Friday 10 October 2014

Silencer Painting

A while ago I ordered some bits and pieces from an online airsoft shop. Among them was a silencer I thought might look nice on the AUG. It wasn't quite what I expected, though. The shop picture and description said it is all black. It wasn't.

Seriously? The text is possibly one of the most childish things I've seen in a long while. Want to come across as a try-hard operator? We have just the thing for you.

As you might imagine, I wasn't too happy with what I got, and it got even worse. I wrote a polite complaint email to the shop, only to be told that "[...] we want to report That mistakes in product description and photos it can not be basis for complaint. [...]" So apparently you're buying blind and can get whatever sorta kinda maybe looks like it does in the pictures but not necessarily. Some back and forth later I still could not get a straight answer whether or not they'd be paying for return shipping so I just decided to drop it and not shop there ever again. You'd expect a shop that sells and ships internationally to manage to employ people with the ability to construct comprehensible English sentences (or even a simple apology), but that apparently isn't the case.

I turned my fuming into productive energy by taking the silencer apart and sanding down the text parts. I started with a 600 grit paper and finished off with 1200 to smooth it down.

The end caps screwed off and the foam-spring insert removed

A simple piece of steel wire, a screw and a cardboard box made for a pretty good painting set-up.



Three thin spray paint layers later I was pretty happy with the end results. I allowed it to dry overnight and then reassembled the pieces.

The end caps are the original colour, but the difference is quite unnoticeable under natural light conditions

Nothing super special here naturally, but I thought I'd still document this thing. Too many times I've messed up painting something by applying too thick coats and then have the paint run. Patience is definitely key.

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