Painting sights

[Guest]

Hello,

I would like to paint the rear of the sights on a P3AT. They are unpainted and not even 1/16" tall (which makes the package compact) and this makes them harder to use beyond 10 yards, or in less than ideal light. I'm probably going to put two bright, but contrasting colors (orange and green?) on the front and rear sights. Anyone have any suggestions for a good paint that will stick well to the metal, but that can be purchased in small, economical quantities? I just need to dab on a drop or two with a tooth pick.

I have some orange flourescent Rustoleum striping paint. Maybe I should just pick up a can of flourescent green and use those?

If this doesnt work, I've thought about drilling the sights from the top and pressing in three small, rounded off pieces of music wire that would be similar to the bead sight on a shotgun muzzle, but I'd rather not add any potential snag-points.

Thanks for any suggestions!

Edited November 16, 2011 by Guest

[Jonnin]

Just about any paint that will stick to metal, which usually means oil based, will work. Night-glow is up to you. I use white-out, which is very easy to remove without harming the guns. I have also used bright paints from kiddy art kits which are about $10 at walmart, or crafting paints which are like $1 for a small jar in craft stores, etc. Some of this stuff will wear off over time, but you bought a whole bottle, enough to redo them 1000000 times, so who cares

[Guest]

Just about any paint that will stick to metal, which usually means oil based, will work. Night-glow is up to you. I use white-out, which is very easy to remove without harming the guns. I have also used bright paints from kiddy art kits which are about $10 at walmart, or crafting paints which are like $1 for a small jar in craft stores, etc. Some of this stuff will wear off over time, but you bought a whole bottle, enough to redo them 1000000 times, so who cares

What do you recommend for "night-glow", just any "glow in the dark" paint? Or is there one that has been found to be especially good? If I could find a good glow in the dark paint, I might put it over the plain white paint that came on my XDm too. :-)

[Guest hawkeye10]

I have not used this paint but you may like to try it. Don

Gun Sights Paint

[Guest]

Thanks guys. I'm trying the spray paint I have for now, but I may order some of that glowing paint in the future. That stuff looks pretty cool.

P.S.: wanted to ask this, without starting another thread.... if I buy a membership to the TGO forum, will I be able to "subscribe" to the "Classifieds" section to be alerted of new threads? I don't have anything to sell, but if a membership would let me get alerts for something I might be interested in, that would be valuable (to me). Right now without membership I can't subscribe, so I'm assuming that's a benefit. But I didn't see this covered in any of the "stickies" in that forum.

Thanks

[Guest pfries]

You can subscribe to an individual thread; I don't believe you can subscribe to the entire sub forum. You can sign up for and subscribe to the RSS feed. As far as purchasing a membership there are many good reasons to support the forum.

[craglawnmanor]

Testors model paint. Welcome to Testors

A large variety of colors available at places such as ToysRUs and Wallyworld, among others.

[Jonnin]

They sell glowing paints but they suck, because they stop working fairly quickly and are not very bright. If you want that, I recommend knocking the sights off and buying night sights... you may be able to find something that will do but I think the good glow in the dark stuff is hard to find? I have never looked, a side effect of my many vision problems is I can see pretty well in very low light, so I never really needed glow sights.

[dralarms]

I used the toothpick method. Works well, but with sights that small they are not easily seen. In a SD situation you will not use the sights on the pocket gun.

[Dolomite_supafly]

You can buy the glow in the dark powder. Sprinkle it in the wet paint before it dries. An ounce of the powder will go a long way. As far as length and brightness I like glow in the dark powder better than tritium. A 1 second burst of light and the glow in the dark powder will stay brighter than any tritium I have ever seen for at least 20-30 minutes, plenty long enough to deal with any threat you may have. And if it begins to dim another 1 second burst of light and you are good for another 20-30 minutes.

The best way and what I use is two part epoxy rather than paint. I mix in titanium dioxide which happens to be the whitest thing known to man second only to Michael Jackson. I will dab it into the the hole on the sight and then sprinkle the glow in the dark paint on top. It works really well. I have also mixed the glow powder in with the two part epoxy and then sprinkled it with the same powder. This results in a green/yellow looking dot during the day and BRIGHT green at night after being charged. If you just sprinkle the glow powder on the titanium dioxide epoxy the dot remains relatively white and nearly as bright. Another advantage is you can put the mixture on guns where tritium sights are not available.

The best part about using the two part epoxy is it is impervious to almost any solvent you might use on your firearm. It also stays put and doesn't wear like some paints.

If you are in the Knoxville area I can help you out. We can get together so you can see how mine looks and if you like it we can do the same to your gun.

This is what I use:

Ultra Green v10 Glow in the Dark Powder -

Do not buy the glow paint as it is suspended in fingernail polish and most solvents used to clean a gun will harm it. Trust me I know. Like I said the best way to do it is mix it with two part epoxy, put it in place and then sprinkle with more glow powder. Even if glow powder isn't wanted the titanium suspended in epoxy is a GREAT alternative to most paints.

If you have any questions I'll be glad to help you out.

Dolomite

[whiskey]

Brownell's sells a Bright Sights paint kit for less than 20.00. I have lots of good reviews about them. They come with a cleaner/primer too.

If you go with wallyworld paint, make sure you get acrylic paint and use a wooden toothpick to fill the indents on the sights. Let it dry overnight.

Orange in the back, Green in the front is my favorite.

[Guest JHansonLPN]

I dont know about glow in the dark, but I use the automotive touch up paints. You can buy a blaze orange pen at wal-mart for a couple bucks.

[Guest]

You can buy the glow in the dark powder. Sprinkle it in the wet paint before it dries. An ounce of the powder will go a long way. As far as length and brightness I like glow in the dark powder better than tritium. A 1 second burst of light and the glow in the dark powder will stay brighter than any tritium I have ever seen for at least 20-30 minutes, plenty long enough to deal with any threat you may have. And if it begins to dim another 1 second burst of light and you are good for another 20-30 minutes.

The best way and what I use is two part epoxy rather than paint. I mix in titanium dioxide which happens to be the whitest thing known to man second only to Michael Jackson. I will dab it into the the hole on the sight and then sprinkle the glow in the dark paint on top. It works really well. I have also mixed the glow powder in with the two part epoxy and then sprinkled it with the same powder. This results in a green/yellow looking dot during the day and BRIGHT green at night after being charged. If you just sprinkle the glow powder on the titanium dioxide epoxy the dot remains relatively white and nearly as bright. Another advantage is you can put the mixture on guns where tritium sights are not available.

The best part about using the two part epoxy is it is impervious to almost any solvent you might use on your firearm. It also stays put and doesn't wear like some paints.

If you are in the Knoxville area I can help you out. We can get together so you can see how mine looks and if you like it we can do the same to your gun.

This is what I use:

Ultra Green v10 Glow in the Dark Powder -

Do not buy the glow paint as it is suspended in fingernail polish and most solvents used to clean a gun will harm it. Trust me I know. Like I said the best way to do it is mix it with two part epoxy, put it in place and then sprinkle with more glow powder. Even if glow powder isn't wanted the titanium suspended in epoxy is a GREAT alternative to most paints.

If you have any questions I'll be glad to help you out.

Dolomite

Dolomite,

I may look into that approach. I went ahead today and put flourescent orange and green paint on for now. I have two-part expoxies on hand. Have you found any particular kind to work better? I'd imagine for this "low strength" requirement of just sticking to the gun, about any 2-part expoxy will work.

Thanks!

[BigK]

I painted the sights on 3 of mine. I put some White-Out on first (seems to help) then got the God-awefullest ugly bright orange-red nail polish I could find at Walmart. Worked like a charm. I redo the job about every 6 months or so. I'm confident I'll never use up this bottle of nail polish.

[Dolomite_supafly]

Dolomite,

I may look into that approach. I went ahead today and put flourescent orange and green paint on for now. I have two-part expoxies on hand. Have you found any particular kind to work better? I'd imagine for this "low strength" requirement of just sticking to the gun, about any 2-part expoxy will work.

Thanks!

I use the clear epoxy that sets in an hour or two. I have tried the 5 minute epoxy and it sets too quickly. With the 1-2 hour stuff it thickens enough to stay put once you add the powder, either titanium dioxide or glow in the dark. Once I put the epoxy in place and sprinkle it I will position the gun so the epoxy blob is level with the floor and let it set overnight. It may be thick enough to stay put but I do not want to take a chance on it shifting. After that it is staying put until you wnat to remove it.

Something else I also do to help out is this. I take a small drill bit and by hand, drill the hole in the sight deeper. This also gets all the old paint out and helps the epoxy stick.

I have also tried red oxide to get a red sight but it doesn't work very well. Turns a brown color once it is mixed in with the epoxy.

I haven't tried it but another approach might be to put the colors you want in place first them put a sealer blob of epoxy over it.

Just out of curiosity, where are you located?

Dolomite

[Motasyco]

Toothpick and nail polish has worked well for me.

[seez52]

I know this is an oldie but never the less a godie. Is this the only place to get this glow dust? http://glowinc.com/detail.aspx?ID=42

 

I checked there a couple of days ago and even had some in my cart then tried to check out and noticed the shipping was $12.50!  OUCH! I'd like to have some of this and $9 plus a reasonable amount of shipping would be ok, but this is a little over the top. You'd think they could put a 1/4 ounce in a baggy and slip it into an envelope.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

I got one of those paint kits for gun sights. Probably bright sights, but maybe some other name. My eyes are real bad toward sundown at the range, specially if sun in eyes and standing in shade.

The gun sight paint seemed more of an improvement than some bright metal flake nail polish I tried.

I don't care about glow in the dark, except some of the flourescent paints look brighter than ordinary reflective paint in daylight, because it not only reflects visible light, but also adds some extra light flourescing off the UV components in sunlight. Turning some of the UV into visible light.

But the fiberoptic sights are head and shoulders easier for me to see, than painted sights. I just can't find fiber optic sights for all my pistols.

Its somewhat a matter of taste, but considering equal reflectivity, a green or yellow ought to be easiest to see, because the eye is most sensitive to the mid-band wavelengths. If a paint would strongly reflect both reds and greens, to make yellow, it ought to be brighter than a pure green or an orange. But strangely, I seem to be able to pick out fiber optic green better than fiber optic yellow, orange, or red. Edited January 24, 2014 by Lester Weevils

[Guest SavageOne]

A P3AT has sights?  Wow! I've been overlooking mine. Just kidding----(-;  I did put a dab of Testors "Day Glo" enamel on the front bump of my P3ATs. Don't know how much it helps, I usually point shoot with it out to 10yds or so. When I was working I did qualify a P3AT as a backup, with the longest shots at 15yds. The paint did help a little there I guess. Like you said, sights are pretty much nonexistant on that little gun. Good enough for it's intended purpose though!

[peejman]

A friend gave me his leftover glow paint. I tried to do the sights (such as they are) on my P3AT and it didn't come out worth a darn. The paint never would dry. It worked fine on his LCP so either it goes bad fast or I'm a really bad painter. The latter is a distinct possibility.

[peejman]

A friend gave me his leftover glow paint. I tried to do the sights (such as they are) on my P3AT and it didn't come out worth a darn. The paint never would dry. It worked fine on his LCP so either it goes bad fast or I'm a really bad painter. The latter is a distinct possibility.

[seez52]

I guess what I was planning to do is Domite suggestion of using titanium white with some epoxy then sprinkle some of the their glow dust on top before it dries. 12 bucks to ship a 1/4 oz of glow dust just won't work.

[ttocswob]

I like painting the front sight white, followed by flourescent orange. Really stands out.

[seez52]

Just discovered they offer their paint and powder over on Amazon for the same price as on their website and it's available with free shipping on a $35 order. So I'll wait until I've got a free shipping order lined up and add this to the list.

[drivenfrmwithin]

I just bought glow paint from a craft store. Painted front sight green and back 2 sights orange. Worked alright but doesn't replace night sights obviously Sent from my iPhone