I was spraying carb cleaner into my gas tube to try and remove excess cosmoline and crud from my kit before I took off the wood portion and guess what-  the black finish started to dissolve VERY quickly and drip onto the floor!!

I kept spraying and wiped it all off with a rag.  I then turned and did the same thing to the barrel assembly.  It's now park gray.  

What the hell!?!?!  I thought the finish was a little tougher than that!!

Now, I need to remove the rear leaf sight for when I recoat the thing in DC.  How do you remove that sucker?  Is there a certain angle you open it up to before trying to knock out that pin or what?

The original black finish on these Polish kits is probably one of the worst ones ever found on an AK.  This is why I have never understood why so many people place such a big importance on having a "collectors" grade Polish kit and paying extra $$ for one with minimal paint wear.  The black paint (or whatever it is) on these Polish kits suck.  Mine turned into purple ink (looked like squid ink) when it came into contact with a little acetone.  My suggestion is to sandblast it all off, unless it's actually park underneath, and apply a more durable finish like MolyResin or GunKote to it.  Here's my Polish kit that I recently built with MolyResin ...

i heard its spraypaint over park

yep, I scrubbed my #2 grade down and repainted, couldn't see paying the extra for a collectors grade.

Nice job Tapeo1. I did the same thing with my polish kit. Blast and molyresin.

Well mine is parkerized underneath.  I still feel I should sand blast with 80 grit at 90psi before I duracoat.  I was hoping to keep the finish but now it looks like I won't be keeping any of it.  

The stock is 100% perfect with no marks at all.  I think I'm going to refinish everything but the stock.

What do you guys think about sandblasting the carrier and leaving it as-is?  I removed paint from it as well last night and I don't think it's park'd.  It's not as "fuzzy" as the barrel assembly was.  I think it will have to be DC'd as well...

heres a pic of how mine turned out

Grin - what tapeo1 said :)

Polish gun - wash off the junk paint with acetone, discover the PERFECT Park job under that junk, then refinish with GunKote, Molyresin, or Duracoat (in that order).