[03man]

The T 35 hand guard is a pretty fragile affair, very thin at the rear where it fits to the clip ring on the bbl, with thin sides along either side of the rear sight.

Edokko was good enough to send me good pictures of his really nice rifles hand guard.

Using these pictures and the rifle itself for fitting, I fabricated this replacement.

It only took four months and maybe 50 hours; so if a hand guard, were one able to find one, was worth $300, I made $0.60 an hour!

If I had it do do again or if I HAD to do it again, I'd start with a single piece of wood, now that I have a full size "pattern".

This is not an offer or a solicitation to make another T 35 or any other hand guard, it is way too much work- I just wanted to see if I could do it.

Here is the end result, and some of the steps along the way, with Edokko's pictures for comparison.

The first picture is the finished hand guard on the refit stock, the second shows the small piece of the original handguard that was included with the metal parts of the T 35, no stock at all.

You can follow the how it was done pictures, first the rear section was fit, then the sides along the sight base added, then the front part of the handguard shaped and attached to the rear part, then the whole think shaped and the inlets for the rear sight cut.

Thanks for looking.

 

[skim970]

very nicely done! :clap:

 

[seinen]

Almost begs the question of what happened to the Japanese lathes and related woodworking machinery originally used to fabricate these guards. Did they survive the war?

C/

 

[Jareth]

Don, from one artist to another...great work!

 

[JWMWITZ]

Don, Nice work. I have a very good Type 35 that you could have used as a model. I think I may have shown it to you a few years back. Anyway, let me know if you need anything off a Type 35 in the future.

John in Charlotte, NC

 

[03man]

Don, Nice work. I have a very good Type 35 that you could have used as a model. I think I may have shown it to you a few years back. Anyway, let me know if you need anything off a Type 35 in the future.

John in Charlotte, NC

Thanks John,
I guess I forgot you had one, it would have made the job easier!

 

[Fushigi Ojisan]

Almost begs the question of what happened to the Japanese lathes and related woodworking machinery originally used to fabricate these guards. Did they survive the war?

C/

I wonder if they survived the 1923 earthquake

 

[fredh]

Good job, Don! You're on your way to becoming a woodworker. Jobs like this are usually done out of neccessity. If you had to pay someone to do the work, wonder what they'd charge.

Chip, the T35 tooling was probably scrapped long before WW2. A fellow I worked with years ago at Pratt was in a unit during WW2 that occupied Kokura Arsenal after the war. When he got there, the buildings were empty. He had lots of photos from the occupation. Kokura Arsenal was big! He told me the Russians had already claimed the equipment for reparations. That seems too quick, early '46, but maybe true. I've got enough literature to probably check that out and will do so some evening. Rest assured, if the Ruskies didn't get the tooling, it was scrapped because it had to have been worn out.

 

[seinen]

Chip, the T35 tooling was probably scrapped long before WW2. I've got enough literature to probably check that out and will do so some evening. Rest assured, if the Ruskies didn't get the tooling, it was scrapped because it had to have been worn out.

That's interesting, seeing as the production of Type 35 rifles was so relatively low.

C/