Allen,

I have a rifle that I built from deHaas' plans, specificly the Chicopee R.F. 
I varied from his plans in a couple of places. I used 3/16" plate for the sides of the action instead of his 1/8". I then made the front ring that much larger on the sides and top. The barrel threads are per print. This made the whole action a littler heftier and allowed for a larger barrel.
The other thing I did was to silver solder the two sides of the breech block together. deHaas probably had Ballards on his mind when he designed the breech block in two halves, but attaching the sides into one unit adds rigidity(read accuracy) and assembly is no problem. 
For machinery you will definitly need a lathe, and while you COULD do the mill work with a milling attachment on the lathe, I used a mill/drill benchtop mill when I made mine. You will also need access to an acetylene torch to do the silver soldering. I also had a small heat treat furnace to harden the parts but the torch and some tempilac will do. 

Steve Durren

Chris,

I was refering to tempilac crayons and laquer. Either of these two products are applied to a piece of metal and when said piece of metal reaches the specified temperature the lacquer will melt. The crayon tends to work better when held against a hot piece of metal. They are very accurate and are used to calibrate pyrometers in furnaces. The main problem with using the tempilac method for heat treating is getting the whole piece uniformly heated.

Most industrial suppy houses and welders supply houses will have or can get the tempilac products in a wide variety of temps.

Steve Durren

I am surprised that you made it in 218, I thought the design was intended for 22 LR.

Have you seen any problems with pressure?
Did you braze it together or just use the pins?

thanks,

Allen