My 3D printed CETME and HK G3 bending jig

jeffstoybox.blogspot.com/2020/10/my-3d-printed-cetme-and-hk-g3-bending.html

So that...actually..worked? I'm always a little surprised when my harebrained schemes

actually work the way they're supposed to, and my 3D printed CETME folding jig worked
nearly perfectly. There are going to be a lot of pictures in this post...

Here are the main pieces of the jig. As I said in my last post, the mandrel portion is made
from more pieces than it needs to be because I changed my mind halfway through printing
and didn't want to reprint everything, so I just printed the extra bits and glued them on. The
lower jig has clearance cutouts that should work for CETME and G3 flats, although I goofed
on the ejection port location and had to do some grinding on the jig. I'll update the files for
that before I post them. Each part has two 1/2" hardwood dowels connecting and aligning
the pieces, and depending on your printer's tolerances after printing you will probably have
to chase the holes with a 1/2" drill bit. Based on a user review, I recommend not gluing
things together so that you can adjust the length of the jig in case the alignment holes in your
flat are off. The holes on the ends of the jig are sized for 1/4" bolts, through the mandrel and
threaded into the lower jig.

It's printed in eSun PLA+, standing on end, .16 layer height, 8 walls, 15% Gyroid infill,
.45mm line width(with .4 nozzle), 107% wall flow and 120% infill flow to "overstuff" the
layers for better layer adhesion, a higher than normal 220°C and only 70% cooling fan, again

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for better layer adhesion. These are the basic setting for all my "strong" parts(the only
difference with my printed receivers is that I use 99% infill there). Using these setting I get
significantly stronger prints than the "standard" print settings, at the cost of a not quite as
smooth surface finish. With these settings, if my prints fail, they crack through the part, or
just kind of mush over, I do NOT get any layer separation. People tend to think of PLA as a
weak and brittle filament, but the reality is that it has nearly twice the tensile strength of ABS
and PETG, and more compression strength than either of the others. It's biggest drawback is
that because it is so rigid, it tends to crack in situations where ABS or PETG would just flex.

There are four more pieces to the jig not

pictured above. The top half of the mandrel
portion of the jig is undersized so that the
sheetmetal has room to bend. But, the
whole point of this jig is to keep the flat
straight as it bends, so there are some thin
filler pieces to fill the gap between the
mandrel and the sheetmetal in the later
stages of the bending process. Here's where
they fit on the mandrel:

Here's how the mandrel fits the sheetmetal

without and with the fillers:

Ok, now the real fun starts. I used a short

bar of aluminum to help spread the load
across the top mandrel. A longer bar would
have worked better, but this is what I had.

I pressed a little, then moved the bar and

pressed some more. A little bit on this
side...

A little bit on that side...

I went back and forth about 10 times, trying

to keep things even. I actually did very little
pressing right in the middle, most of it was
at the ends. Once I got most of the way
there, about what you see in the pic above, I put the filler pieces into the jig. It was a tight fit
and I had to (very)carefully tap them in with a hammer.

With the spacers in, it was back to the press for more back and forth. Once the magwell
starts to close up, you've got to start getting creative with your press tools. "Whatever is
closest and will fit" is the method of tool selection that generally I use. You want to try to

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keep as much surface area as you can, the
more the load is spread out, the better.

With pressure on the jig, I gently tapped

around the whole thing with a rubber mallet,
just helping the sheetmetal form around the
mandrel a little more. At this point, I decided
that it was as pressed as it was going to be.
The flat and mandrel were pressed tight
against the bottom jig and there was no where
left to go.

Since the whole point of all of this was to try

to keep the bend straight and even, and keep
the receiver shaped properly, how'd we do?
I'd say pretty good...

After taking the bolts out, I had to use a

rubber mallet to get everything apart, and I
had to hammer the mandrel out of the
receiver. I got a slight wave in the
sheetmetal above the ejection port, but
that's mostly due to my putting the cutout in
the wrong place on the jig. It's also much
more noticeable here than it is in real life.
Look Ma, I made a gun! (from a legal
standpoint anyway)

It turns out that the lower jig is also great

for holding things while you're welding too.
I put my recovered G3 stock attachment
weldment in the back of the receiver, used a
piece of copper tubing as a backer for the
front portion, clamped on a whole lot of Vice
Grips, and welded it all up.

Even though it should be Tigged to be

correct, I Mig welded everything because
that's what I have at the moment. I've spent a whole lot of time doing sheetmetal work on
cars, so welding up a receiver this thick was no problem. The welds weren't factory Tig
pretty, so I ground them all down and this is what I ended up with:

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The true test of a CETME/HK folded flat is
the bolt drop test. Basically, you drop the
bolt carrier through the receiver and it
should freely drop through with no
interference or drag. I checked it after every
step along the way. So how'd I do? Fresh
off the jig: Perfect. Tack welded: Perfect.
Fully welded: Perfect. As best as I can tell,
this receiver is as close to perfectly shaped
as a home build can get.

And what of our jig, how did it hold up?

Pretty good. One of the add on end pieces I
superglued on the mandrel came off, but it
was a glue failure, not a print failure(the files
I'll post will have that as one piece). The lower
just has a few scrapes in it, and a mushed spot
where the ejection port flares out and that's
about it, no other damage(and I'll fix the
ejection port cutout in the file before I post
it). This thing worked so well that it could
probably be done in a bench vice or with C-
clamps, if you have some big enough, or
possibly even by using 1/4" All Thread and
some nuts to pull the two parts together with
C-clamps for the middle. Total cost for this jig
was around $20 in filament, and about 3 days
of print time.

If you want to make one for yourself, you

can find my STLs here:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:46143
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