AMD-65 Build - Flat to rifle

[Quarterbore]

This post is being set up as a place where I can share my current project... I have hundreds going on thousand plus photos of the project that I hope to crop down and turn into a webpage but taking good pics and documenting the project is taking much longer then I hoped it would...

So, I am going to share my progress here in lesser detail so visitors can see what I did and why until I can get the webpage up....

Following is a brief list of the steps I have completed and the order that I did them...

1. Disassemble AMD-65 Parts Kit

Remove barrel from Front Trunion
Remove rivets from Frnt trunion
Remove rivets from rear trunion
Disassemble and remove rivets from trigger guard assembly

2. Bent Flat to form Receiver
3. Fit receiver for:

the front trunion,
rear trunion and
make opening to allow bolt/carrier to be added to receiver.

4. Installed trigger guard assembly into new receiver.
5. Set front trunion based on magazine fit to trigger guard
6. Located and drilled holes for the front trunion
7. Riveted Front Trunion in place
8. Align rails to be parallel with rail on front trunion & spot weld them in
9. Heat treat the FCG holes and ejector in the receiver.
10. Press in the barrel
11. Headspace
12. Press in Barrel Pin
13. Install Center Suport
14. Set rear trunion based on requirement for top cover to fit properly (based off the rear sight on the barrel)
15. Drill and cut rear of receiver for AMD-65 rear trunion.
16 SKIPPED THIS STEP!!! Try to install the rear sling swivel
(NOTE: I may skip step 14 on this build as I only have one rear sling swivel and I want to build a SBR from my last AMD-65 kit and that kit I want to make as correct as I can...)
17. Rivet the rear tunion in place
18. SilverSolder extended muzle break onto the AMD-65 barrel

Here is where I am... Note the following are my Next Steps (order may change as I work on this but I think this is the order it needs to be done. My order is based on my experience building on OOW receivers where things were just a litle oversized and I learned that sometimes the order does matter for a good and proper fit!

19. Assemble rear stock assembly
20. Test Fire (any test dumies out there :eek: )
21. Sand, file, or buff out as many "oops" marks as possible
22. Durakote finish in a flat black

Then, next build is going to be a Romanian AKM "G" series" or perhaps a cut-a-way AKM...

[Quarterbore]

Reserved Post for Project

[Quarterbore]

Reserved Post for Project 2

[Quarterbore]

Reserved Post for Project 3

[Quarterbore]

Reserved Post for Project 4

[Quarterbore]

Thoughts for the day...

Tonight after work I heat treated the FCG holes and the ejector. This went smoothly and I performed the first step by getting the holes or ejector red hot and maintained a nice bright cherry red for 45-seconds to ensure that all the metal was at temperature before dropping it imediately into a bucket of cool water. After this I took the receiver to the shop and scrubbed the scum off the receiver with a green scrub pad like you would use to do pots and pans.

I next tempered the steel to a blue color and I tried to get this to color for about five seconds before moving to the next hole. All holes were done one after another with the ejector last. I had trouble seeing the color change on the ejector and I was afraid to over heat it so as soon as I started to see blue I stopped. The receiver was allowed to cool at room temperature for a couple hours (mainly because I needed to spend some time with the rest of the family... not that it took hours to cool!).

Later I went back to the basement and learned how to use my Xebec barrel press. After reading the directions several times and playing with all the pieces I managed to get to work and pressed the barrel of my AMD-65 back into the trunion. I needed to make some minor adjustments to the 3-point-pressing adapter as the long arm of the unit hit the flange that is attached to the barrel. After a little scratching my head I dug out the trusty dremmel and cut a notch in my tool and the barrel was in.

Well, I learned a lesson at that point... I checked the headspace on the AMD-65 and the bolt would not close on my Go Gauge. This meant it was time to swap the press around and press out the barrel a little to correct the headspace issue. Well, as luck would have it the barrel must have liked where it was as when reversing the movement the press built up pressure and the barrel "jumped" in the trunion some amount that was... well... too much! That was indicated by the bolt not being able to close on the Go Gauge. Well, by this time I was tired but I was not going to make that mistake again so I slowely pressed the barrel back in until I could see the barrel move an ever so tiney amount and I checked the headspace. I needed to do this quite a bit until I found a point where the bolt closed on the Go Gauge with modest pressure from a pointer finger while the Bolt could not be closed on the No-Go gauge with much more force... I spent at least an hour messing with this barrel to get the headspace to work out...

When done, I have a slight bur inside the barrel pin hole that I chased out with a small and fine tooth file and I pressed in the barrel pin. Lastly for today I took the furnature for the front end of the AMD-65 and attached it so that at long last my project can start looking like what it is supposed to...

Attached is an image...

I just checked and for this build I have taken 877 photos so far... One of these days I will get them organized so I can share but I need to get this build done too!

[KillJoy149]

LOOKIN' GOOD!

How did you press in the Rivets? Did you use one of the manufactured Jigs, one you made, or the bolt cutter method?

Also, where did you get your Rivets?

KillJoy

[Quarterbore]

Yea it is looking good... I have a few things I learned especially about proper bucking and NOT using clamps on the front of the receiver as I got a few dents but othewise everything is comming together nice.

I need to make some larger bucks to support the front trunion when pressing the front rivets or I need to learn to use Plinker's jig properly as I have a couple marks up front that I could have prevented had I took a little more time with my setup... The clamps were to used to test fit the front trunion for the mag as dummy me tightened them too much and got marks...

A little fill with the durakote paint and it will not show and this build is looking better then my screw build on a OOW receiver so practice does help some... as does the right tools!

My rivets are from the Group Buy that Patriot Of Many had on AK-47.net. They are the proper size and they really have worked great. I bought a ton of these planning to pack them up and sell a few to hellp support the site but have not had the time to count the little buggers out yet.

As for my squashing, I use Plinkers jig for the font trunion and the trigger guard rivet jig from AK-Builder.com. Like I said, I have hundreds of pics to go through to share but I don't have the server space (or bandwith) to upload them as they are and it will take me days to sort, crop, and lay them all out and add text...

[KillJoy149]

I'm going to need to be getting some rivets soon.... <nudge nudge...wink wink wink>

KillJoy

[555th]

Plinker's jig works alot better than the bolt cutter method, Plinker now has a neat jig that does a great job on the rear rivets, he's selling that one for @ $40.
The Plinker's rivet jig takes a little time to set up and if you have someone to build with, it helps alot.

QB, Was your kit a matching serial numbered kit?

[Quarterbore]

No, the kit I am building is a misc collection of AMD-65 parts... I got it back in the day for something like $40 and I had planned to make a cut-a-way out of it. Now, AMD-65 kits are too expensive to chop it up so it is my training build... I am building this as a rifle...

I have considered plinker's rear rivet jig but I am going to wing it in this build and see just how tough it is to do. I plan to start the squash with a hammer and then press the head to final size and shape when it is nearly complete.

I will have to see how it works but that is why I am starting with my ugly duckling kit!

[Quarterbore]

Another update to this project, for my own memory is not so great when I get busy...

Last week I went ahead and headspaced my build and put the barrel pin in place. Next I installed my rear trunion and got those rivets done as well as the center support. I tried to use the Plinker jig to do the rear trunion rivets and learned that this is not a one person job. Try like I might I could not get the first of the two rivets to squash square and it folded over on me a bit. I gave up when I realized I was in trouble and tried to use a hammer to bring the rivet back and then round it using a bucking bar that I drilled to match the factory rivet head. The result was far less then perfect but hey, I am learning!

For the second rivet I tried the method shown on the ak-builder video and simply put the rifle with the head of the rivet on a buck sitting on my anvil and used the hammer to start the rivet squashing. Slow even blows compressed the rivet nice and I could adjust the blows to make the rivet straight. When the rivet was pretty well squashed down I took the rounded buck and pressed the head to a round head... the second rivet looks factory!

The next day, last saturday, I was at a build party and then proceded to silver solder my barrel extension and muzzle break onto the barrel. This was done using the fusion 1200-deg silver solder paste from brownells. The threads on all of the parts (barrel, both ends of the extension, and factory break) were all cleaned of oil and dried. Then I added a heavy coat of the silver solder paste to the threads (male ends) and screwed everything to where I wanted it so that the timing of the muzzle break was where I wanted it. From there, we got the MAP torch and heated the thread area of the flash hider to a nice red color and held the heat until I could see the silver solder starting to work its way out of the joint between the break and the extension. This was then repeated of the other side of the extension (end of the barrel).

It took a LOT of MAP gas to get enough hear to turn these parts red. We actually had two MAP torches on that barrel and Break to help get the temperature to where it was needed to melt the solder!

So anyways, this is where this project sits at this point. It is noteworthy to add that after adding the center support and rear trunion that my Bolt-carrier does not fit into my receiver anymore. That is fine and expected as I when I did the original fitting it was just so that I could headspace the kit. Nex time I get a few hours need to get the top rails filed down a little more and then I can work on the stock assembly and she should be ready to take shooting!

[twistedneck]

Quarterbore,

When you said you had to file the top rails down, can you explain this?

-- OK, i understand this now it pulls them together. but what is the proper ID down the center of the receiver by the support. Is it the same as the trunion width?

When at first you went too far and the go gage would not fit. How do you 'fix' a headspace by using a larger pin? would be a bitch to drill down the center of the new overlapping hole.

If the stock pin fit, was it perfectly aligned?

thanks for all the great tutorials and a great site. :nanabang:

Jeff