ZB26 to Mk1 Bren Gun conversion

[dadio]

When I made my original Mk2 Bren Gun it was scratch built and took 8 months , on many occasions since I've been asked to make another but two factors have put me off doing another .
Firstly it took 8 months of spare time and that's a huge investment of my effort .
Secondly was what should I charge for project of this scale , realistically it would be between £1000 and £1500 to even consider it , to be fair I'm a relatively modest man and it takes an amount of confidence to begin a project that will have that price tag ,in short you can't just run out a gun that has inherently poor design and expect people to pay for it .
Now wind on a few years and we now have several manufacturers of the zb26 ,the gun that was the basis for the Bren gun design in the first place ,although there are many differences in detail there are also a lot more similarity's .
The aim of this project is to discard the barrel , gas system and stock and replace these with replica Bren gun parts that I'll fabricate , then to modify the receiver in detail to match the Bren and take Bren magazines .
This should hopefully make a significantly shorter build .
The original idea was to make just one for one of my favourite persohality's in the Ww2 airsoft scene Simon (Fremsley),as soon as the deal was hammered out I was contacted by one of my favourite customers(Chris) who bent my arm to make a parts kit up at the same time so that at a future date I could do a similar job for him , so I'll be making every part twice ,there's no real way I can make up a complete drop in conversion set but as far as can be I'll be making a parts set .
Another first for me will be making the wood stock from scratch ,there's two reasons for this , firstly Mk1 Bren gun stock's are rarer than Dodo's teeth to find and secondly the mounting method and slide position on the airsoft zb26 are just not compatible with genuine stocks .
This will be a slow burner of a project , I'll have to stop part way through to build a couple of Mk2 Sten to Mk5 Sten conversions that have presidence but are waiting on parts that are stuck in the good ole US of A .
More soon .

[Darkmikey22]

Re: ZB26 to Mk1 Bren Gun conversion

Another epic build coming, awesome.
I suppose its also quite nice having a working system in place with a pre built unit than having to build working internals from scratch again.

[dadio]

Re: ZB26 to Mk1 Bren Gun conversion

Yup it's a novelty for me to have so little to do lol !

[dadio]

Re: ZB26 to Mk1 Bren Gun conversion

this is on again yay
i had some time so i stripped both the zb 26 and my Bren for measurement . it kind of shows the scale of what needs doing and how much of the zb is going in the bin .
you can also see the bar of aluminium ,its a lovely bit of metal ,rings sweetly like a tuning fork if you tap it ,its the single largest piece of metal i have ever purchased 60mm by 800mm and £50 .


you can also see in the last picture the area that needs milling flat to mate with the new gas system , that will be the first job ,then its on to the big turning and milling jobs ,oh an not to mention having to saw that 60mm diameter bar into two pieces ! it will feel like a jail break .
The front end of the lower received is milled flat ,just as well my dentist didn't see it as there are some cavity's in the casting ,nothing structuaraly worrieing in this area but its kind of got me thinking about some of the other bits of milling I had planned further back where the rear site needs moving and the metal is a lot thinner ,oh well I guess I'll burn that bridge when I come to it .
I also cut that mahoosive bar of aluminium into 3 bits ,2 X 300mm lengths for the gas systems and a 200mm bit that I have plans for later to remodel the area around where the barrel is locked into the receiver as that's all wrong for a Bren ,I'll keep the locking/release working as that's a nice feature even if the inner barrel stays in the gun ,I wonder if I could make it so the inner barrel and hop came out too as that would be nice .
Anyway I'm pooped after all the sawing so that's it for today folks .
I got bored ,too wet and windy for flying helicopters so i went back to the workshop and started making swarf ,lots and lots and lots of swarf till it was up to my knee's .The first picture is of the void spaces in the casting of the ZB exposed after i milled it flat on front ,it won't be seen or cause an issue but its crap quality casting , i wonder how many come out so crap they just melt em back down .




and more

[dadio]

Re: ZB26 to Mk1 Bren Gun conversion

First gas system has completed its lath work ,now to make another and then it will be onto the mill.

[dadio]

Re: ZB26 to Mk1 Bren Gun conversion

You may be wondering why I started with such a large diameter aluminium bar only to turn it down so much ,the reason is that below the gas system is the gun mounting point for anti aircraft mounts or vehicle mounts and this will need the extra material as I'm planning on making it all in one piece .

[dadio]

Re: ZB26 to Mk1 Bren Gun conversion

Second gas system finished on the lath ,now on to the milling.

[dadio]

Re: ZB26 to Mk1 Bren Gun conversion

Started the milling on the first one ,there's a flat keyway that needed to be milled onto the part that inserts into the receiver so until that was milled I could not test fit it ,I'd measured the hole in the receiver and turned the part to fit but I forgot that its a cast receiver and all castings have a slight taper so the release from the mold ,in this case 3/4mm taper over the 60mm so it was back on the lath ,anyway it fits nice and snug now ,I also finished the twist lock fitting for the bipod so that fits now as well ,from the latest pictures you should see where I'm going a bit better.

[Eatmycamo]

Re: ZB26 to Mk1 Bren Gun conversion

How has the conversion gone so far? I want to see about making one myself for a Rhodesian or Belgian congo loadout.

[dadio]

Re: ZB26 to Mk1 Bren Gun conversion

Its still going but a bit slowly , i work for the AA and this time of year is murder ,lots of 6 day weeks and long shifts ,both the gas systems are milled on the sides as well and one has been milled underneath as well ,I also had the motor on my mill fail and that was expensive and time consuming to repair ,I'll post up pictures once the gas systems are finished ,then it will be onto the barrels so the front's are complete before remodeling the receivers and finally the stocks to make.

[dadio]

Re: ZB26 to Mk1 Bren Gun conversion

here's the pictures , i agonized about how to put a radius on the top as the bottom is deeper so it would not spin on the lath and i could not support is safely on the mill rotary table so in the end i did it by hand on the lath ,adjust cut ,half turn by hand, back adjust and repeat for over an hour , i now have a left arm like Popeye
well i think its worth it anyway.

[Tankgunner]

Re: ZB26 to Mk1 Bren Gun conversion

Hello everyone,

I've just done the same kind of airsoft replica. Not much, but at least it proves the general idea of ZB-Bren conversion


It have no "realsteel" BREN parts at all. No milling, the gas chamber and magazine are 3D-printed, the hull is modified by steel U-shape tube and resin/epoxy (lots of it, to be sure). The buttstock is self-made.

I'll upgrade it further (sights, at least, need to be moved)

[dadio]

Re: ZB26 to Mk1 Bren Gun conversion

thats not bad at all ,you don't need a full cnc equipped machine shop to get a nice looking project finished ,i find the most important ingreedient's are time and elbow grease.
I have both gas systems finished on the mill now so its on to the barrel's next.

[dadio]

Re: ZB26 to Mk1 Bren Gun conversion

Hi ,little update ,both the gas systems are now complete and one is partially cleaned up , so its time to move on to the next bit the barrels , first part is the flash hider cones and sit bases and thats what we have here in the pictures , all ready to be fitted to the barrels ,all that's left to do is mill out the sights and weld them onto the cylindrical base section .the metal for the barrel's is on order and should get here mid week ,the barrel of the Bren is a mixture of different diameter's between 22 and 29mm so I've ordered 2 sections of tube , the first is 25.5mm outer diameter with a 3mm wall thickness so it can be turned down to 22mm ,23mm and 24.5mm diameter where needed ,the second section of tube i ordered is 28.5mm outer with a 2.5mm wall thickness that can be sleeved and welded over the thinner tube ,it will mean that one section that should be 29mm will only be 28.5mm but 0.5mm is barely going to be visible and i could not get another piece that was 29+ outer with the correct wall thickness to sleeve over tightly enough .

[dadio]

Re: ZB26 to Mk1 Bren Gun conversion

most of the detail work on the barrels is done , just the sights and gas adjuster block , all the wider sections on the barrels were finished last week ,lots of hand done concave curves and welding ,very labor intensive , today i just drew up some designs for the gas adjuster parts ,lots of measuring and head scratching ,its going to be much like my own Bren but with a few tweaks to improve it , this is rare for me but you get to see a grubby piece of paper with my scrawl on it , believe me i prefer making stuff to drawing it .