Levers and controls

After the coronavirus quarantine started, I had a bit more time to spend in the project…

I wanted to reduce the profile of the ambi safe and of the slide stop.

So, I “shaved” one step of the right-hand side safety lever and one step of the slide stop. I did this using hand files (mainly one flat file). By shaving one step, all the controls on each side are about the same height, and slim the profile a bit (enough for my taste).



I took my time and there were no major complications. The hardest thing was to keep everything squared, so I took little material with every pass. It was time consuming. After the filing was done, I cleaned the marks using sad paper over a granite block… also, I spent some time dehorning the sharp edges after the filing was done !!!






For the magazine catch nut, I decided to go with the oversized one used for the 745. It works for me.

I coated all the controls with Brownells aluma-hyde and I baked them at 350 degrees for one hour (the smell is nasty). I've found that when I baked them I get better adhesion. I used aluma-hyde, because I have some left, it is easy to apply and easy to retouch.

more to come...