Painting glock frame.

[ChrisO]

All my glocks are black and I'm getting kind of tired of the dull black. I'm thinking of painting the frame on one of my glock 17's. No I don't want to get a new od glock. Anyways this gun is well worn and I have a bunch of krylon camo paint laying around. Anyone here paint their glock frame? The krylon camo is made to work with plastics correct? What kind of prep is needed? Will I need to strip all internal parts or just mask the parts off?

[1911su16b870]

I don't know what type of paint to use on Glock plastic, but if you have compatible paint, I would recommend a total disassembly of all parts from the frame prior to painting it.

[jptopz]

I would look into Duracoat it is a paint with a harder that holds up much better than your standard paint. I have two toned my Sig and turned my daughters Glenfeild 60 into a stainless beauty. The key is to prep well gently scuffing up the surface with out making and scratches because they will show up. Clean the whole gun down with a degreaser that leaves no residue. And use a good quality air brush.
I don't have pictures of the Sig, but here are pics of my daughters Glenfeild.




I found a poor picture that I had to crop from a family photo.

[ChrisO]

I'm not looking to paint the slide just the frame. Seems it should be a easy job since it's just a polymer framed gun.

[Anchors]

I want a purple Glock.

[CALATRAVA]

krylon fusion is what you're thinking of. It's made specifically for plastic.

it comes in many, many colors.

The two times I used it were both on Jeep fender flares, which were flexible and sat all day long in the sun. The paint never cracked or faded in several years of intense socal weather.

I'd say that a paint job on a gun should be very durable against solvents and such, and can't attest to krylon's ability in this department. Worth a try though for $8-10.00, IMO.

[Oceanbob]

Chris..here's a copy and paste from August

All my glocks are black and I'm getting kind of tired of the dull black. I'm thinking of painting the frame on one of my glock 17's. No I don't want to get a new od glock. Anyways this gun is well worn and I have a bunch of krylon camo paint laying around. Anyone here paint their glock frame? The krylon camo is made to work with plastics correct? What kind of prep is needed? Will I need to strip all internal parts or just mask the parts off?

The difference between CeraKoat and duracoat...from Rapidblast...you can do a search on this website for more information. Personally I would hesitate using anything less than CeraKoat (1st choice) or Duracoat (2nd choice)..the Krylon plastic spray paint might be good for lawn furniture but I would not spray paint a glock frame with it. You might consider spraying a Glock magazine to see how durable/slick it really is......Here is the copy and paste:

OK - so here's the short, easy to digest, laymans version ;-)

Cerakote came from the aerospace industry, and the manufacturer has found many diverse "applications" due to the coatings very high wear and rust resistant qualities.

Cerakote has a two-part heat cured paint which is the version I choose to use. One part is the ceramic based paint, and the other is an epoxy hardner.

You can only mix the two -part Cerakote paint right before you plan on spraying it, and you MAYBE have a 30 min window before it starts to harden inside the spraygun - so everything HAS to be ready to go or the paint will harden and be wasted.

Also, because Cerakote is ceramic and epoxy (nasty stuff for your lungs), you need to wear a respirator to shoot it, as well as have a well ventilated area with no cars or valuable stuff that shouldn't be painted close by.

NOTE: 80% of a Cerakote job is in the prep work - abrasive blasting, oil removing chemicals, and heating the piece being painted to rid/weep it of any hidden oil. If you've screwed up on any of these steps you'd better work it out VERY QUICKLY as the paint you wish to spray is now drying in the spray gun. To put it mildly, the prep work is the gun world equivalent to a computer clean room and mistakes in the prep process can cost you lots of time and $$$.

Anyway, after shooting the paint on a rifle/pistol, it air cures for 30 minutes, then gets moved to an oven to get baked on for a minimum of 300 degrees for 2 hours.

You can safely handle the gun after the 2 hour oven session, but you shouldn't shoot it until the 6th day after it comes out of the oven, because the paint will continue to cure. Hard to believe but this is the case, it gets harder every day and you can feel the change occurring as you handle the painted piece every day.

After the 6th day, the result is what I like to call a "pool tile" ceramic hard, wear resistant, rust resistant finish that won't flake off like Duracote and the teflon based competition when exposed to high wear loads.

Compitition:
The competitions paint (like Duracoat) is teflon based and made for joe six pack - meaning that very little prep work is required for a finish that will look good, but it will wear off in a few months time.

BUT the mfg. feels that is no deal breaker because their product requires almost no prep work! You can spray it over your guns original finish without any abrasive blasting and a quick chemical wipe-down.

You can spray Duracote without a respirator because it is, in effect, spray paint in a can. Joe-six pack doesn't need a compressor, dryer, spray gun, paint booth, bake oven, or respirator to spray it on his Ruger 10/22 assault rifle ;-)

The air/hang drying time is an hour or so and you're off to the range with your newest camo job. You can change camo jobs as often as you change your underwear ;-)

So as you can read, Duracotes application is VERY FORGIVING and thus very popular by Sellers as well as End Users. What is it - $15 a can or so?

But in the end - all Duracote really offers is good looks for a short time period.

Duracote won't hold high wear loads on it's wear surfaces, so it wears off pretty quick exposing the surface underneath, whereas a Cerakoted bolt or Slide shows no wear IF the piece that is being sprayed is PROPERLY prepared and cured.

This is the link to Cerakote/Firearms Finish:

http://www.nicindustries.com/firearm_coatings.php

Rapidblast

[Greg-Dawg]

OD green baby!

[tpowers]

cerakote for the win. It works great on the Glock frames.

[supermario]

Sorry to threadjack but does anybody know a place to send your gun for cerakote?
Does nicindustries cerakote firearms or just sell their product?

[coma13]

Sorry to threadjack but does anybody know a place to send your gun for cerakote?
Does nicindustries cerakote firearms or just sell their product?

See the post directly above yours.

[$P-Ritch$]

Here is my painted glock. I know she isn't pretty and a lot of people don't like what I did to her, but I made it my own and it feels great in my hand.

I used the Magpul FDE Duracoat on the frame and slide after detail stripping the gun. This is when it was "fresh"





Here it is as of today. It's been about 6 months in which it has seen about 3,000 rounds, 6 straight days at Frontsight, several matches, and at least a few hundred holster draws from kydex.





As you can see the majority of the wear is from the holster contact points and its not even that bad. I am in no means gentle with my guns, especially my G19, and the duracoat has stood up rather well. Also, after a while the paint up front discolors from all the hot powder. You can see that darker brown color in front, it doesn't wipe off.

I personally like the "weathered" look much better. I need to go out and beat up my pistol some more.

[CamW]

Here's a Glock with digital camo in Cerakote. It was done by Dave's Metal Works.