Ok so after posting in the wrong Form I thing I can post it here.
Ok so about 2 months ago I got a lower for $40 and I’m wanting to make it like one of the NDS Partial Fenced Lower for $120 less than what they sell. This means I need to Dremmel the Fence off the mag well. After I do that I will need to cover the exposed ‘Al’ with some coating. What coatings look good when trying to match it with its original coating. I also want to do it myself without having to buy too many tools for the job if I could. Would Black Spray Paint work well and not look like I’m trying to hide what I did to the Anderson Arms Lower?
Personally I would cerakote it but I think once you do it right by cerakote, duracoat, or anodizing I don’t know if you would be saving all that much money.
Duracoat (IIRC) is about $50 for enough to coat a whole gun.
Anodizing takes sulfuric acid, electrodes, correct power source, and dye. You don’t want to mess with it, especially if you don’t know what your doing. Kits are sold online but I don’t know how much $ and it is probably not worth it for 1 lower. I’d try to find someone local and price it out as I have no clue what it costs.
I've done a good bit of home anodizing of AR lowers using parts and solutions from www.caswellplating.com. It costs too much to justify refinishing one AR lower ( I spent about $700 for a reasonable setup. Some folks go cheap and use a 12volt battery charger with variable results). It also involves some toxic chemicals like sulfuric acid (which can be bought at NAPA auto stores as battery acid), lye solutions, etc. Caswell also has other refinishing options you can do at home as does Brownells. Good luck.
best wishes- oldandslow
are you looking to refinsh it in black or xm grey ? if black take a look at cerama cote at brownells. easy to work with and matches black anno pretty well. for xm grey i would use norrell’s moly resin in grey/black. it’s also easy to work with and matches xm grey pretty good.
are you going to be cutting the lower down to a1 specs or just shaving the magwell ? here’s a franklin armory a2 lower that was cut down to a1 specs and refinished in norrell’s grey/black moly resin. there’s alot of hours in that lower. it has a nodak 604 upper on it. unless you enjoy doing the work it would prob be more cost effective to just pick up a nodak lower.
the quality of nodak’s stuff is outstanding. here is a nodak partial fence lower and a nodak 603 upper. they were black anno refinished in norrell’s grey/black moly resin.
I use Moly Resin for many small projects and have been very satisfied with the durability of it. The problem the OP will have is justifying the cost of the equipment it takes to apply it properly. If it cannot be applied properly he may as well hit it with a rattle can.
Its just the fence that I cut, if I cut the rest of the lower, it will weaken it. Its going on a A4 upper so it will be black. Its for my son’s build. He likes that weird stuff. Also nice job with the mid-length upper you built, I thought it was a 14.5" at first glance.
this is correct. that barrel was in the 604 upper on the other carbine in the first pics when i had it set up as an idf menusar clone. then i picked up the nodak 603 upper and lower and had always wanted a 653 clone so i built it as a 653sb clone , shorter barrel. the 604 upper turned into a GUU-5P clone , damned extra parts. now the extra parts from those 2 builds are turning into a colt 733. it never ends
