Duracoat thickness?

[sendelweck]

I am getting ready to do some checkering on my grip and I was thinking about refinishing it with Duracoat. How thick does it go on and will it fill in the checkering (30 lpi). Also, when you Duracoat a slide, do you mask off the sight dovetails? Thanks.

[steel609]

Duracoat goes on very thin and will not fill in your checkering. With that said, it does add thickness in tight tolerance areas. I have not removed the sights on any that I have refinished (just because I don't have the tool, and I'm not comfortable beating them out).

If I did remove the sights, I would definitely tape the inside of the cuts to keep any build up to a minimum.

Good luck!

[mbuzha]

Depends on how many coats you put on...it DEFINITELY affects fitting of small parts (hammer, thumb safety, grip safety, etc). I would recommend you tape off the sight dovetails if you remove the sights, as well as tape the rails on the frame. You don't HAVE to put so many layers on as to compromise the fit of some of the parts, but the more coats you put on (to a point of course), the more durable the finish. I'd also encourage you to let the finish cure for at least a couple of weeks before you shoot it, despite what duracoat says about being able to shoot the gun within 24 hours. Coated one of my 1911's several months ago, but used 2-3 relatively heavy coats and shot the gun a couple days later, consequently I had some early wear and chipping on some parts of the finish. Re-finished the same gun some months later using multiple very light coats and waited 2 weeks to shoot...results have been much better. But watch it, it might not fill in your checkering, but it will NOT be as sharp with a few coats of duracoat on it...and if you put it on lighter to preserve the sharp checkering you are likely to have earlier wear since this is a "high traffic" area.