One Guy, His Blackberry and an RPK Project

[Cosmonaut 1]

Hey, all. I meant to post this sooner, but I'm lazy.
So basically I finally started work on my RPK project. Coincidently, I also fell in love with my blackberry (which I'm typing from right now). So I figured why not post up about my project whilest exploring the functionality of my phone. And please feel free to give pointers, or advice as this is my first RPK project :P As always, click the thumbs for a larger view, and all the pictures were/are going to be taken with my blackberry, so they wont be that high quality.

Ok so I was going to start with saying I'm ordering my parts, or I just got them in, but I've already started work. I'm using an Element AK47 metal body as the base for my RPK receiver. I got a custom outer barrel and a real steel bipod.

Anyways, the task was to fill in the lightening (less weight, not electric discharge) grooves on the side of the body, and the first step in this process is sanding:



I scuffed and sanded with automotive pad then used some 320 grit sandpaper to sand the groves and the area around the sling loop hole. I also used a file on the inside of the hole.

The next step was to start filling the grooves. I used a epoxy I got from Lee Valley. Here it is dry and set. It really is hard as the metal. I would actually say it feels like ceramic. Its hard to tell from the pictures but I over filled the holes and have a lot of sanding ahead of me... Oh also on the inside of the body, over the sling hole, a buddy glued a metal piece in with Gorilla Glue.



Tomorrow I intend to sand one side and finish all the epoxying, both on the body and on the gas tube. The next step after that will be to dremmel both the gas tube and the front sight (my madness will prove it self later on, I hope *crosses fingers*). I will take a picture of the epoxy stuff and post that as well. I also have left to order:
metal front set
steel top cover
AK74 type selector switch

I've decided to go with King Arms for all of the above, as King Arms AK accessories seem to always have a very nice finish. Also if anyone has a steel front sight they don't need, I'll gladly take it off their hands

Still a lot of work ahead of me. Wish me luck all...

[Skruface]

Originally Posted by Cosmonaut 1

I got a custom outer barrel and a real steel bipod.

Care to share sources, Comrade? I bought a SRC outer barrel extension + bipod (basically, a Taiwanese clone of the Guarder RPK barrel extension) to build my RPK and the darn thing won't fit into any of the 3 TM outers I've tried it on; it's too thick to slide into the TM outer. I'm gonna have to try and find a machinist who can turn it down for me. I'm about to start a Tabuk project, so I need another long outer....