I recently installed a lower handguard heat shield I bought from itsthecrow-2098 on ebay ($25 +$4 shipping) on my VZ-2008 beaverbarf handguards. The heat shield fit like a glove, no burrs or rough edges, and came in what was advertised as a high temp heat reflective coating that was flat black and seemed pretty scratch resistant, like a parkerized finish. Only had one range trip so far but continually slow firing 120 rounds with bare hands seemed no worse than my WASR, before it would get as hot as my PTR-32 with skinny handguards, or as hot as a black dashboard on a sunny day in July.
If that's too much $$$ there's plenty of videos on how to make one yourself, and one ebay seller had a flat square of aluminum for $10 as a 'do-it-yourself' VZ heatshield if you can't find the right stock locally.
Install is simple, I searched Youtube for 'remove VZ handguards' and the first hit was someone installing what looked like the same shield. if you've never removed your lower the hardest part is tapping out the receiver pin that holds the back of the handguard, make sure you have a punch that's the correct size & length as the pin isn't solid and even after using one punch that got it 80% out it was tight enough that it wouldn't come out with pliers without damaging the pin so I had to use a slightly longer punch. I'd never removed mine before, so they were tight enough I had to take the top handguard off and whack the bottom lightly with a rubber mallet. Once off the heat shield pops in to place and stays put.
One other tip, when hammering the pin back if you use a larger punch, put some electrical/vinyl tape on the face of the punch so when you hammer the pin flush with the receiver you don't scratch it. The pin did not appear to be tapered on one side but I punched it out from left to right and made sure the pin went back in the same way, hammering right to left. if you don't have a bench vise, two rolls of electrical tape stacked up will give you enough height to hammer that pin out fully on a flat bench.
