painting your front sight ?

R

rebs

New member
I have been thinking about nail polish to paint my front sight, but if I had to take it off, would nail polish remover hurt the bluing ?
I have also thought about using model paint, the kind for painting model cars and airplanes.
If it was painted with regular paint, would turpentine or mineral spirits hurt the bluing ?
What do you guys use ?
 
I have used both with no drawbacks. I use and carry my guns alot and the paint needs touching up a couple times a year. I have used carberator cleaner to soften up the paint when I want to go back to blue with no damage.
 
I just bought a Ruger MKIII Target and the front sight was invisible at the indoor range where we shoot most. So looked at the Glow-On stuff and was ready to order some but I happened to be at Wal-Mart and saw Plaid Folk Art Glow acrylic paint. It was 59 mL for <$2.00 vs 2.3mL for ~$10 + S&H . It is phosphorescent but I'm sure the Glow On product is 1000x better. My daughter and I agree that the orange was a big help on our last trip to the range. I only did this a week ago so I can't really give you a durability report.

FWIW I taped all the surfaces I didn't want to get paint on then painted the sight with white nail polish. When that was dry I used a toothpick to put a very thick drop of acrylic on the sight. The MKIII sight is wide, very angular and held the paint well while standing on the barrel to dry overnight.
 
I have done a couple of my bottom feeders and I do all of my snubbie sites with bright neon orange and hi viz yellow nail polish I stole from my wife when I saw how bright it was. It was $4.00 for both containers at Wal Greens. It is ultra bright, extremely easy to pick up and aim against backstops, and extremely hard and durable. It has made a big difference on my auto loaders and a massive difference with my snubbies. I highly reccomend it. The nail polish I use is called Sinful Colors Professional #53 Summer Peach and #56 Neon Melon. They are as bright as any paint I have found and its only $1.99 per color at Walgreens. I tape off and take the brush out, wipe it clean, cut it at an angle, brush a light coat on and let it dry, then put a second light coat, once that is dry I put a heavy coat and let it dry overnight, I take an exacto blade and very lightly trace the tape and then take remove the tape and clean up any excess with a q tip and brake parts cleaner. A few days of wearing in and its very hard. My 5906 has been done for over a year and I havent had to touch them
up and my EDC snubby is going on 4 months in and out of various holsters and cleanings and they are still the same as the dayli did them.
 
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I use Testers model airplane paint. I tried orange but it doesn't stand out well in low light to my eyes. I found that white gave me the best contrast.
 
Yep I put yellow model paint on my revolvers. A brass brush will take it right off. I also putting a coat of white paint down then the yellow. As someone else posted, the white reflects the yellow (or which ever color) better then the blue or black of the fixed sight. I use a tooth pick to apply the paint.
 
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I use Testors chartreuse or yellow.
My Son did a couple of his pistols with luminescent jighead paint and they do glow for a while after lighting them up with a flashlight.
 
I've painted the sights on all our .22 pistols (including the wife's on her demand), her CHL (again at absolute demand...noticing a trend here?), my Kimber and a .22 rifle. The rear sights wear on her .22, but the sight on Kimber has been unchanged for about 3 years now.
 
Using paint, nail polish, etc is too easy to wear or flake off. Get some acrylic (the same stuff ladies get their fingernails done with) and insert it into the sight. You can use a touch of pigment to make it any color you want and it is permanant. It's easy to do for even a hobby gunsmith, and it looks professional.
 
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