Lower repaired..

[dwalker460]

So yesterday I picked up a lower with a broken trigger guard tab from another member. This morning I went in to the shop and welded it up. I read Tinelements thread about his repair and followed a similar path, with a few differences.
So step one was to strip the lower back down and clean the coating off the area to be welded. A little wipedown with some alcohol, some wet shop towels, and away we went.

It took a couple of minutes to weld as I would weld, cool, weld, cool, slowly building up new metal.

Once that was done, I ground the repair to its rough shape rather than chuck it in a mill. This was for two reasons- first, the mill I use is a PITA to setup and not physically in my shop, which means I have to drive over there and setup, which was more trouble than I wanted to deal with. Second, going over and using the mill would have lead to a three hour conversation about racing, good ole days, and someones random ex-wife, which was also more trouble than I wanted to deal with.

Once roughed in, I drilled the roll pin hole and used a 3m wheel and hand files to finish it out. This actually did not take long at all. Once the right shape and flat a little 300grit sandpaper wrapped around the file blade smoothed the metal right out but left enough roughness for the paint to bite.

Last thing I did was to tape it off and paint it with semi-flat black Krylon paint of some sort I already had in the shop. Matched perfectly.

All said and done, this whole process probably took me about an hour, from welding, roughing, and finishing with a few interruptions in there along the way.

I am not much of a picture taken, so all I really have is the "before" and "after" shots, which will get posted in a few minutes after I upload them.

Before-
http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc259/dwalker460/AR%20stuff/CMMGlower2.jpg

During paint-

http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc259/dwalker460/AR%20stuff/IMG_20121013_103658.jpg

http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc259/dwalker460/AR%20stuff/IMG_20121013_103723.jpg

After-

http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc259/dwalker460/AR%20stuff/IMG_20121013_103858.jpg

http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc259/dwalker460/AR%20stuff/IMG_20121013_103924.jpg

All in all, this was a lot of easy and nothing at all to be concerned about.

[SideShow Bob]

There was another thread on the same thing. I won't call a REPOST, for maybe it was lost in the "Great Crash of 5/12". And it always good to hear about firearms parts being rescued from the scrap bin. [Beer]

[dwalker460]

I said I found and read Tinelements write-up on how he repaired his, but he didnt repair mine, I did :)

[ChunkyMonkey]

Time to relist it for $500. [Coffee]

[kwando]

Great job!!

[MCarp71]

Nice work!

[Tinelement]

Looks awesome dude!!

Good job! [Beer]

I got another one sitting on my desk I gotta do. I'll post it up when its done.

As mentioned, I'm glad we are taking the steps to repair these girls.

[dwalker460]

Thanks guys!
Its not so much "saving" them since you can buy that grip that hides the damage, more like restoring them as they were intended to be. Welding it up and carving it back to shape was not difficult at all and did not take much time. Although as I stated I used a grinder and roloc disc to rough the weld material into shape rather than set it up in the mill, which likely saved a good bit of time. The hand filing was the longest process, but even that was not bad.

[kwando]

Don you should host a AK build at the shop!! wink wink