My Gunkote Tale, A tale of Priceless Wisdom & Kids in the Garage

[runco]

They say that mistakes come from a lack of experience, experience comes from mistakes, good judgment comes from experience, and wisdom comes from good judgments. I must admit, that I am now wise beyond my years from my 1^st ever gunkote job on a Sig P226.

Let me set it up. I purchased the cheapest and lowest grade of a West German Sig P226 9mm from Sarco in Pennsylvania a few months back. If you search this site, I likely have a topic on my Sarco Sig. Well I was pleased with the gun purchase, after all it was a West German Sig!!! A great shooter, very smooth, but well worn holster warn. After a few friends ragged on the cosmetic appearance, and my own barber made fun of the worn out gun (they don’t respect the Sig), I decided after reading a few message board posts, hey I can Cerekote a gun, I am a do it your self kind of person. I have re-built engines, painted (actually primmered) whole cars before, and can even change the oil in my vehicles without guessing what socket size to use. I am a do it yourself kind of person. Heck I replaced a hot water heater and sweated copper pipes from using videos on Youtube. Didn’t need a plumber, saved hundreds of dollars. Surely I can paint a gun using the gun coating products out there, and all of the informational videos and posts. This will be a piece of cake.

I started my research on the process. Read many message boards, TGO, Glock Talk, Sig Forum, Sig Talk, Ar-15, Daisy BB Talk, and blah, blah, blah. Likely read over 100 different detailed posts. Considered Cerekote, Durakote, Durabake, and finally settled on Gunkote. Gunkote appeared to rise to the top at least when you google and read most posts. So Gunkote it is. Just buy it from Brownells and be done.

Now to sandblasting. Read about sand blasting, bead blast vs. silicone blast vs. aluminum oxide. It was almost unanimous that aluminum oxide 120 grit was the way to go. Read about the cheap blast cabinets, but almost nothing about hand held sand blasters. In the end, I settled for a hand held sand blaster. Actually found a deal on a 25 year old plus Sears Craftsman sandblast gun that resembles a full size paint sprayer. Hardly used and in the box with instructions, and built very sturdy. You can buy a new cheap gun at Harbor Freight, it just lacks the sturdiness (I know I broke one while in the store)!

Lets see, ordered 4 oz of the Gunkote (everyone says 4 oz will do 2+ guns), ordered Gunkote recommended phosphate coating, bought 25# of aluminum oxide from Northern Tool, bought one can of brake cleaner spray from Wal-Mart, bought a box of latex gloves, bought a spool of hanging wire from Northern Tool, and even bought a $6 toaster over from the local Habitat for Humanity store. I already had a large air compressor and an older spray paint gun. I also bought a couple of air drier filters to make sure there was no moisture in the compressed air. DO DRAIN YOUR AIR COMPRESSOR before beginning any type of paint work. I probably should have drained mine the first time, but eventually did, about a gallon or more of rusty water drained out. So I am set, ready to go, or least I thought.

Disassembled my Sig as per Youtube. Simple, straight forward, nothing major to report. Starting sandblasting, I had a cheap dust mask, one of those military boonie hats and a clear face shield like the one Duckie wears on NCIS. I considered the KKK type hood, but didn’t want to spend the $20-$60 since my contraption of the face shield and boonie hat should work. Like I stated earlier, I did consider the cheap $150 sandblast cabinet (Harbor Freight or Amazon), but decided that this might be my only gun to Gunkote, and in my 44 years, never did need a sandblast unit, so I decided to buy. So I had no concern about catching or re-using my sandblast media. So I started sandblasting the gun parts in the driveway. The sandblasting worked great and I had a large pile of media piling up outside my garage in the driveway. My gun and parts were now fully sandblasted, frosty and looked good. My vehicles had a light dusting of media (that was bad), and my driveway was just ugly with sand. I do live in a sub-division with curb streets, so sand in the driveway wasn’t too good. OH, DO NOT USE water to wash away the media in the driveway, its bad idea. It clumps and just does nothing, and goes into the street. DO USE the leaf blower on both the driveway and vehicles. DO NOT WIPE YOUR CAR WITH A CLOTH with sandblast media on your car. Fortunately, I was wise enough not to do this. BTW wear long sleeve shirts. If you spray sandblast media in the bright sun, your arms will sweat and the media will stick to your arms until you take a shower. Your air compressor blow nozzle will not remove the dust from your arms. I tried, and it does not work.

Still with me? Following? Okay, now I put on the latex gloves, and begin the degreasing process. I read a post and saw on Youtube, that an aqueous solution of 50/50 water and Simple Green works best vs. the brake cleaner. Simply place your parts into a pot, add the 50/50 solution and boil for 15 minutes. OH, DO NOT DO THIS in the kitchen. The odor from the boiling solution caused me to sleep on the couch for two nights, because the wife was very ill from the smelling of the concoction. Nasty stuff! Once boiled, wearing the gloves and using pliers I removed each part and blow dried using the air compressor. Then I baked the parts on 220F for about 10 minutes. Used 220F because I know that water will evaporate or boil away @ 212F. Perfect, now I am ready for the phosphate.

Using gloves and the hanging wire, made pretty decorations of gun parts worthy of a Christmas tree. Now I am ready for the phosphate. The instructions with the phosphate says simply coat or dip. That’s it, no other instructions. So I hesitated, and decided to use my spray gun, which I thought was a good decision. Prepared the solution, just dumped ½ bottle into my aluminum cup and started spraying. Since the instructions says dip or coat, so I started coating, and coating until the parts were shiny. DO NOT SPRAY THE PARTS UNTIL SHINY! When the parts dried, I had a very frosty white color and green appearance. Started googling the phosphate frost and phosphate spray, and found a hit that says DO NOT SPRAY PARTS UNTIL SHINY! A little to late! Too much phosphate will cause a frost. Great, why didn’t I find this before. So I decided that I needed to sandblast again to remove the phosphate.

Still with me? Are you asleep by now. Remember, I thought I was going to sandblast 1 time, by now I have about 1/3 of my media left in the bucket. So this time, I figured I needed to recover the media because I knew I did not have enough. So I used a 5 gallon bucket turned about 30 degrees to catch my media, I am now concerned that I do not have a enough media and I need to sandblast my whole gun. WOW, I believe I retained 90% of the remaining media and it still looked pristine. I learned how to spray at lower air pressures and half trigger, and hardly to no back splatter. I still recommend the face mask. By now my paper air respirators are trash, and don’t really work. But my redneck sandblast unit works great.

Now I am ready for the aqueous solution boiling again. This time, I used a portable stove that I used for camping and boiled my parts outside in the garage. Yea, no more couch. However, this time, I must not have got a true 50/50 solution, because within minutes after the parts were boiled and then dried, my parts developed a light orange frosty rust. Thank goodness I recovered my sandblast media, or I would be out. So back to the sand blast I went. I am a pro now at sandblasting, and I have an ad on Craigslist will sandblast for small parts for a small fee (just kidding).

After sandblasting, this time, instead of boiling the parts with simple green, I went straight to using compressed air to blow the parts free from media and using Acetone. Now I am ready for the phosphate again. This time, after googling how to apply phosphate, found a good hit at AR15 forum, that said light mist is all that you need. So about 24†away, proceeded with a light mist. The parts, when dried had a funky pattern like a splatter. Read some posts that gunkote hides the patterns, so I didn’t sweat it. Finally I am ready for the paint. Thank goodness.

Cleaned the spray gun using Acetone, check. Shook the Gunkote can for 5 minutes, check. Parts ready for paint, check. Spray…….Well I must be tremendously rusty with spraying, because I believe I dumped my 4 oz of Gunkote in manner of seconds. Yep, gone! I am out of Gunkote and my Sig and little parts are about 50% painted. GOOD GRIEF!!! Well some of the smaller parts are coated, and the Gunkote did not cover up the phosphate pattern!!!! I can still see the phosphate splatter pattern. Oh yea, the color I chose was Satin Black after reading several posts that said the Sig P226 and Gunkote Satin Black was an exact match. Of the parts that were coated, they appeared to look very shiny and glossy, not like my other newer Sigs. GOOD GRIEF!!!! Maybe this do it your self kind of buy needs just to quit!!!

What to do? Well I am a stubborn do it your selfer regardless of cost, so how else will I master this task. Read many more forum posts, and re-ordered the Gunkote, but did not order any phosphate this time. I did order 4 oz satin black and 4 oz flat black, found a post of a guy who had the same shiny problem that I did, and said that mixing the two colors 50/50 works great. Ordered a cheap airbrush gun from Amazon for $9 delivered. Ordered more media, just in case, this time found a vendor on Ebay that sold it for $20 less than northern tool. They actually shipped it by air from Washington state to East Tennessee at no additional cost, what a deal.

Are you with me? Are you still there? Sand blasted the gun again to remove the previous paint. If you are keeping up, this is sandblast #4. The markings are still legible, the serial number deep, so no problem yet. This time cleaned the gun using acetone only. Oh by the way, DO NOT LEAVE PARTS LYING AROUND FOR KIDS TO TOUCH, OH LOOK DADDY YOUR PART. Good grief, now I have to clean again!!!! Its important once sandblasted, no human hands touch the parts due to skin oil residue. Oh if I haven’t mentioned it, DO NOT SAND BLAST THE INSIDE OF YOUR GUN BARRELL. Fortunately, I did not, but I did find a post or two that other brainiacs like me did, and the gun never shot accurate again. I discovered on my own if you use ear plugs, the $0.99 per pack ear plugs, the ones you roll up in to a cone works great. Just roll and insert in each end of the barrel. You can even run the hanging wire through the barrel and use the ear plugs to close off the barrel and it does not effect the wire in any way.

The parts are ready for paint. I am going to skip the phosphate this time. I decided its just not for me or this gun. I will tackle phosphate on the next gun. Using my new airbrush gun, 50/50 satin and flat black paint, I started spraying. WOW! The color does look good and what wanders an airbrush gun has over a large traditional automotive spray gun. And yes, 4 oz is enough and then some. The parts look great, no runs and the color is very close match to my one of my new P220 Sig. Now the oven. Oh by the way, I probably know why my toaster over was at the Habitat store. It will not recognize 325 degrees. If you set it at 325, it keeps going and going. I did buy one of those independent temperature gages since most people say you can not trust the temp setting. Well you can’t trust my little habitat oven, it may say 325, but my handy independent gage says 600 degrees. GOOD GREIF!!! Anyway, I had to monitor the temp and open and close the door to keep it between 325 and 400. One hour later, you heard of Glock Perfection, Now I have Sigfection, the way it ought to be done. Maybe I need to copyright that or make a T Shirt!!!

Now I am going to let it cool for 24 hours, then its assembly time. Oh, during the assembly process, I ended up with a part missing. After looking for the part for an hour, did I lose it in the sandblast storm? Well finally found it under my workbench. Remember, Daddy I like your gun parts. One of the kids must have picked up a part and dropped it on the floor. Good grief, I have to get the paint, airbrush, and paint a pin. Then bake a pin. Good grief.

The morale of the story, if you are a do it yourself kind of guy, and you lack sound judgment and wisdom, maybe this tale will discourage you from Gunkoting your gun, or just maybe I will save you much agony with my own experience. Looking back, the process was very challenging and fun. I admit my gun turned out 110% better than I thought it would. I did test my wife to pick it out form a line up of guns. Of course she is not a gun person, and she actually failed the test. I had two like new Sigs, P220 and P229, and this newly painted Sig P226, she chose the P220 because she said it looked a little flatter than mine. Wow I fooled someone. Maybe Gaston Glock gurus will pick out the flaws, but for my first, it was a great seriously looking new kinda of gun.

I now consider myself a wise gunkoter. I will never re-coop the cost of this 1^st gun coating in terms of cost and labor, but the experience is PRICELESS! I will paint again, my next goal is a P6 or P225, in poor shape. The kids will not be allowed in the garage next time.

[peejman]

Sounds like fun. Also sounds exactly like how it would go if I tried that. After the 1st sand blasting, you could switch to plastic media which does a good job of removing paint without eroding the surface. You must have some experience with blasting... most people would've blasted a hole in the part by the 3rd round.

[kckndrgn]

WOW, what a story. I thought about trying my hand at it but just don't have the extra funds for the sandblasting, along with the extra time. Someday maybe.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Thanks for the good yarn. Sounds like it turned out good, fun, educational, and perhaps better/quicker than my typical DIY projects.

[TGO David]

I always had a lot of fun when I was doing this. A media blasting cabinet is the only way to go as far as I'm concerned. If you do enough of them, you're going to want to build a purpose-built oven for it as well. I never got quite that far but was almost to the point of building one. Had I needed to do any shotgun or rifle barrels, I most certainly would have.

You should give Norrell's Moly Resin a try sometime too.

[runco]

Thanks for the replies. No I do not have any experience with Sandblast, just know enough to not blast through metal plus I used ~40lbs psi. I do have some before and after pics (I did buy some later oem grips, I just like the later plastic grips than the others):

http://http://

[Guest pfries]

Looks great,

and I am with you it's all in the journey not in the goal.

Great read too.

[gunrunner32]

Great read, I'm glad I've never had any of those problems aside from the occasional "missing part". My daughter doesn't go in the garage when I'm working. I did a P6 for my wife, I got it for her as a mother's day gift and refinished it in titanium and black. It looks pretty damn cool now and she loves it, I still didn't get back my P226 though.

[Guest FIST]

I had a some what similar experience but with duracoat. I was on my second coat after all the prep and a bug landed on it. Cleaned and re-sprayed, let dry, looked like crap. Stripped and re-sprayed again the next day, and again a week later. My lesson learned was that coating a firearm is not for me. Congrats on a job well done though, that looks real nice.