Bay Area 1911 classes?

[dholla]

Anyone know of any 1911 gunsmithing classes or anything of the sort?

[sfbay]

+2 on this topic...

[sundayduffer]

Buddy of mine took an 8hours long class last week at Reeds in Santa Clara...instructors name is Jardine something..he is supposedly the king of 1911s. Im sure you can google him. He has his own website i think.

[9mmepiphany]

instructors name is Jardine something..he is supposedly the king of 1911s.

That's pretty funny

That was John Jardine. His claim to fame is that he was Armand Swenson's (the godfather of custom 1911) nephew and was responsible for the design of the Italian made Valtro 1911. He is a very good 1911 smith, but he isn't anything close to being the king...unless it is referring to just the Bay Area

[adamsreeftank]

John Jardine is one of the top 1911 smiths. There is a reason why Valtros are going for over $6,000 if you can find one. He is also a great guy with a ton of knowledge.

That said, the flyer for the class at Reeds looks like it is a maintenance and tuning class. Not a gunsmithing class, which you really couldn't do in one day.

If you want to get a head start, the Scott-Duff books are pretty good.

http://www.scott-duff.com/

[johnny_22]

I took the class

I was the dumbest person in the class with respect to 1911s. After the class, I was still in last place, but I had a lot more confidence. He had us borrowing his tools and making adjustments. Stripped the gun down to the frame and put it back together again.

Oct 1 was one class. Give Reed's a call and see when the next class is:

http://www.reedsindoorrange.com/events.html

One comment: He likes everyone to use his magic lube. I went in there with Enos Slide Glide. I thought he was going to flunk me.

[MILLESTONE]

Thanks for the website!... I'm not a 1911 expert or profesional armorer but in my case, I'm pretty familiar with the assembly/disassembly and detailed strip of the 1911 series 70 and 80 slide and frame so I'm not sure if the 8 hrs course is worth it, don't want to pay $200 tuition just to learn cleaning and preventive maintainence. However, the Diagnosing Parts Wear, the Properly Function Test, and the Enhancements and Modification plus the rest of information will be interesting to learn. Anyhow, the Oct.1 class was the last class of this year, next one will be sometime in Jan 2012.

[greybeard]

You may want to check the cylinder and slide website. They sometimes have 1911 building classes in CA.