What is the best way to color stainless steel?

[Kusokow]

Hi, I have a couple stainless steel bodies that I would like to color black. What is the best way to turn it from silver to black? thanks in advance.

[C_losjoker]

Powder coat or cerakote. oh duracoat too, several guys here have done it themselves and say it is easy, very good stuff.

[Cokrkilr]

3m vinyl wrap, not permanent, 100's of colors and patterns.

I did my body in cf 3m. I cut it about an inch long, flipped the feed neck down on the back and traced the feed tune, razor blade the hole out and test fit it around the body. Trim as needed to cover the circumference of the body and then apply it. Use a sharp razor blade on the body ends at 45* angle to bevel the vinyl back and not overhang the ends( it will peel if.you dont do that step. Takes 10 minutes and less than that to peel it off and try a new color next year.

And it's super cheap for more than you can use on 20 guns.

My $.02

[Henchman]

Or use real carbon fibre.
I did on one of my mags.
I had used the 3m stuff before. Then replaced it with real CF.

[Cokrkilr]

Yeah real cf would be sweet!

[Henchman]

Doing real CF isn't even that hard.
I did it this week on a ULE body and some grips.
It takes longer, because you have to let the resin dry between coats.
But I didn't find it harder to do than the 3M.
You can buy a kit for $40 that will give you way more than you need.somyou can do more arts when you want. You'll have to buy same sandpaper andy listing crime on top of the kit as well. But I ie it way better than the 3M stuff.

Here's the mag I did:


Untitled by markwhensley, on Flickr

[OPBN]

^^^ Might be a neat option for grip panels.

[Henchman]

^^^ Might be a neat option for grip panels.

I did the grip panels as well

[keiko_819]

if you dont want permanent color try out some plastidip...i just did one of my minimag bodies, ill post up pics later once it dries, just dont know how durable it will be but ive seen people do cars with this stuff...

[Freedy500]

The vinyl stuff is great. That is what my mag and some Qpods have been covered in for several years.

[Cokrkilr]

Plastidip seems pretty durable, might show some abuse in areas of the body that get a direct hit with a pb. But I don't know for sure. I do know that the black stiff fades to a brownish color after a while...

[keiko_819]

so i did this stainless minimag body, it isn't super smooth but im happy with it, my bro did his mask in olive green and it looks good also...the cool thing about the plexidip is if you dont like it you could just peel it off. its flexible and comes in tons of colors...

[Justus]

How thick is that stuff? Does it mess with tolerances, and/or did you mask off where the body meets the rail?

[Henchman]

How thick is that stuff? Does it mess with tolerances, and/or did you mask off where the body meets the rail?

Yes, I masked it off where the body meets the rail. As I figured it would mess with tolerances.

[keiko_819]

if your asking about the plastidip i did not mask off the rail where it meets the body, it comes in an aerosol can so you use it like spray paint...after it dried i just took a razor blade and cut where the two meet and it came off pretty clean, the stuff pulls off like latex so if you dont like how it looks you could peel it right off(which i did to the rail)