[howiebearse]

what are you using to make the selector notches?

 

[Bullitt0088]

Depends on the country I am trying to replicate, but Harbor Freight sells a set of diamond wheels that work great with a steady hand. SKU 69665

 

[FloridaAKM]

Harbor Fright diamond wheels work, so do endmills when held in a mill, you don't want to try & use one like a diamond wheel; the results will be bad.

 

[Olle]

Free hand work with one of those HF diamond wheel should work, but it feels far from fool proof. I need to cut slots in some old 80% receivers I have stashed away, so I just ordered a small, convex milling cutter that I'm going to try. A diamond wheel with a rounded edge would probably be easier and safer to use on sheet metal, but I couldn't find one. We'll see how it turns out.

 

[Wmslm]

I use cutting wheel with dremil very carefully on slow speed

 

[JeepFan]

Another vote for the HF diamond wheels. I practice on stubs or scrap beforehand for each build. Not perfect but passable and functional.

 

[Olle]

Here's an attempt to cut grooves with a convex milling cutter, the length and width came out in the right ballpark after a one shot plunge cut. As expected, there was a lot of noise and vibrations so I would consider it as "somewhat of a success but not proof of concept". I also got a lot of burrs, so the picture shows what it looked like after clean-up and a dab of cold blue.

I will definitely need to support it better to keep the sheet metal from flexing and vibrating, and my gut feeling is that a diamond wheel of the same size would make a quicker and cleaner cut. I haven't been able to find one though, so any tips would be appreciated!

 

[howiebearse]

I ended up buying several brown grinding wheels that are thin wheels which I sharpened both edges with hard grinding stone. Good idea to sharpen after each notch. They were on ebay bags of 5 for dremel.

 

[JeepFan]

I ended up buying several brown grinding wheels that are thin wheels which I sharpened both edges with hard grinding stone. Good idea to sharpen after each notch. They were on ebay bags of 5 for dremel.

Got any pics?

 

[545x39mm]

I built jig which uses a sled for a Dremel tool. Yes, it looks pretty Rube Goldberg and WECSOG, but it works well. I just go slow. I can adjust for length by moving the screws that limit the sled travel.

 

[Olle]

Nice! What kind of grinding wheel is that?

 

[Moleman]

No pics of it, but I use a lathe boring bar held in the mill with a HSS bit ground to closely match the cut of the selector notches. Use a stepped pin through the selector hole as a pivot point and clamp the receiver in a D6 Kurt vise for cutting. Pivot the receiver between cuts so that the notches point towards the selector hole.

 

[Olle]

No pics of it, but I use a lathe boring bar held in the mill with a HSS bit ground to closely match the cut of the selector notches. Use a stepped pin through the selector hole as a pivot point and clamp the receiver in a D6 Kurt vise for cutting. Pivot the receiver between cuts so that the notches point towards the selector hole.

I would really like to see how you set it up!

 

[JeepFan]

I built jig which uses a sled for a Dremel tool. Yes, it looks pretty Rube Goldberg and WECSOG, but it works well. I just go slow. I can adjust for length by moving the screws that limit the sled travel.

Nice setup and results.

I use the HF diamond bit kit and free hand it. I practice on cut stubs too beforehand. Not as good as yours but still nice. I'm going to give your set up a try.

 

[545x39mm]

Nice! What kind of grinding wheel is that?

It is one that was part of a kit I got at Harbor Freight.

 

[Olle]

It is one that was part of a kit I got at Harbor Freight.

They didn't have it at our local HF, but here's an attempt with a 1/8" ball mill. One is cut 0.010" deep, the other one is 0.015", and the latter gave me about the same width and on the AK-Builder receiver I use for a reference. I'm pretty darn happy with the way it turned out, super straight and no burrs. I'm going to practice a bit on scrap pieces to fine tune the depth/width/length, then it's time to go hot on a receiver. I just wish I had a CNC mill so I could taper the ends of the cut a bit, but this is definitely good enough for my purposes.

 

[Olle]

...and on a receiver. This is a receiver I used when I practiced spot welding, so I figured it could serve as a test mule for the notches as well. I used a selector to scribe the curved line, then I measured the locations of the notches on the AKB receivers and scribed the receiver to mark the centers. This is a 0.015" deep and 0.300" long cut, which seems to be in the right ballpark. Looks good, and close enough for government work.

 

[Longshot1]

I like to use the safety selector as a reference for the angle the notch needs to be at in relation to the point of the selector lever. The line the selector scribes is perfect to locate the notch. Right now I am free handing them with the dremel and HF diamond wheel kit.

 

[JeepFan]

I like to use the safety selector as a reference for the angle the notch needs to be at in relation to the point of the selector lever. The line the selector scribes is perfect to locate the notch. Right now I am free handing them with the dremel and HF diamond wheel kit.

I'm still doing it that way. It just works for me. Like I mentioned above I practice on scrap before the real thing.

I secure the receiver in a vise or clamp it down to a bench. I mark where I need the notches in pencil along the selector arch scratch. Then do a number of passes, freehand. I use my factory notches from stubs, Tortort, Childers, Recreator along with country specific pics as reference. Mine are far from perfect but they look good enough and function fine.

 

[WhiteheadSmith]

I Enjoy reading this thread