7624452]

Welcome. 

[Sweller]

James,

The product page for the .177 GRAVmag says it holds 5 pellets, but the video says 7.

I assume the video is correct?

[JamesThoro]

James,

The product page for the .177 GRAVmag says it holds 5 pellets, but the video says 7.

I assume the video is correct?

Ah yes Stephen, thank you for pointing out that mistake, I will correct it now! The 177 GRAVmag Compact does indeed hold 7 pellets (7, +1 in the chamber ().

[schnoo]

Hello mate,

Followed your projects with interest over the years... really visible progression of usability and quality (hope that doesn't sound patronising, its meant honestly!)

Are they printed with filament still or have you moved on to SLA/DLP?

Welcome to the forum!

[JamesThoro]

Hello mate,

Followed your projects with interest over the years... really visible progression of usability and quality (hope that doesn't sound patronising, its meant honestly!)

Are they printed with filament still or have you moved on to SLA/DLP?

Welcome to the forum!

Hi mate, thank you for your kind words- that really means a lot.

Regarding material usage, we are still using FDM to manufacture tolerance-demanding parts. We did try SLA, but as you may know this introduces shrinkage issues which is an absolute nightmare when trying to make magazines which are incredibly sensitive to even the smallest dimension changes.
We are currently using a combination of Prusa and Creality machines. The Prusas are in their stock configuration and the Creality's are kitted out with linear rails and the fancy Hemera Direct Drive extruder (the V-wheels are no good for tight work). It's been a huge learning process to get this all working reliably, and my maximum output is currently dictated by having to use one machine per part, since I don't want to print the same thing on multiple printers (because that would introduce more variables).

However, in the last year we have moved about 75% of our production to SLS machines (very expensive, Nylon power based). Anything that can be done on these machines, we now do. This includes almost everything except parts of the magazine that -again- need to have very tight tolerances. While SLS produces incredibly durable parts, it also suffers from shrinkage and tolerance changes which is no good for magazines. We recently tried to make the entire magazine using SLS, but upon ordering our final $1000+ initial batch of parts, found that none of them worked the same as the prototype batch before that, which was incredibly frustrating to say the least.

So as of writing this, we are using SLS to produce the rail clamp portion of the magazine, of which it does a great job.

Of course the dream is to get them made from CNC aluminium (something which I am working on, but it will take a lot of time to get right). Stay tuned! 

[cherokeesteve]

Will definitely keep your magazine in mind while upgrading my 2400 KT. Are "tipped" pellets compatible such as Predator Polymags?

[JamesThoro]

Will definitely keep your magazine in mind while upgrading my 2400 KT. Are "tipped" pellets compatible such as Predator Polymags?

Thank you

Polymags aren't compatible with the current GRAVmag's, but it will be something that we look at doing later this year, since we do get asked fairly often.