paint it

[1911 9mm]

hello guys, just wanna ask some precious infos from you, im planning to have my 1911 painted (slide only), is there any special paints to be used on guns? or probably we can just use acrylic or urethane automotive paints, i could assume that paint finishes are more durable than the original blue finish....

[John]

Hmmm, this is the first time I heard someone doing that!

[Hawkmoon]

The "paints" used commercially on pistols are not like automotive paints. They are high-tech, multi-component fluoropolymer coatings. Some are chemical cure, so are oven cure. Grab a copy of Shotgun News and you'll find several advertised. Some are easier to use than others.

Also, scroll back through the discussions right here in the Gunsmithing and Refinishing forum. Back almost a year ago I was investigating how to finish a bare frame, and some of those finishes were discussed.

[SW1911SC]

I've gotten good results with Brownell's Baking Lacquer.

[mitchjoe]

1911 9mm:

I'm pretty fond of Brownell's Gun Kote. Good results & relatively easy to apply. IMO nothing beats a well-done blue, but the hybrid bake-on coatings are tough, cheap, and conceal minor flaws well.

mitchjoe

[AnimalKracker]

I've seen the GunKote, it's very nice. A gunshop in my area does quite a few and he turns out so mighty fine looking pieces. Having him do my RIA's. The blue is a very deep color, and the matte is nice. I saw some pieces he did in steel color. They look good, and I hear this system is very duriable.

[Deacon Aegis]

Another you may want to look at is Duracoat. I've heard good things about them and actually have several of their products sitting here waiting for when I get to that point on a few of my projects. My plan was to reparkerize my RIAA then seal it with Duracoat and test out how well it works. That'll be late Feb, early march though before that project gets to that state. I found a Taurus PT 99 AF that severely needed refinishing and a few issues repaired and since a buddy of mine is way into the Taurus 92/96/99 series I thought I'd fix it up and give it to him as a delayed christmas gift, so maybe here in the next few weeks I'll be giving it a Duracoat finish. Check out the Duracoat product at http://www.lauerweaponry.com/index.cfm

[AnimalKracker]

You know Deacon, that may be what the gunshop that I was talking about uses. Got to check with him to make sure which it is. But, whatever it is it looks nice and he said it is very good coating. Blast the parts clean, parkerize, spray on the coating ,and bake at 350 degrees for about 30 min.