I decided to put my pistol into its own thread!

DISCLAIMER! I did not make the pistol, I am just assembling and painting it. All credit for the making molding and casting goes to the fantastic Tactonyx.

+++
Final Draft
+++



+++
From this point on is the original post, I am editing in final pics because... Apparently some people do that? It is nifty so when I direct people to this thread, they can see the final draft, and then leaf through the brief worklog if they so desire.
+++

Here it is after receiving it, as well as my working stuff!


The first time priming it:


So there was a problem where the paint on some spots on the pieces were not curing at all, after several days. There is a problem with this plastic where sometimes oils get into the plastic I guess. I found this out after sanding, priming, and painting it a second time. I have to bake the gun to extrude the oils, which requires I strip the paint off. Here it is after I sanded it a third time (I lightly sanded it the first time also). I realize I missed the detail areas in the slide and the silencer, there were some problem areas that refused to take paint before, I made sure I heavily sanded all of them before baking the piece. The detail areas in the slide and the silencer were taking paint, so I didn't bother digging in to sand the paint off them before the bake. The worst offenders were the handguard, the rear sight, all of the smartscope, the little block part of the pistol (that rectangular piece that's on its own) and the sides of the scope.


The oven! Bake time.


After baking them for four hours at 170F, I let them sit in corn starch for an hour to suck the oils off them.


Sadly, the pistol bubbled in the bake process. I don't know if it will affect the strength of the piece or not.


The final results? The baking worked VERY well, almost all of the problem areas were fixed, though as you can see, it was at the cost of the grip of the pistol. I didn't look too hard for more bubble spots. The smart scope and the silencer still have some un-curing spots still, but they're substantially smaller than before, small enough I could probably pass them off as battle damage areas by carving them a bit.