Turning my Black pistol to a shiney silver

sharp_shooter

Hi,

I was in <snip> before xma and noticed <snip> had a shiney WE 1911 on the shelf behind the counter. I asked him where he got and he told me it was a regular black WE 1911 that had be changed using paint stripper and some other substance for bringing up the shine. I cant remember exactly what he said how it was done and I live in Kildare so I dont be out that way too much.

Anyway to get to the point... I was wondering if any of you good fellows out there know how it is done and could talk me through how its done. It brought up a fantastic silver shine on the gun and really added to the realism of it.

If anyone can help i'd be really grateful.

Cheers

SS

Busta Hyman

if it was full metal. id say a paint stripper and snding with progressivly finer grades untill you get to a toothpaste polish, layer of laquer and bingo

Cheeky monkey

Masada

get a dremel with a wire brush attachment, clean off all the paint with that. get a few different sandpapers from a motor factors. P600, P1200 and P2000.

start with the 600 and use it wet with soapy water, this'll smooth any marks left by the wire brush. then when its really smooth, (it'll be dull) switch to the next paper and repeat the process. then the last one. by this time it'll be semi chrome if you did it right. now you need a polish. you can get metal polish in car shops or kitchen shops. use it with a lint free soft cloth and rub it in by hand. dont use those dremel polishers though, the heat they generate will dull the finish again. try using a G3 compound on it for polishing. thats what ive used in the past and the results are good. you can finish it with a clear laquer if you want but i prefer to leave it as it is. the laquer can take the metalic feel away from it.

Airsofty

Never used this stuff on a Gun, worked really well on Bike parts.. Same principal applies...

http://www.duplicolor.com/products/gold-chrome.html

So using Nitromors (Never use the Stripper on Plastic parts) that ya can get in Woodies, Fill a metal or cermaic bowl or dish, put the part into the nitromores, give it 10 mins, - iff it hasnt taken the paint off completely, you can do the following.

Add boiling water, Stand back and cover yer gob.. the bang off it is Brutal..and will foam up give it 15 20 mins and take the part out and clean with cold water... that will take all paint off... leaving the Aluminium or what ever was used to construct the gun..

Busta Hyman

the polishing aspect can be done with toothpaste ( it has very fine abrasive particles in it) but make sure you test it as it can react with some materials

sharp_shooter

Thanks for the help guys, but I'm nearly sure he siad he didnt sand it. I'm afraid that if I snad i'll end up leaving the surface uneven and I really dont want to ruin it. But I'm gonna give it a go anyway!

I'll put a pic of it up when I'm done! Thanks for the help.

SS

tonky

You probably know this already, but be bloody careful with that Nitromors. It's deadly for removing paint. You can use an old paintbrush to get it into the corners & crevices, but WEAR EYE PROTECTION of some sort & have lots of water on hand in case of accidents. This is from bitter experience. Best of luck.

Frank the Manc

Nitro mors will lift the paint without sanding after 2-3 applications, works quite well but youll still have to sand to get a polished finished.
wear good latex gloves.

you can wrap it in tinfoil enclosure so as to slow evaporation, itll stop working alltogether after 20-25 mins but wont damage the metal if left on longer.

if youre just goin to sand from scratch, start with a 400 grit paper & work your way up to 1200 or 2000 & then polish, id be hesitant to use any power tools as they can leave deep scratchs with one slip of the hand.

theres a decent amount of work involved so the best thing you can do is be patient, plan and start with a good base gun i.e. KWA or KJW ect

very little point goin to all that bother for a rattly ballamalla.

nice grips will accentuate the finish better than the stock ones, so try dark synthetics or woods, ideally pachmyres but you can make your own very handily.

Masada

sharp_shooter wrote: »

Thanks for the help guys, but I'm nearly sure he siad he didnt sand it. I'm afraid that if I snad i'll end up leaving the surface uneven and I really dont want to ruin it. But I'm gonna give it a go anyway!

I'll put a pic of it up when I'm done! Thanks for the help.

SS

When i say sanding, its not actually like the conventional sand paper you would know., its really fine stuff, as smooth as newspaper. another reason for using it wet is to reduce its abrasive-ness (is that a word?) Using the nitromores is a good way to remove the paint but it wont leave the gun shiny, it'll just be aluminum looking. its only then you use the sandpapers to polish up the metal to a shine. the stuff is so fine, its actually used to flatten the laquer on a car after its been re painted.

You can skip the sandpaper step and go straight to the polish, but that will take forever and it will have to be done my hand. any heat just dulls it again so power tools are out of the question.,
sandpaper is the easiest way.,

sharp_shooter

Thanks so much for all the help guys.

I got the Nitromores and I got some MEtal polish and a lint free cloth. I am now considering the sanding though! I was thinking of rough paper that would leave loads of deep scratches on it!

The project pistol I am using is a Full metal WE 1911. I couldnt agree more about replacing the grips as the ones on it will really take away from the look. I wouldnt be much of a "handyman" to make my own so does anyone know where I can buy a good pair of grips for it. I will also be trying it on my M9 if its goes well so I'll be looking for grips for that too so if anyone knows a good place for them too it would be much appreciated.

Thanks again for the help lads, hopefully it'll turn uot well tonight. as I said i'll post it up her when I'm done and you can complement me or critize me!! (constructively of course!)

SS

Frank the Manc

when you lift the paint off it wont be a polished finished surface underneath at all so you are goin to have to sand it down.
if you get 600, 800 & 1200 grit paper it wont leave deep scratches at all.
you can get a kit in halford for about €7 with all necessary grades.
dont use any auld stuff you migh have at home.
it will be printed on the back what the grit is. Aldi had a pack with 400 & 600 a while back for about €2.
youll need a cork sanding block as well, should be in halfords also, if not any hardwear.
a 1911 is good to start with as its mostly flat surfaces, mainly the reason the call it a slab-side.
wet the sand paper as you go along & it keeps the scratches to a minimum.
After a few hours you will end up with something like this:



as for the grips youre goin to have to go RS, theyre arent many nice ones out there especially for airsoft. try ebay or cabelas.

sharp_shooter

Hi frank,

thanks for your reply, I am having some problems getting the paint off. It has started to come off but there are some parts that wont budge! I tried pouring the hot water into the bowl as reccommended and it bubbled up and all but it didnt make any difference to the paint. I guess sanding is the best way to go now but the only problem is that i am doing the whole gun, not just the slide so sanding those little bits will be very tedious and might not work the best!

How did you post that pic up in the screen? I have some progress pics but cant get them up and I never used imageshack or any of those others.

thanks for the help so fars lads but plzzzzz help me with this! At the moment its looking like I ruined it!! :mad::(:mad::(:mad::(:confused

sharp_shooter

oh and by the way, frank, where would I get a grip like the one in the pic???? that is swwweeeettt!!

Frank the Manc

sharp_shooter wrote: »

Hi frank,

thanks for your reply, I am having some problems getting the paint off. It has started to come off but there are some parts that wont budge! I tried pouring the hot water into the bowl as reccommended and it bubbled up and all but it didnt make any difference to the paint. I guess sanding is the best way to go now but the only problem is that i am doing the whole gun, not just the slide so sanding those little bits will be very tedious and might not work the best!

How did you post that pic up in the screen? I have some progress pics but cant get them up and I never used imageshack or any of those others.

thanks for the help so fars lads but plzzzzz help me with this! At the moment its looking like I ruined it!! :mad::(:mad::(:mad::(:confused

Dont worry itll take about 3 applications to get all the paint off as its baked on. iv never tried the water trick so dont know what the craic is with it or how effective it is.

when youre puttin the nitro it on, apply it thick, use a brush(very sparingly) just to apply the stuff all over, dont agitate it too much as it will reduce its effectiveness, when you think you have enough on, apply some more, it wont damage anything. needles to say strip everything non-metal or wood off the frame and slide.
then leave for at least 20 mins.

with regards sanding, theres no way around it, you just have to do it to get a nice finish, its tedious but worth it in the end.
if the paint isnt off after the 3rd application of nitro use 400 or 600 grit paper to ger the remainer off.

if you have a a couple of pics, download the imageshack toolbar, then you can upload multipe pics at once.
just resize for forums 640x480,
upload,
copy the embedded links for forums & paste it into your post.

sharp_shooter wrote: »

oh and by the way, frank, where would I get a grip like the one in the pic???? that is swwweeeettt!!

the grips are rosewood pachmyres, i got a lad bring a cople back from state-side, you could try ebay but a lot of vendors wont ship gun parts to ireland, i know cabelas do, they should have the grips. or try a euro site, i rem a uk one had them when i was searching but were double the dollar equivalent, exchange rates are more favourable now though.