Franciszka

. . . is the Polish feminine for "free."

She wasn't quite free, after about $350 in parts kit, receiver flat, and various parts to legitimize her in the eyes of Uncle Sugar. But she's mine.

Receiver flat is from Curtis, the ak-builder. Parts from Gunthings. Tapco trigger pack and muzzle device. Headspace set by Manson go/no-go gauges. Et cetera. Receiver done in Brownell's Teflon-Moly oven-cure coating, the rest in clearance Rust-oleum barbecue paint. All cured in the kitchen oven for 30 minutes at 300F.

I'll have to sandblast the receiver cover and gas tube and give them the appropriate treatment, and the bolt carrier too. But now that I'm getting the hang of this Kalashnifacture thing, I'm running out of parts kits. I'll redo Jadwiga in one of Curtis's receiver flats, maybe Nadia too, sometime this summer.

Until then, perhaps I'll entertain y'all with a very sick-sexy centerfold of the three of them lying together on a bearskin rug or something. And I'm trying to figure out what to use, or how to use it, to put a color inlay in the range markings on the tangent rear sights. Fingernail polish doesn't work very well and its carrier strips off the barbecue paint. Maybe a water-based enamel? Any ideas?