AK Receiver Bending

From a Tapco Flat

A tutorial by 1952Sniper
February 2006
(originally posted on http://www.sksboards.com by 1952Sniper)

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I decided to write this tutorial after having spent a day and a half bending receivers. It might be a
help to those of you who are interested in bending your own receivers from a flat. Myself and
another forum member (I'll let him chime in if he wants to identify himself) did a whole proverbial
s***-load of them, and I now know more about the process than I ever wanted to, LOL.

I won't pretend it's the be-all end-all of bending receivers. It's just my experience, and a good starting
point. You guys that have used other methods and other bending fixtures, feel free to chime in and
add info.

For starters, it's a lot of fun. If you're only bending a couple, it's a relatively simple task that should
take no time at all. If you're doing as many as we did, though, it's a lot of work and needs to be well
planned. You should count on fatigue becoming an issue. Give yourself plenty of time for breaks.
And be aware of when you're getting tired, because that's when accidents start to happen. We have
the hand injuries and sore limbs to prove it.

The process we used took right at 15 minutes to go from a flat to a bent receiver, from start to finish.
But we averaged about 8 receivers for every 3 hours spent. That includes breaks, re-organizing tools,
periodic cleanup, etc., without feeling like we had to rush so much that our quality level had to suffer.

Bending a flat into a receiver should generally require the following steps:

1. Assemble the inside die around the flat

2. Grease the hell out of everything
3. Press it into the outer form
4. Squeeze the assembly in a vise to eliminate possible bowing in the middle
5. Hammer or otherwise bend over the upper rails
6. Invert the assembly and knock out the inside die and receiver
7. Disassemble inside form and knock receiver off of it

I'll go into detail on each step. I should note that not all bending jigs (fixtures) are created equal.
There are a lot of different designs out there, although they almost all basically work using the same
principle. And if your fixture is created to the proper dimensions, it should yield the same results no
matter how it's put together. The result, of course, being a bent receiver that's ready for
fitting/trimming and assembly to a parts kit.

The fixture we used was one that I bought from a member of an AK building board, and is based on
the kernelkrink design (for those of you who are familiar with that username). It works great and is
robust enough to last through a lot of bends. Below is a picture of the inside form (the die) and its
associated pieces, next to one of the Tapco flats we were about to bend. I'll apologize in advance for
the crappy pictures. I had to use my old digital camera because my good one was out of juice and I
couldn't find the charger. Anyway, in the picture below you can see the upper part of the die, the
lower plate that sandwiches the flat inside, 4 bolts that clamp it all together, and two aligner pins with
brass knobs on them.
 I'll also pause here to give credit
to the gentleman that built this
bending fixture and sold it to
me. He has more for sale and is
an extremely helpful and
friendly guy. Goes by the
username smittygj over on
gunco.net, and he has expressed
interest in selling them on this
board too. In fact, I see that he's
a member here. So look for a
post from him in the trade/sale forums. His bending fixture worked well for me and although I
haven't used any other types, I will say that this one more than met my needs. I know several of you
AK builders are looking for a bending fixture, and I can tell you that smittygj will do his best to make
sure you're satisfied and answer any questions you have. Support for a sold product goes a long way
with me, and he'll definitely give support for his product. And by the way, I'm not being paid for
endorsing his bending fixture. I just think he's got a good product at a good price, and provides good
service. A+ all around, and I highly recommend his bending fixture.

Step 1: Assemble the die around the flat

On this particular bending fixture design, you install the aligner pins through the bottom of the
bottom plate, then through the aligner holes on the flat (which are the small holes at the very front
and rear of the flat). This is
then lined up with the bottom of
the die, and the aligner pins are
inserted there as well. All 3
pieces will be lined up
perfectly. No measuring or
fiddling necessary. The bolts
are then inserted through the top
of the die and they are threaded
into the bottom plate. It's
important to tighten these bolts
fairly tight to ensure that the flat
stays put. The 4 bolts reach
through the existing openings in the flat (the pistol grip screw hole, the trigger hole, and two through
the mag well opening). They simply draw the bottom plate tight to the die. Then the aligner pins are
removed. Once the aligner pins are removed, the only thing holding the flat in alignment is the
compression of the bolts. So torque them down pretty good, but not tight enough to strip threads.
Just a firm tug with a socket wrench is what I did.

When you get the bottom plate on with the flat installed, it looks like this:
Note that you can see the bottoms of the 4 bolts, and the aligner pins are still in place. This bottom
plate serves several functions as far as I can tell. It keeps the bottom of the flat positioned properly.
It also keeps the bottom from bowing out when the sides are bent, giving nice crisp corners. It also
serves as a guide inside the form as it's pressed in. The width of the bottom plate is the same as the
width of the outside of your receiver after bending. So the receiver walls "follow" the bottom plate
into the jig.

Step 2: Grease all contact surfaces of the bending fixture

After the aligner pins are removed, you'll want to grease the hell out of the bottom of the flat, where it
will "ride" the outside form when it's being bended. We used Mobil 1 synthetic grease. It's red in
color, as you can see below. Others use axle grease or other kinds of grease. Whatever floats your
boat. Just make sure it's a good quality grease that lubricates well.

And here's a picture of the top

of the die with the flat installed.
It is important to LIGHTLY
grease the contact surfaces
between the inside die and the
inside of the receiver.
Otherwise you could have a hell
of a time getting the receiver off
of it later after it's been bent
around all 4 corners of the die.
I only tried it once without
grease on the inside of the
receiver, and had a hard time.
So I continued to grease it and
didn't have any more problems.
But do it lightly, so it isn't
something that's having to be
squeezed out when you press
the die into the outside form.

I'll also take this opportunity to point out the inletting on the die for the magazine stabilizer dimples,
and note that they're slotted so the dimples can ride in that channel later, as you remove the
completed receiver from the die. This die also had an inletted area for the dimple at the selector
lever. It did not have any inletting for the X-Y axis dimples or the selector lever notch or the bulge
around the left side selector lever hole. The new Tapco flats have all these dimples on them, but they
didn't seem to be affected in the bending process and they fared just fine.

So, before moving on to the third step, you'll want to grease the outside form as well. Not only on
top where the flat will contact it when you start bending, but especially at the corners of the form that
make the fold, as well as the inside face. This is the most critical area. If it's not greased sufficiently,
 you will get scarring on the
outside of your receiver as it
slides down inside the form.
You can see that I have the top
and insides of the form greased,
with the assembled die sitting
upside down, ready to be
flipped over and placed into it.
Too much grease is better than
not enough. Be generous.

Step 3: Bend the sides of the flat up

Place the assembled die into the top of the outside form and center it in the form so you're not too
close to the ends. Then center the entire assembly under the ram. Double check that your aligner
pins are removed and that everything is ready to go.
Now snug up the ram to the top,
and start pressing down. If it's
centered correctly, both sides
should start to fold up at the
same rate, as you see below.

Sometimes the sides will gently

fold up flush to the die, but in
most cases I found that they
would reach a point where they
"snap" to the sides, and the
whole shop press goes
SPROINGGGGGGGG! That's
fine. Just be aware of this, and
go slowly when it's close to the
point. As you proceed further,
the sides should be straight up
vertically in the form, tight
against the inside die.
Keep pressing it down into the form until the top of the die is at least flush with the top of the outside
form. Sometimes, as the die is pressed in, one end will tend to go down faster than the other. I kept
searching for a "sweet spot" on the top of the die that would ensure even plunging lengthwise, but
each flat would go in differently. If one end sinks down first, you'll need to reposition the ram to try
to get the other side down. With this particular bending fixture, the bolt heads on top presented a
problem. I didn't want to be pressing on the bolt heads, so I had limited room between the middle
bolts in which to place the ram. When one end would sink faster than the other, we would have to
pull the entire assembly and turn it 90 degrees so the ram could get all the way to the end of the die
(the shop press frame wasn't wide enough to simply shift the fixture to the side far enough). So then,
pressing on the end of the die and using a piece of bar stock to shim up and ensure that the ram wasn't
touching a bolt head, we could press the high end down into the form. It was a simple enough way to
do it and worked well.

In the picture below, you'll see what I'm talking about. In this case, the die went into the form evenly.
But since the rear of the receiver is taller than the front, it becomes obvious that the rear end of the
die needs to go down further into the form than the front. So that's what we're doing here, trying to
get it so the top of our bent receiver is even.

As I said, each flat would go

into the form differently.
Sometimes, when one end was
riding high and we'd go to press
that end in, the other end would
start lifting back up slightly.
Other times it wouldn't. Just
play it by ear and adjust your
ram position as necessary to get
the die down into the form. It
really goes pretty quickly, so don't start thinking this is a major deal.

Once the die is pressed down with the top corners about flush with the outside form, it's good to go.
Take it out of the press.

Step 4: Compress the sides of the form

Depending on the design of your outside form, you may experience bowing in the middle during the
pressing operation. I did notice a small gap in ours, right at the middle of the receiver. And I mean
small like perhaps a couple thousandths of an inch. Some designs may not have a noticeable gap, but
I'd bet you would find that it bowed in the middle if you took detailed measurements. It's safe to
assume that all forms will bow. So the easiest thing to do is just take your entire assembly with the
die still in it, and squeeze it tightly in a vise to compress the sides and sharpen up your bottom
corners of your receiver. You'll see any gaps close right up, and the grease will squeeze out. That
means it's good to go.
Step 5: Bend the upper rails

There are various ways of doing this. Some bending fixtures are sold with an accessory that uses the
press to fold the top rails over.
Some people simply hammer
them over with a hammer,
working from one end to the
other and then smacking on top
of the die once the rails are
folded over, to get out the
lumps. My partner came up
with the "working bar" as a
great way to hammer the upper
rails over without lumps. And
it worked like a champ. It's just
a long piece of flat bar with
handles welded to it. You
hammer on the working bar and
it translates the force to the rails
in a uniform manner to get nice smooth bends with crisp corners. This requires two people. One
person stands on one side of the bench vise and holds the working bar by the handles so that it's
almost flat on top of the outside form, with one side of the flat bar against the rail on the opposite side
of the vise from where he's standing. The other person, standing opposite the first person, smacks the
flat bar, starting at one end and working to the other end.

Note that in this picture, it's just being held in place with one hand for display. The bar holder needs
to be directly behind the vise, holding both pipe handles to align it properly as the hammer man
makes each stroke.
This needs to be done with the bending fixture clamped in the vise, not only to keep the sides of the
receiver tight against the die for a good uniform bend, but to keep the die from slipping down in the
outside form. As the upper rails start to bend over, the person holding the working bar needs to keep
it at the same angle as the rail until the bar is vertical (meaning that the rails are laying flush on top of
the die). The hammer operator just works up and down the working bar. We used a 5-lb sledge
hammer and I found it generally took me 5 strikes along the length of the bar for each "pass". After I
made a pass, the angle would be changed and I'd make another pass. It usually took us 3 passes to
get the rails laying down flat on top of the die. That's only 15 hammer strikes on the working bar for
each rail. When the rail was laying flush on top, we'd make one more pass "for good measure",
making more like 8 strikes (closer together) to ensure uniformity. The result was superb.
The trick is just to take your time, make good solid hammer strikes with a heavy sledge hammer, and
to keep the working bar at the correct angle. And depending on how many receivers you're making,
be prepared to have to repair your working bar. Ours was beat all to hell on the top. I was having so
much fun, I was very eager on the sledge hammer. :-)

In retrospect, the working bar would have been better if the handles were at about a 120 degree angle
from the flat bar instead of 90 degrees as ours were. When striking near the end of the bar, I had to
be careful not to hit my associate's hands as he was holding the handles. So, if you want to make a
working bar for the upper rails, keep safety in mind. and angle the handles out away from the middle
where the hammer will be striking.

It's also a good idea to have a step stool or some way of getting higher above your vise as the angle
changes on the upper rails. You don't want to be swinging a sledge hammer that high. Get above it
so you just have to lift it and mostly let gravity do the job when it's at that angle. It'll make the job a
lot easier and you'll get more uniform, solid blows. And this is one of the steps where fatigue will get
you. I busted my knuckle a few times when I was tired and made a glancing blow off the working
bar. Safety first, ya know.

Step 6: Remove the die from the outside form

This is fairly straightforward. Once the upper rails are bent and pass your quality control inspection,
unclamp the fixture from the vise. Open the jaws of the vise a bit wider, turn the fixture upside down
and set it on top of the jaws. Take a piece of bar stock and at least a 5-lb sledge hammer and hammer
the die back out. It should start coming out of the outside form and go between the open jaws of the
vise. Lay a pad of some sort in there so if it falls out it won't get dinged up. Don't put your hand
under there to catch it as your buddy hammers it out! Ask me about how my finger got smushed
when the 5-lb sledge hammer and the weight of the die landed on it.

And keep in mind, when you're doing this, you're hammering on the underside of the bottom plate of
the die. If your bolts that cinch up the flat inside the die are protruding from the bottom of this
bottom plate (as ours were by just about 1/8"), you'll want to be careful not to hit them with your bar
stock when hammering out the die from the outside form.

When the inside die comes out,

you will notice that the sides
tend to spring back just a tad
away from the form. This is
normal, and to be expected. It
will be pulled back together at
the trunnion locations when you
build this into an AK rifle, with
the rivets or screws (or
whatever you're using), as well
as at the center support. So
don't worry about it.

You'll also see in this picture,

that there is grease where the
top rails were folded over. This
makes a handy gauge of your
upper rail bending procedure.
If you properly greased the
area, it will squeeze the grease
out when the upper rails are
tight on the top of the die.

Step 7: Remove the receiver from the die

So now the die is out of the outside form. You can remove the bolts to unclamp the receiver from the
die, which should release the bottom plate. You'll also notice that, oddly enough, your flat actually
looks a lot like an AK receiver.

Now, the bottom plate is released and you simply need to remove the die from inside the receiver.
The nice thing about the bending fixture we used was that the top of the die had a raised strip down
the middle that was parallel with the bottom. So this made a handy place to clamp in a vise as shown
below, and take another piece of bar stock and tap the receiver off the form slowly, making sure not
to deform any metal. If you greased it properly, it should come off with little effort and only light
taps. We tapped on the rear end of the receiver where it's a nice wide bearing surface, to minimize
any problems.

Summary and miscellaneous comments

That's it! You're done! You should have a bent receiver now. Wipe off all the grease and get to
building your AK. As I said at the beginning, this process should take 15-20 minutes once you get
the hang of it. The really hard work is already done for you if you're using a Tapco flat that already
has all the holes in it. I chose to use flats that didn't have trunnion holes in them already because of
the method I'm going to use for mounting my trunnions will be different. But the precision part of
fabricating a receiver is all in the flats and the bending jig. It's almost idiot-proof (notice I said
"almost” :-) ).

Before I wrap this up, I do want to point out a few other things. A lot of builders that have bent their
own flats have noticed stretching/distortion around the mag well opening. This is presumably
because there isn't really any metal on the bottom of the receiver in that area, and as it bends in the
fixture, it pulls up on the sides. I did not notice any distortion of the mag opening whatsoever. It
simply wasn't an issue for us. The design of the form (with two bolts through the mag well which put
a good bind on the metal on either side of the opening) plus copious amounts of grease in the fixture
kept it from ever being an issue.

Another common issue is elongation of the trigger pin (Y-axis) hole. And we did see that on our
receivers. Because that hole is so close to the corner, the bottom of the Y is on the bend, and there
isn't any metal above it because of the hole, so it doesn't bend like the rest of the receiver. This leads
to the trigger pin hole having a "dip" at the bottom. You can see it in the first picture of Step 7 of my
tutorial, above. This is easily fixed by working the metal gently with a hammer around the bottom
corner before tapping it off of the die. We chose not to worry about it because it's an oversized hole
anyway, so it's inherently stronger than the smaller hole on the other side already. Plus it'll be heat
treated. And the pin isn't going to be loose in the hole or anything, as the distortion is relatively
minor there. It's really mostly just a cosmetic issue as far as I can tell. If it bothers you, round it over
with a hammer and work it back to the original shape of the hole. No biggie.

Tools. To bend a flat, you'll need some basic tools or at least access to them. Obviously, you'll need
a shop press. The 20-ton model from Harbor Freight worked like a champ. A 12-ton should do it
too, I hear. I even think it could be done by hand, with a device I've designed. It will be undergoing
testing possibly in the near future, but more on that later. For now, the safe bet is using a press. It
makes short work of it. You'll also need a good solid mounted 6" bench vise. I couldn't see doing it
with a smaller one. All the hammering and compressing that's needed for this using the vise, a
smaller one would be challenged to get the job done. Everybody needs a 6" vise anyway, so just buy
one. Harbor Freight is your friend. Then there is the working bar, if you can get one made or make
one yourself. It saves a lot of time and trouble IMHO. Hammer-wise, we did pretty much everything
with a 5-lb sledge (bending the upper rails and removing the die from the outside form) and a 3-
pounder for lighter work like knocking off the receiver from the die. A plain-jane socket set for the
bolts on the die. A can of grease and PLENTY of shop rags, as well as degreaser. But what came in
the most handy was miscellaneous bar stock. We used it for shimming the ram on the press when
repositioning to the ends of the die, we used it for hammering the die out of the form, we used it for
hammering the receiver off the die, and we used it for shims in cases where we had pushed the die
too far into the form and needed to push it back up and bottom it out against the bottom plates of the
form. I highly recommend having some pieces of bar stock laying around, of various sizes and
shapes.
So that should pretty much
cover my experience with
bending flats and detail how to
use this particular bending
fixture. Give it a whirl and
enjoy yourself.