Another firearm painting job- 1911

[WP33]

A few weeks ago I refinished my AR15 in flat dark earth in practice for doing a 1911. I ended up changing my mind on which 1911 I would be doing along the way. Initially it was to be a used Kimber Eclipse Pro I am picking up in a few weeks from my FFL, but after examining it more closely than I had at first, I decided to leave that one alone and move onto a 1911 I've had for a few years. (Bottom gun)

There was really nothing wrong with the finish, other than I tend to get bored with things and want to change them up. After my success with the AR15, it gave me the confidence to do a pistol.

Some friendly points: DO YOUR PREP WORK! The hardest part of painting the gun is prepping. Disassmble as far down as you're comfortable with, clean and degrease (vitally important!). Something that contains trichloroethylene, like Gun Scrubber, is a very good choice, but make sure you wear rubber or latex gloves -if latex, wash the powder off of them before getting started. Most of those cleaners may leave a residue, so I rinse, then dry with a lint free cloth and a blow drier. Also, when dealing with Gun Scrubber or the like, and while painting, make sure you're wearing a respirator and some protective eyewear. Here are my results, YMMV.

I was too dumb and too eager getting started to get any pictures of the initial part of the process, but that consisted mostly of disassembling the pistol (a good walkthrough for breaking down a 1911 can be found here), and prepping as I stated above. I unfolded a couple of wire clothes hangers to hang the parts from and went to work- OUTSIDE. The pics below are after I brought them in to start the drying and curing. Please don't paint inside. It's rude and smelly, not to mention dangerous.

I had learned some good lessons from the AR painting experiment and was very careful to tape off areas I didn't want paint going into, like the firing pin, for instance and on the sights. I didn't take into account the tight tolerances of some areas of the pistol, like the slide rails, unfortunately, and ended up having to scrape some of the paint off those areas when I was putting the gun back together. Keep that in mind if you decide to attempt this yourself. Brownell's Aluma-Hyde II can get rather heavy if you spray too long or too closely to the surface, so make sure you're working at about a foot to 18 inches away from what you're working on, and make even passes. I did one coat and it'll be plenty. The paint also likes the temp to be above 65 and I'd recommend even closer to 85 or 90, if you can pull it off. A heat lamp may help and a blow drier definitely will. There are other paints you can finish off in the oven, but this is not one of them. It's fine just air curing.

Brownell's recommends letting this paint cure or set up for several days. And I wouldn't even touch the surface until it begins curing. I got impatient and farkled up a couple areas on the gun but they're relatively minor.

So if you're on the fence on whether to do something like this, take it from me, who's about as graceful with things like this as a one armed retarded monkey, it's definitely doable and comes out pretty bitchin.

Edited October 29, 2007 by WP33