Any Advice for 80% AR Finishing

[rviray]

I've been seeing a lot of 80% lowers being sold for some reason, for the past few months. One night I thought "I'm only half stupid, so I can probably finish one", and bought a blem Anderson 80% with the jig - for cheap, I know it's probably the gateway drug for doing more, but...what the hell. Anyway, I got the jig and lower in, been doing a lot of research on the matter but before I make my first cut, I wanted to see if anyone here has some insights of the do's and don't for the build. I've got an HF 8" drill press and an x-y vice, so I am good to go for cutting, I think. The only thing that may be a problem is the milling on the HF drill press, but I'll can cross that bridge when I get there.

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Jdcujo]

Variable speed laminate router if you had a polymer one would be easy peasy. Don't know how it'd work on the aluminum

 

[diesel2256]

Old thread, but for anyone else looking into this -- I've done few of these.

Drill press with an xy table is going to be shady, at best. If you get one of the jigs that uses a router and milling bit, it's way easier. A couple of tips for the router jig:

-- Use lots of coolant. Look up something called "water soluable oil" on amazon or whatever. Mix it up and put it in a spray bottle. This stuff is amazing for any sort of metal work. You literally can't use too much coolant, but will get a hang of it after a bit.

-- Blow out / suck out chips in between passes. All those aluminum shavings will increase chatter and cause cutting problems. It also allows you to see what's happening. Make sure the deck of the jig is also clean of shavings. A little bit of oil on the deck also helps.

-- Listen to your router. If it's screaming / chattering, slow down your cuts. You can also decrease the depth of cut.

-- Try to stay off the walls until the last pass of each depth mark. The more material you're cutting, the more that bit is going to vibrate and move around. If you can leave a tiny bit of material and then come back, it'll be buttery smooth. Staying off the walls also means you can get more aggressive with the cut in the meat of the receiver since the chatter of the bit doesn't matter as much (get too aggressive, and that bit will snap from the vibration).