Have about 6 Sarco decorator frames and in every single one of them, the magazine goes in about 70% of the way and gets stuck. Trigger goes in about 60% of the way and gets stuck. Not to mention mainspring housing, hammer, etc don't quite fit yet.
Couple questions:
What's the best strategy for filing down everything? Especially the magazine area, seems like a lot of flat space needs to be filed.
What tools or compounds are required? What coarseness are we looking at here?
If using the approach of ink or marker to "witness" high points and only grind down high points, what ink/marker/chalk would be advisable to use?
Thanks! Just joined and looking forward to helping the community out. Seems everyone talks about rail cutting when this is a major issue in 40-80% frames as well.
Doing some research, I discovered "Dykem layout fluid" is probably best for finding contact spots. Fast Glass used this for his KT build.
Daewoo mentioned using "paint (I use the blue oil based stuff they sell at wally world)" He added that if your fit is really tight anyway, this won't work since it will all rub off.
Raven mentioned magic marker or permanent marker pen but also said something about using a candle with a long wick to soot everything up. I think he was joking about the candle though.
Still looking for info on how much filing and what kind of files are usually used on Sarco decorator frames in the magazine and trigger areas.
I would use a lathe.Probably you dont have one. Of the half dozen frames I got from Sarco none had tight magazine wells but they werent 'decorator frames" either... You sure you have a good magazine to try the fit and not one of the mags made of thin weak metal that has expanded under spring tension when it was loaded?
Soot actually would work. So would any permanent magic marker. Dye chem isn't that expensive and it's handy to have around anyway.
Finding the high spots will be the easy part.
Making them go away will be the time consuming task. A coarse file, followed by a fine file, followed by some sandpaper on a stick can do almost anything a milling machine can do, just 1000 times slower. I think name brand files work about 50% better than cheapo files. Clean the files often with a file card. That's just a wire brush with short wire. A regular wire brush works ok too.
Ditto on confirming that you have a normal magazine/clip before you invest a lot of effort.
For those stubborn flecks of metal in your files, smash the end of an old brass cartridge and push along the file cut. The brass will form to the file cut and dig'em out. There's a name for those little boogers that escapes me.
Found the most success so far with a dremel + diamond coated grinding bit. The steel just ate up my stone grinding bits. Sandpaper and files takes FOREVER... I mean hours just to remove a few hundredths of an inch. I must be doing something wrong.
Almost all the wells on the onces I got were tight too. It is not your magazines - its the "decorator" castings themselves.
A Sharpie magic marker works fine for finding the spots.
Sacrifice a worn out magazine and if possible, wrap a bit of sandpaper around it to take off the hight spots. Valve grinding compound might work too - it should cut mostly where it needs to cut.
Slow - but it should work.
Thanks CBR, I'll look into that valve compound.
The weird thing is the magazine goes in from the bottom about 70% of the way, but when I turn it upside down shove it in from the top of the frame, it goes in about 90%. I think sanding down the bottom of the magwell might be the easiest way to get it to fit since it's binding down there. Looks to me the well isn't perfectly straight.
After HOURS of work, I finally settled on a dremel carbide cutter attachment (looks like a mini endmill with 20 flutes) and was able to open up the mainspring housing area, hammer area, and barrel link area of the decorator frame. Seriously took about 12 hours of carbide cutter + wd40 as a cutting fluid + files + sanding.
The magazine well and trigger way are still too tight on the frame. I think I can use CBR's approach or just use a giant file to help the magazine area, but the trigger area is going to be the hardest.
When my micro-mill (maybe I made a mistake and should have gotten the mini) arrives soon, I'll cut the MSH slot, slide rails, and drill ejector, plunger and disconnector holes. I'm only planning to make one or two frames so hoping I can get by with the micro mill. Going to use an endmill for cutting the rail slide and might have to extend the mill's Z-axis with some custom spacer plates placed where the mill head bolts into the base.
There's about two days left of solid filing work I estimate though. Easily the most unrated part of this project. Really tough to get one of these decorator frames to work IMO.