Ak Parkerizing (Advice Needed)

[bjbrokaw]

I just finished demilling my first Romanian G kit but I scratched it up pretty badly because it was my frrst demilling attempt. I sanded it down and smoothed it out with a wire wheel then some steel wool. I'm parkerizing it with a mixture of prep and etch I bought at home depot and some maganese dioxide I ordered from a pottery supply. Do I need to strip everything off the barrel and parkerize them separatly or do I need to remove the sight blocks from the barrel? If so how do I remove them?

[JeffM]

No, just strip down to the basic components. Blast the whole thing before you park. Cover the muzzle and chamber while you blast.

Degrease well before blasting. Degrease even more before parking.

Enjoy.

PS. W/homebrew park everything you plan on doing in one shot so there's no color difference b/t batches. Although it doesn't matter if you're painting over the park.

[ar15barrels]

The final quality of the job is all in the prep.
Blasting is the way to go.
Your sanding and wire wheel is not likely to produce nice results.
You need the even roughness that blasting gives you.

[weezil_boi]

We did some novice park work... it came out nice.

Advice? ...


1. Sandblast/ dont bead blast
2. Practice on some AK mags or something first... your solution will give darker results if you park some other stuff first, and then let it "age" for a bit.
3. Its so hard to degrease completely with actetone. We cleaned woth acetone, then boiled the parts... ALL the grease come out in 10 mins
-- go from blast cab to boil to park tank.
4. Make sure you keep the parts off the bottom

Other than that... it was some trial and error.

[RossRinSD]

I have a question about the blasting part. I have a Craftsman siphon feed sandblaster. I've used it on all sorts of car parts....

Do you guys just use sand? I took an old cooler and a shovel to the beach and got my sand from there. There is a screen mesh over the hopper, and I just poured the sand through that. It caught the worst of the shells and sticks and crap. I do the sandblasting in my driveway, and sweep up the worst of it when I'm done. Everything else I hose off...

Is that okay?

What about when you do the parkerizing. Do you plug both ends of the barrel? What do you use for that??

[JeffM]

What about when you do the parkerizing. Do you plug both ends of the barrel? What do you use for that??

I've put an empty casing in the chamber and a bullet in the muzzle (with enough exposed to pull it back out)

Don't know about the actual beach sand though. Try it on some small parts and let us know.

[bjbrokaw]

I plan on using a bunch of those el-cheapo yellow ear plus to plug the barrel. and maybe some thick layers of duct tape to block the hole for the gas tube.

[ar15barrels]

My old parkerizing guy told me not to worry about park in the bore as long as you take a couple precautions.
First, the park effects a blasted area MUCH more than a smooth polished area.
So, mask the bore and chamber when blasting.
You don't want to blast them at all.
Park the whole barrel with the bore open.
As soon as it comes out of the park bath, blow all the solution off and out of the barrel and go into post-treatment oil.
Then swab out the bore right away with the oil to be sure you stop any reaction that might be going-on in there still.

He did many dozens of barrels for me and we never saw any problems.
The smooth bores and chambers were always much lighter than the blasted exteriors which tells me that they were not taking much park.

[Flat Broke]

I'd advise against sand from the beach. You'll be forcing salt and other minerals into the surface of the metal with whatever pressure you use to blast with. It's pretty hard to rinse the sand well enough to neutralize all of the corrosive tendencies.

Instead, just go to HD or Lowes and pick up a bag of Silica Play Sand. A bag should run you $5-$7

It might be total overkill, but after having sal****er tanks for a while, I've learned to never let my guard down with sal****er.

Chris

[motorhead]

alum. oxide is a better media. if using sand, wear a hood. silicosis.

[JeffM]

I just love that the forum blocks the word "sal****er".



The bore should be chromed, so as Randal said, just block the breach and muzzle while blasting. The park shouldn't hurt it in the least.

[RossRinSD]

haha, I had to google sal 4stars er to figure it out....

I'll save everybody else the time, salt water

[motorhead]

i found that out too. is that a members name or something??? i had posted something about proper care of your ak. not immersing it in SALT WATER for extended periods of time. rofl.

[TonyM]

i found that out too. is that a members name or something??? i had posted something about proper care of your ak. not immersing it in SALT WATER for extended periods of time. rofl.

Now this has me looking up a reference to sal****er on urbandictionary.com, thinking there must be some other reason for it.

[ar15barrels]

Y'all don't know what a salt-water (remove the dash and only read the red letters) is?
Pictures get posted in the girls with guns thread, but they get removed pretty quickly.
Google "cameltoe"...