Has anyone ever polished outer parts of a Taurus PT-99

Take_Her_Handy

Hi I have a PT-99 Co2 powered pistol, I was wondering if anyone ever polished some outer areas of the gun to get a two-tone look of it! I've seen it done on an already two-tone Colt Rail Concept, just to further it and there was no oxidation! Just wondering areas like the barrel, the hammer, the safety-semi-auto switch, the trigger and the bottom of the mag! Cheers guys!

Darth Phoenix

If you pm a boards user called "the joker" he might be able to help you. He has a done a few pistols and they look the business after he polished them...

Take_Her_Handy

Cheers man! Will do.

Take_Her_Handy

'the joker' is no longer around on this forum! anyone else know anything?

The_Joker

I'm still alive n kickin

Are you looking to polish the sides of the topslide or other areas as well?
Is it a matt finish or shiny like below?

Take_Her_Handy

Hey 'the joker', tanks for getting involved! Yea, the gun is matte black! Im thinking of doing the areas in the pic! Maybe the switches, not sure. What advice can you give me?

mafo

Bench grinder, will help. Wire wheel brush for remove the paint and buffing wheel (with polishing paste)for nice finish.

Take_Her_Handy

have ya done it on 1? the steel ok underneath?

The_Joker

Take_Her_Handy wrote: »

Hey 'the joker', tanks for getting involved! Yea, the gun is matte black! Im thinking of doing the areas in the pic! Maybe the switches, not sure. What advice can you give me?

No problem buddy there are a few ways you can get a matt finish on the parts

the hand sanding method, use wet & dry sand paper starting at grades 600/800 then up to 1000, 1200 (1000 & 1200 will leave a nice smooth matt finish), if you want to continue to a highly polished mirror finish you can go to 1800 paper and use a liquid polish (Brasso,Silvo or any other type)
To sand flat objects just lay the paper down and run the part back and forth, that will save you getting worn out and cramped hands.
One important thing to remember is because most airsoft GBBs/AEGs are made from varying alloys you might need to sand some parts more than others to get to a smooth ready for polishing stage.

Also when sanding go in one direction on larger pieces like you would with a wood grain the general idea is to flatten and sand back the tiny pores in the metal this helps with the metal preservation as well as giving a good finish.

If you want to get around all the hand sanding you can use something along the lines of a dremel tool with abrasive buffs (coarse and fine) start with course to remove the anodized coating and use the fine buffs to give you a smooth finish, you can also get buffing wheels for the dremel and polishing compound, the dremel works very well for smaller parts like triggers, hammers, barrels even some topslides plus it is more precise if you want to leave little contrasting areas on the pistol.

If you want to avoid using a dremel you can use a bench mounted motor (like Mafo said) with buffing wheels.
The wheels come in various sizes from goblet, 4", 6", 8" to huge , the only thing I wouldn't advise is using wire wheels because of the the alloys used to make GBBs/AEGs, these alloys can be very soft and the wire wheel just eats into the metal much like using an 80 grit paper on your pistol, this will leave a very uneven surface that just won't look good.
The only downside to using a bench polishing set up is you will have to disassemble the pistol to work on the small parts like triggers & hammers etc

Personally for stripping the parts I use a palm sander, drum sander and Dremel for the awkward pieces.
Some people will say use an industrial strength paint remover that's fine but it's messy and you might not want to remove all the coating especially on the inside rail of a topslide plus the matt diffused finish still will need to be sanded to a smooth finish.

I have come up with a method of bypassing sanding by using a few chemicals to strip away the coating in about 5-10 minutes it's at a test stage at the moment but so far so good. It involves using chromic and phosphoric acids the method will remove the coating without affecting the finish on the metal underneath.
But still the metal parts need a light sand with a fine grit paper to get a really smooth surface.

When polishing I use a bench grinder with 6" & 8" buffers and polishing compounds, it only takes minutes to polish a piece that has already been sanded/stripped.
I use two compounds one for flattening and the other for final polishing.

If you get to the polished stage and everything is sparkling you'll want it to stay that way so you can use any wax based product like car polish or even bees wax to seal the metal from the elements.
Even though a lot of polishing compounds are wax based the heat that builds up with the buffer wheel will take most of the compound off the metal.
Not all polished pieces will need wax it all depends on how smooth the pre-polished metal is, again it's all down to closing the microscopic pores in the metal so a good smooth pre-polished metal will help it to keep it's shine for a long time.
From time to time you might want to break out the brasso or silvo and give the pieces a good ol cleaning.

I hope this helps, if you have any other questions fire away and if you don't want to go to the hassle you can always send me the pieces and I'll polish them for you, I won't charge a cent you just look after postage.

Cheers

P.S Christ I didn't realise I typed so much I'll make a video one of these days

Take_Her_Handy

Flippin guru at this you are! :cool: Thats seriously helpfull, and seems handy enough too so Your gun on top i just seen, does look like it came like that from factory.
perfect professional finish, class looking gun!

The_Joker

Take_Her_Handy wrote: »

Flippin guru at this you are! :cool: Thats seriously helpfull, and seems handy enough too so Your gun on top i just seen, does look like it came like that from factory.
perfect professional finish, class looking gun!

Cheers I'm getting a swelled head here
I'm glad I could help out, if you have any other questions in the future fire me a PM I'm always around.