Polish underfolder finish

[Alex$]

Bought an Apex underfolder parts kit, Polish under folder. To my less than expert opinion it is a phosphate finish.

Can anyone confirm before I pour Purple Power all over it? Normally I would just use mineral spirits, but this is one funky kit!

[kingmoochr]

Pretty sure mine is painted...

[BLD]

I'm interested in finding out as well. I just ordered a Polish kit and depending on the shape of it, I'll either be trying to match the worn BFPU look or refinishing it.

[Sky_DiveR]

C'mon... put your new found Duracoating skills to work.

Spray everything...

[Carsgunsandchics]

My kit was painted and a battle field pickup

[Sky_DiveR]

Sooooo.... it was a battlefield pick-up with new painted parts installed? (ie: painted selector, carrier, pistol grip, etc)

[Alex$]

And the answer is...

A bit of everything. Nothing on this kit matches. Internals are almost all just a phosphate, some of the other parts are parked and painted. The top cover appears to be just a paint over a textured surface.

1/4 cup of mineral spirits, 4 pair of nitrile gloves, a dozen q-tips, half an old t-shirt later and I have a mix master that looks promising.

The only thing I am wondering is what I am going to do to the barrel and receiver to try and match it... I have tried blueing over a sandblast that is near the same finish as the top cover.

hmmmm....

[Wyseguy]

Painted black, not parked.

[lelandEOD]

Most of my kits seemed to be satin black paint over parkerizing. I did have one or two that only seemed to be parkerized.

I left about half of them in the BFPU and refinished the rest in duracoat matte black over parkerizing. They look fantastic.

[Alex$]

lelandEOD, I think you hit the nail on the head. May need to figure a way to do the barrel and flat to near match.

Call it a character flaw, but I like the look of the worn parts. Trouble with this mix master is which parts do I match? Based on your photos and the fact that the cover is the most visible element, (mine looks unissued), I think I will play with paint or cold blue over park on the barrel/flat.

[lelandEOD]

Yup. When I got a kit that had some cool character to it I decided to leave it alone and just blast and paint the receiver. When I got a kit that was all mix and match, I just blasted the whole thing and refinished from top to bottom.

It's worth a note that I quickly realized any time I got an old beat up looking parts kit from Apex that the majority of them were completely matching numbers kits. The nicer looking kits were all mix and match. So, I started asking Apex for old, ugly, beat up, nasty looking kits and every single one of them came in with complete matching numbers. I thought that was cool.

[13204u]

lelandEOD, I have to say that is a pretty impressive collection. I take it you like polish underfolders, any particular reason why?

[Beatone]

Years ago I bought 4 demilled kit. Three came parked and one was painted.

[lelandEOD]

lelandEOD, I have to say that is a pretty impressive collection. I take it you like polish underfolders, any particular reason why?

They're cheap and fun to build.

[Alex$]

Note to self: heat treat receiver before painting it.