$28 AR15 receiver, some assembly required

[IronMonster]

Wow. That is nicely done.

 

[bolus]

uh oh, no directions

 

[Stomper]

Looks fairly straight forward to me. BTW- they're called "destructions".

 

[rdb241]

S

Yup because welds ALWAYS hold

So you are going to weld a receiver together just to go shoot at it. Your point is mute. If you take the time to go learn how to weld, you can weld as good as any manufacturer. Unless you have no faith I n yourself.

 

[rdb241]

refr to m

Hopefully, this isn't the future of gun ownership.

Refer to my post on the "How not Comply" thread. You can build a lot of different guns from 80% receivers. After the private sale BS, they will go after home manufacturing. It is something to start thinking about.

 

[rdb241]

D

That shovel AK is super cool.

I probably am going to have to order one of these scrap metal parts kits just because.

If you wanted to make the trek up to my shop I could set you up to weld that sucker up.

Don't laugh. I have seen pictures of an Iragi AK with a shovel handle butt stock. I have also seen pictures Of kids in a garage on Kyber pass making AK's with a bench vise and an anvil.
What the guy did by making a receiver out of the shovel itself is pretty damn smart.

 

[bolus]

It is worth signing up over at weapons guild to see the scratch built projects over there. pretty talented guys

These pieces are actually cut quite well. I'm still trying to decide on silver solder or JB weld. If they fit together very tightly, is the silver solder going to flow well between them? how would you flux between 2 flat pieces identical in shape held together?

 

[IronMonster]

Dont JB weld it. Silver solder is going to be a far better way IMHO. What I would do if I was going to solder it would be tack all the parts together with a tig torch and then solder the parts. The solder will wick between the parts.

 

[rdb241]

I

It is worth signing up over at weapons guild to see the scratch built projects over there. pretty talented guys

These pieces are actually cut quite well. I'm still trying to decide on silver solder or JB weld. If they fit together very tightly, is the silver solder going to flow well between them? how would you flux between 2 flat pieces identical in shape held together?

If you are going to use JB weld. I would do it like laminating wood. Spread a layer of weld on a piece and then butt the other piece to that one and so on until you have the entire receiver and then clamp it really tight to get all the extra weld to oooz out. Then when it is dry, trim all the extra weld from the edges. I know a national motorcycle race bike engine builder that has used JB weld on casings and then machined the part just like it was aluminum. When the motor was assembled, there were no leaks and the engine held up for the rest of the season. JB weld dries very hard.
With silver solder, if you get enough heat through out the metal. The solder will wick through the porus metal. Use a larger tip on the welder to get more heat over a larger area.

 

[bolus]

I






If you are going to use JB weld. I would do it like laminating wood. Spread a layer of weld on a piece and then butt the other piece to that one and so on until you have the entire receiver and then clamp it really tight to get all the extra weld to oooz out. Then when it is dry, trim all the extra weld from the edges. I know a national motorcycle race bike engine builder that has used JB weld on casings and then machined the part just like it was aluminum. When the motor was assembled, there were no leaks and the engine held up for the rest of the season. JB weld dries very hard.
With silver solder, if you get enough heat through out the metal. The solder will wick through the porus metal. Use a larger tip on the welder to get more heat over a larger area.

Thanks, Im most worried about the section that will hold the buffer tube. I think I might also drill and tap it to add some bolts. I dont think the JB weld is going to be strong enough here.

I think I need a second kit and try one with silver solder and one with jb weld and see which one lasts the longest.

 

[etrain16]

I'm trying to picture what parts of the lower get the most stress. Obviously the buffer tube/connection will be stressed not only from firing, but shouldering the gun. The trigger area and mag well really shouldn't get that much stress. I suppose the top of the receiver where it's next to the bolt is going to get warm, possibly hot during extended/rapid shooting, but any stress where the upper connects is really being carried by the two pins holding it on - and that's distributed through all the layers.

While I wouldn't want to build an upper this way, the more I think about it, it seems assembling this, maybe even with JB Weld, might just work? It certainly wouldn't be combat tough, but should be good enough for something like range work or even home defense.

I'm really curious to see how your build turns out Bolus. Make sure to include a rapid-fire video of the lower after it's all done. Just remember to wear your safety glasses

 

[bolus]

I'm trying to picture what parts of the lower get the most stress. Obviously the buffer tube/connection will be stressed not only from firing, but shouldering the gun. The trigger area and mag well really shouldn't get that much stress. I suppose the top of the receiver where it's next to the bolt is going to get warm, possibly hot during extended/rapid shooting, but any stress where the upper connects is really being carried by the two pins holding it on - and that's distributed through all the layers.

While I wouldn't want to build an upper this way, the more I think about it, it seems assembling this, maybe even with JB Weld, might just work? It certainly wouldn't be combat tough, but should be good enough for something like range work or even home defense.

I'm really curious to see how your build turns out Bolus. Make sure to include a rapid-fire video of the lower after it's all done. Just remember to wear your safety glasses

If I can get it to function, there will be a video of me firing it strapped to a table and me holding a string tied to the trigger a 100 feet away behind my car.

Im going to JB weld this one and silver solder the next one. The parts were really cut well. I've ordered from emachineshop before and they were not even close to the quality of these cuts.

 

[etrain16]

Metal isn't my specialty (I do work with it in my job from time to time), but I have done laminating of wood using epoxy for various projects. If the JB Weld holds the layers of metal together as well as epoxy does on a porous surface like wood, you should have a pretty strong final piece. I'll be happy to watch that video from 50 feet away from my screen

 

[IronMonster]

If you are going to JB weld it what I would do is drill and pin any parts you feel are high stress. Just get some 1/8" drill rod and cut it to length to suit. If done well you won't even see the pins in the final product and it will make things far stronger. I think JB weld has a high strength when the pull is "apart" but not so great in shear. The pins will add tremendous shear strength with very little extra work. Cut the pins so they are long to the outside and then grind flush to finish

 

[bolus]

I was thinking the same thing on drilling it. There is a scratch build receiver on weapons guild just held together with bolts.

I ordered a 1-3/16-16 tap for the buffer threads. there are a bunch of used ones on ebay running $10-15

 

[Stomper]

Do NOT use JB Weld, it will eventually fail (if not rapidly). Silver soldering works via capillary attraction and flows toward the heat filling the voids between the two pieces being joined.

FYI- Silver "soldering" is actually a misnomer as its really brazing. The difference is that "soldering" is a lower temperature process (up to about the 600-800*F range) whereas brazing is typically northwards of 1k*F (usually 1.2k-1.4k*F).

The pieces being joined first need to be sanded clean of oxidation and wiped of particiulants. Then the use of flux is needed to get the "solder" to flow, either a brush-on paste flux or flux coated "solder" sticks. I used flux coated 60% to braze up copper to steel, steel to steel, brass/bronze to steel in refrigeration systems quite often. I have even brazed a broken cast iron chandelier that the wind knocked down from our outdoor "living room".

The flux coated sticks are really convienent and they flow nicely once you get the hang of using them. The whole process is about properly controlling the amount of applied heat to the joint you're brazing up.

 

[Rick4070]

+1 on Stomper's above post regarding silver brazing.

A couple of additions, after cleaning the surfaces, don't use your fingers to wipe them off, skin oils can cause the braze not to flow right.

Also, we used to use silver braze foil, fluxing both pieces, and lightly clamping the two pieces to be brazed together, even going to the extent of using a center punch and very lightly throwing up some burrs on the surfaces to allow a very slight gap of a couple of thousandths of an inch between the surfaces, so the braze would capillary through the gap.

We got the foil through Brownell's but I have no idea of the cost nowadays.

 

[bolus]

I guess the question is if I can do the silver brazing with a butane torch? because I wont be able to get an acetylene setup for this. And part of the whole JB weld idea is because it's stupid (thus makes it more appealing to me in a redneck sort of way. ) If I could get a jb welded lower to fire once and survive I'd consider the project a glorious success.

I was going to rough sand the parts, clean with acetone and then use gloves. Similar to applying duracoat.

 

[IronMonster]

One thing about it is there is very little danger even if you have a catastrophic failure. Worst thing that could happen is you get slapped by the bolt carrier when the RE boss snaps. That boss I think is the highest stress point on the whole thing.

I think with some pins the JB weld will work. It's not what I would do but then I got a shop full of metal fab gear

 

[IronMonster]

On another note if you could find someone to sandblast the parts the likelihood of a strong bond would be greatly increased