More Suomi

Milled off more of the side plates today, and milled up a stand-in trigger group and magazine/magazine catch out of half-inch aluminium to keep weld metal out of the places where it shouldn't go:

Now all I have to do is cut the slices of steel that fill in the missing portions of the side plates, and mill those down so there will be less grinding and filing once they are in.

Of course I still need to cut a plug for the rear of the cylinder, fill the remaining gaps with weld metal, and grind that down so the end cap fits properly. Pain not being able to lathe it.  Actually...I might just be able to lathe it if I leave the plug in...

After that, it is just grinding, dressing with files, etc., to get it as nice-looking as I can before bluing. Chase the hole for the magazine catch, drill the studs for the rear sight, and adapt the barrel shroud lever for bolting it in place. The rest is drift pins and lock-tite. Probably another 4-5 days of work.