I'm sure there are prints that show what needs to be done and probably videos that show the process and best order to do it.

Start out with smaller projects and read a book about basic machining. I'm. No pro either but I'm confident I could figure it out. I've only done a little bit of work on a lathe and mill.

Got to realize that if you don't have the proper machining equipment (vertical mill instead of a drill press) and you're not experienced,it won't be as pretty as a purchased lower. But you're aiming for functionality. You could always try again and make a couple.

But I'd suggest looking up some beginner projects to get the feel for machining steel or aluminum. The hardest part for you since you're a beginner will be milling, but since you have a drill press you probably won't be able to mill and will probably have to get creative with pecking holes to remove material. Then clean it up on a belt sander and with a file.

I hope there are a lot like that. Often I doubt it from what I hear but I am sure there are some who will. Problem is they will just be replaced in a minute so we will be left with less good cops and more bad cops. Either way it will go the way I said I think if they try confiscation.

The question is: how do we stop it?

Since you asked and since propaganda is one of my favourite topics:

During WWII, the allies discovered that the most effective propaganda to affect German soldiers was that which was honest (even to the detriment of the allies occasionally), funny and separated them from their leaders. Political leaders, mind you, not command staff. Leaflets were distributed that showed the leadership in Berlin as incompetent but the German soldier himself as honest and the inheritor of the Germanic warrior spirit. When a battle went the wrong way for the allies, this was also mentioned with praise for the strong fighting will of the German soldier and his competent officers.

The moral is that people respond more to narrative than facts (so long as you're not outright fabricating easily debunked nonsense, that is).

Secondly, during the various leftist insurrections in Europe, the police discovered that the hardest groups to infiltrate were the affinity groups. This is where we got the idea of cells operating independently but with ephemeral ties upwards (but not sideways) in the hierarchy and operational decision-making rested with the cell itself to prevent usurpation further up in the hierarchy.

The moral of the story is that you need to know the people you're socializing with.

To retain firearm culture and even expand it, you need a better narrative and you need more socializing between members to recruit and retain members as well as to flush out agent provocateurs and generally unstable bad eggs who shouldn't have firearms to begin with. To do that, do what has worked elsewhere where this is a problem:

• Have gun clubs. Don't just show up at a range. It needs to be a social activity for the whole family. Have a picnic or other outing or something and get to know other families involved. Appear harmless.
• Make it a sport. Sports are ingrained in culture as a positive ideal and propaganda campaigns telling you that shooting is not a "real" sport or that it is somehow different will be met with hostility by the otherwise indifferent because we've seen similar attacks against sports that are now literally part of the Olympics. Appear harmless.
• Have firearms conventions. Make them fun. Not cringy fun and full of fightin' words but educational. Have lectures about history, metallurgy, chemistry etc. Get kids involved but don't propagandize to them, let them come along naturally. Remember you're selling your hobby to otherwise indifferent people. Appear harmless.
• Learn to hunt. Seriously. You don't need to hunt , just learn how to. Give your activity a veneer of hobby and give it more legs to stand on. People don't like it when government or special interests attack the hobbies of other people. Appear harmless. Make yourselves seem like the victims, not angry men who are yelling about "muh cold dead hands."
• Have smaller clubs organized hierarchically. Clubs should be small groups of reasonably active people. So small that everyone is on a first-name basis with everyone else. So small that you can buy a beer for everyone involved.
• Prepare to commit to civil disobedience. Learn how to store illegal firearms away from your house but under your control. Learn from preppers here. Nuff said.

Some words really ought to be said about solidarity and willingness "receive blows but not deal them" as Gandhi said but I think those days are past. Peaceful resistance is an immensely powerful propaganda tool but it absolutely rests on people's ability to cooperate and willingness to sacrifice for their cause which I'm not yet seeing.

Because it has already happened. Where I live, there wasn't a farm or a cabin in the mountains that didn't have multiple shotguns hanging on walls. You could get a shotgun at 16 with zero paperwork. Most everyone had a revolver of some sort, not for personal defense, just because you could.

Cue half a century later and school books are full of friendly cartoon-policemen taking (all white) caricature bandits with eye masks to jail so you don't need your firearms at all. Firemen in the same books are exclusively women. Politicians are women. Every angry person is white, male and usually elderly and is presented as a sad stereotype you ought to have sympathy with.

Guns are making a comeback now only because with the increasing knife crime and police unwillingness to deal with the problem, people are deciding it's better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6. The press refuses to report on all the instances of brandishing where "urban youth" with knives are scared off by someone who decided that today they'd start carrying concealed without anyone knowing.

They did a bang up job of it in New Orleans during Katrina.