Killer Beautiful .45 Grip Screws U Can Do It!

[QKShooter]

Your FIRST Home Gun Smithing Job!
Here is a little tiny, easy, "home gun smithing" job that you cannot mess up.
It works always works great.
If you own a Dremel tool then you can DO this!
You have spent lots of dollars on those BEAUTIFUL exotic wood or ivory grips or whatever grips...BUT, your factory grip screws look like Ka~Ka.
Even the brand new screws you bought don't look that great.
Use the 1/8" collet in your Dremel. Carefully push your grip screw down into the 1/8" open collet & just barely snug it up and you will not damage your grip screw threads at all.
Turn on your Dremel & press a small piece of 3M "Wet Or Dry" Silicon Carbide paper onto the face of your spinning grip screw.
Depending on how bad your screws are...start with about 320 or 400 paper & work your way finer to at least 600 grit or even all the way to ultra fine 1500 paper.
Stop & start your Dremel as often as you like to check your progress.
Do all 4 screws exactly the same way though.
Carefully remove each screw after you have Roto~Polished it without touching the face of the screw.
Then take an old needle nose pliers & lightly hold the screw by the threads. Don't squeeze!
I use a rubber band around the pliers handles & that is all the pressure you need just to hold the screw.
Then move the screw "screw face up" in & out of the flame of your gas stove or cook top.
If you have an electric cook top then touch the base of the screw to the red hot element.
Wave the screw in & out of the flame & you can watch your polished steel screw head slowly change colors.
The polished screw head will go from Pale Straw To Dark Straw To Light Brown & then start to turn a beautiful DEEP iridescent Blue then Deep Purple. Neat!
As soon as the screw has reached whatever desired color ~ you'll want either start blowing on it REAL HARD & QUICK or quickly quench it in distilled water.
Lastly...apply a light coat of oil.
Do all 4 screws & you now have 4 AMAZING LOOKING custom heat treated BLUE screws.
Ivory Grips and lighter wood grips look great with the golden brown screw color!
You cannot mess this up & they really compliment your custom grips.
If your grip screws are Stainless Steel then you can just give them a PERFECT "circular satin finish" or mirror bright finish & skip the heat treatment & the oil.
Let me know if you want photos but it's really simple to do.
Have Fun!

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[APachon]

:tuschel: pics would be nice... LOL

[Bumper]

Creative people. I can't relate. Let's see some pictures, QK

[QKShooter]

Me think me heap plenty tired now.

[acparmed]

1 suggestion here, as a former machinist when you quench the screws instead of distilled water use oil. It will make the molecules of the steel stronger, water will tend to crystallize the structure of the steel making it brittle. Though the grip screws will not undergo any stress per se why harm its structure?

Otherwise, I'm looking forward to the pics as well. Great post QK.

[Bud White]

Excellent post but wheres the pics ?

[Prospector]

Great tip QKShooter! That is just the kinda thing I'll try....one of those things that if you screw up...no pun intended....the remedy is cheap.

[QKShooter]

Sorry for the delay. My camera & the daylight are not up to snuff today.
My digital camera does not do Blue Purple metal too well as you can see.
The top row of 4 screws are the factory black oxide.
Below that are groups of screws ~ Factory ones on top & polished blued ones on the bottom.
The bright lines & spots are reflected light. They shine like opals!
I tried taking them outside and inside ~ cloudy day outside ~ artificial light inside. Hopefully you'll get the idea though. When it's sun pops out the reflections are too bright. Oh well Bad Photos Good Project!
The color of the ones I did is sort of like "butterfly wing blue & violet" they look yellowish with digital. SORRY!