This is the next of my 22LR for its makeover.
My backyard fun gun ๐, built two years ago and has been shot a lot but its time it gets a makeover.
First, I need to remove all the old paint. I painted this one with rattle can paint so it should be easy to remove.
Here is what was used for removing paint. Turns out it was harder to remove than I first thought.
I am leaving the stick-on grips on to protect the area I will be stippling.
Polished up with some homemade plastic restore.
I use different bristle bushes, course and soft.
The reason for using cone brush and wheel brush,
is because removing scratches you have to constantly be
going over other scratches in an opposite direction.
If you keep going over and over scratches in the same direction as the scratch it causes dips in your finish.
I will not get my final finish till I have finished all the custom work, this way if I scratch something I am doing more sanding any way and not a big deal.
I am sure you guys know what a magazine end plate looks like and how they just slide on, so I'll skip to why I am hacking this one up. This build is an Advantage Arms 22LR conversion kit. The magazine end plate is narrower than a standard Glock and I cannot find an extension for it, so I bought one for a Glock 26. There is just enough room to make it fit over the end plate of the AA magazine. With an assortment of tools, I was able to remove the slide on tabs with a little more stock out of the sides to fit over the end plate.
I used some Loctite 380 to secure the new end plate to the standard plate. It doesn't really fit, see the gap between the new extension and the pistol grip? It interrupts the eye flow for how the deferent lines meet, so I will have to fit it.
Another problem I have with the new magazine extension is the tab thing on the front of the pistol grip. Like what's is it made for, what is its purpose? Whatever, it has to go.
Another thing that will have to be fixed is the hole in the grip. I will fill it in and sand it smooth.
SO, the plan here is to use clay to form a mold to hold JB Weld.
Clay works great for this, it doesn't dry out, easily molded,
and JB Weld doesn't stick to it. It cleans up easy with K-1 or mineral spirits.
I make sure that there is plenty of JB Weld to sand and shape. I use a 360-desk vise to hold the magazine, this lets me keep turning it, so the LB Weld will not run off or make one big drip. Just keep turning it controlling the flow until it starts to set
While setting and turning the magazine I started working on something new I want to try out on this build, pearl inlay. This is another reason I left the stick-on grip on, so I can use it as part of my form to hold in the pearl. I took some jewelers files and started making a groove.
I will keep adding stuff as i go but these summer builds take longer, just don't have as much inside time to work on them.
Got back into the shop to finish up this frame I started earlier this year.
I painted the frame with the inlay masked off. Then I used a satin clear coat to give the pearl a satin finish. This is one thing you have to plan for using epoxy pearl. It has a dull finish and has to be polished or as I did, just use a clear coat.
I have to repaint the slide. for some reason the paint started to peel off. My guess is I didn't cure it long enough. This is my backyard shooter, that I did a hurry up stipple job to finish this build up so I can get ready for my winter build. This was a learning build. How can I use pearl inlay on plastic grips. Now I can take what I learned into the next build, I think you guys will find it interesrting.
Summer is all most over and I can get back into the shop and finish up this makeover.
I have to work on the trigger in one of the 22LR G19s too. Big plans for new winter builds, a CL and 17L. My plans are something new that I haven't tried yet. Walnut grips on a polymer frame.
We will see if I can pull this off but one way or another I will keep you all posted on how I do it but first I need ot finish up this little makeover and a Shockwave I need to dress up with some accessories. As we have all hear before I'll Be Back soon ๐
I haven't stop building, I am so bussy right now with some honey dos and my garden is coming in, so the next few weeks I'll be canning veggetables for up coming year.
But the next step in this build will be doing paint on the frame. I really want to see how the pearl is going to turn out.
I finally had some time to get back to this build.
I am able to remove the end plate to make it easier to sanding and blending.
Still needs some fine tuning but all said it turned out better then leaving it.
Now it has a solid look that lets your eye flow without stopping at the miss matching mag extension.
I'll do some mome blending and sanding after I complete the pearl inlay on the grip.
I will do some stippling on the mag extension to match the grip at the end of my build.
I filled in the hole in the butt end of the frame with JB Weld. What I did to keep JB Weld from running down the hole, I made a wooden plug that fit just far enough down to hold about a 1/4 inch of LB Weld.
The next big project on this build is doing the pearl inlay.
My plan is to do a gold outline on the boarders. (A) I have to cut at least 1/16-inch-deep grove to hold the pearl inlay. From doing my tests on how I could do this, I found that in order to have a secure hold the inlay needs to have a rough bottom with sides for it to hold, so you can see I have started to cut my inlay boarder with the frame being one side and the stick-on grip stuff as the other. I will do another stick-on grip on top to give me my 1/16th depth I need. This will allow me to sand down the pearl inlay to the height I need to match the frame. The stick-on grip also protects the grip area I intend on stippling in the future.
The (B) area I plan on doing a Hawk head like the one on my PF9ss build with the painted head.
This time I am going to use white pearl inlay with the Hawk head detail being painted on with glossy black. The thing about inlay powder is, it has a dull look after sanding. The way to bring that shinny gloss look back is to polish it or use a gloss clear coat. My plan is to sand and polish and then do a gloss clear coat on the whole build except for the stippling area.
The way I cut my inlay boarders are with small jeweler's files. I clean up my edges with some very small diamond burrs and I clean up corners with small carbine burr.
Remember how I say you have to plan out your steps in doing custom work? Well, this is one that I really had to think about, because you have to sand down the pearl inlay, I have to do this before painting and before final sanding. This is going to make it harder to paint because I have to mask off the inlay to keep paint from coving it up. being so small with radius corners this will be a challenge for sure.
Are you still going to be able to remove the magazine end plate when it's done?
Outstanding I like the idea of using the grip extension the way you did also I'm with you on the little tab thing on the front of the SC I cut mine off also.