You may notice our FDE slides are missing the FDE coating in some areas. We did this intentionally, and here’s why:

All spray-on finishes add material to all surfaces they’re applied to.  The thickness of that coating varies based on a multitude of factors. To prevent the FDE coating from affecting the fit between parts, we opted to mask our slides before coating to keep the finish off the more critical surfaces. 

What this means for you is that all of the parts you need to install into your slide will fit as desired without you having to scrape the finish off areas of the slide. 

How we achieved the masking so precisely: 

We developed a series of 3D Printable Paint Masks, which install into the slide similarly to how the functional components install — they lock in place and allow our Cerakote vendor to freely apply the finish without having to worry about avoiding critical areas we don’t want the finish applied to. 

Once the slide is assembled and installed onto a frame, the end user should not see any uncoated surfaces.