Coloring in your engravings: the Write Up

[Scott LaRoe]

I did my XD-40 in white and I love it

thanks

scott

[cookieXD40]

hey did the orange with a grease pencil/china marker and did the stippling tonight...looks pretty sweet

[Modificationvt]

I just did mine with silver nail polish Ill post pics later today, it came out well.

[ChrisS819]

I did my xd-40sc slide with a Krylon neon green paint pen and used a Krylon neon yellow paint pen to do the barrel lettering. I was very happy with the resluts. I have put 3,500 rounds through it since and have had no issues with the paint holding up to the heat.

[Modificationvt]

I used a silver nail polish, I put it on, waited for it to half dry and then wiped it off with a bit of nail polish and then gave it all a rub down with break free. I haven't shot it yet, but I can't immagine the nailpolish melting.

[JBHorne]

I read this thread a while ago and just did my new Stag lower in Silver Testors paint. It looks really good right now (I'll post pics later), but if Hoppes #9 removes the paint so easily, how well will it hold up to cleanings with a nylon brush?

Does anyone have a durability report on Testors? Did you cover it with a hard enamel or anything?

Thanks!

[mvician]

[JBHorne]

Originally Posted by mvician

HAHA! Nice.

I still really want to know about the durability though. I mean if CLP takes it off so easily, or at least smears it, how well will it hold up? Does Bob Ross know?

[socialistic]

Just got done reading the ENTIRE thread. I wanted to be completely aware of all the options, pros and cons before doing something like painting on my XD-45acp.

I have decided that I will use a silver/metallic nail polish to fill the engravings. The only issue that concerns me is the graying/ghosting, so I may try in small hidden area first...then maybe figure out a few ways to get rid of the nail polish ghosting so other members can fix theirs as well. It seems that the only people that have suffered the ghosting effect...were using white. It may not show up much, or at all, with a deep metallic silver.

From experience with painting and such...newspaper works MUCH better than a piece of printer paper. I even use wadded newspaper/windex to clean car windows before and after applying tint...amazing how well it works. No debris/fuzz/streaks left.

EDIT: Only had access to a blood-red color nail polish, so I went with it. Doesn't pop as much as the silver I wanted...but it looks good. I took these pics before the final cleaning...you'll notice a polished/red area around the engravings. An hour of drying, then a few minutes of aggressive rubbing with an acetone-soaked cleaning patch cleared it all up(drying numerous times in between with clean/dry patch). Looks awesome, but I'll switch to silver eventually. I recommend this way of coloring your engravings over any other due to how easy it is, how cheap it is, and the lack of "horror stories" connected to this method.

[CPES]

...but I'm thrilled to see that so many people have used this thread to thier advantage, experimented, changed some little things, and tried out a whole bunch of other mediums! It's gratifying to see a 5-star rating for my write-up, too!

Keep the ideas and pics coming, guys...these all look great!

As for the testors paint, I just did the lower reciever on my AR-15 with testors...and yes, Hoppe's #9 does take it off. Pics:







The OD green is much darker in person, the lighting makes it look more like bright green pea soup, lol. I will have to see what kind of longevity the paint has vs. nail polish, but I don't have an upper for my rifle currently so it could be a while before I really get a chance to put the paint through it's paces. I may switch to nail polish eventually, it's just a bitch to clean around the selector switch. And that the two-tone deal? Forget it with nail polish, I doubt I'd ever be able to pull it off. The paint I used for that was HEAVILY thinned. We will see though.