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+1 for Krylon

-100000 for krylon

Ion Bond


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FJ540 wrote:-100000 for krylon

Maybe a non traditional coating like cerakote?

I want this to be shiny, and spray on finishes aren't easily applied to the FP and extractor holes unless you could dip it.

Hard chrome with black is growing on me.

I would vote hard chrome. Another option I like is a finish E. Arther Brown does called "French Grey. It's nickel plated then soda blasted to take out the sheen. It looks pretty sweet too.

That soda blasted nickel sounds cool. I did some looking and found it in some pics of other guns and I like it. I'm not sure what the end will bring. I can have them nitrided, but the process is hot enough to lose a big chunk of slide hardness. I'm not sure if that's a big issue in this application given the inherent strength of the material or not. No one has contacted me about doing the group buy either, so it might be plating these after all.

I got the front sight in tonight. Pretty uneventful process, where I left a bit too much extra material in the slot and had to hand file it more than I would've liked, but it's a great tight fit.

This is the end result, followed by the process shots:



First cut was .250 to open up the slot most of the way (done with a regular end mill, not the dovetail cutter shown):



Then I came in and made two passes with the .298 dovetail cutter (supposed to be .300) to bring it out to .325:



After that I moved to the vise and started filing and checking the fit with a little pusher I made out of some annealed aluminum bar:

Probably shouldn't have kept working, but the sights are both on now. My neck is not happy with me, but the gun is, so I guess that's an ok outcome. lol

Hog off .120:



Notch it out:



I guess I didn't take one of the dovetail on the back end. Oh well. It's just like the front only wider.

Then stuff the sight in:





Coming together nicely...



Now I need to make a decision on the serrations. That'll wait for another day.

Looks great. As for serrations, I say keep them in back only! That big, smooth front looks cool.

I generally hate front cocking serrations. This will not be getting anything forward of the ejection port.

So after painting to see if I wanted to hard chrome, cerakote, or nothing, I decided against it as I've taken a strong liking to the commander's color scheme and militec 1 treatment. Tonight I reparkerized it (couldn't get all the paint out of the original Parkerizing), and here they are (in a crappy pic):



Silver and black (what the stainless would look like nitrided):







I've already started subjecting it to draw practice out of a thigh rig for Saturday's steel shoot. The nylon Blackhawk holster isn't even scuffing the parked finish.

Many thanks again to Hoel6466 for his benevolence on these guns.