Ok, so vapemail today brought our his/hers Tesla Nano 120s… they’re LOVELY. We absolutely adored our Tesla Punk (him) and Punk Mini (me)…there was literally nothing about them we didn’t like… but after about 6 mos or so, the finish started to wear through, right where we held the mod.
We’re lowish budget, we don’t have mod collections… usually just one or two for each of us, so they get constant use… makes sense the finish would wear based on how we hold em.
BUT it makes me freaking insane. lol I try to keep my stuff looking as nice as possible. I Used to make jewelry, and there’s all sorts of spray on seals/lacquers to seal metal products.
I wondered if anyone could suggest one in particular that’s good to seal finish on a mod? That way when they’re nice and brand spankin new, we can just mask off buttons/connections/screen, give it a spray, and the protective finish should make it stay nice much longer.
Anyone have anything they’ve used successfully?
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Avoid buying painted mods, they all have the same problem. Plastic and bare metal are the only things that stand the test of time.
The only painted mod I have that is reasonably holding out well is a Wismec RX2/3 but even that one wears the scars of time (it’s nearly 3 years old and was heavily used in its first 2 years) but it’s not at the point yet where it’s really bothersome.
Any fixes you will find are not permanent. I’ve looked around for long hours when my Hcigar (DNA) started to lose its paint but couldn’t find a solution that was fairly long lasting and easy to apply. Scraping off the remaining paint was the best looking, easiest and cheapest solution to having a presentable mod again. The HCigar paint was so bad I could just remove everything with my finger nail or a piece of hard plastic. For the parts that are difficult to remove, you may need some fine sandpaper and even to disassemble the mod to avoid damaging the screen and buttons.
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These are bare metal, but they’ve got a nice vintage finish over zinc… so the metal finish literally ‘wears’ down to the base metal, if that makes sense.
Replaced the ‘smushed’ photo with my vapemail photo, which is kinda fuzzy, but you get the idea… Bare solid metal.
Here’s the mod itself.
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I saw your post in the OV Group & wanted to say Hi 
And it’s a small world 
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Hey there! How cool! You’re the first person from OV that I’ve seen here. 
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I thought of that too but it would be a shame to hide that mod in such a sleeve.
You can get protective coatings for metal from amazon / most hardware stores but I have no experience with them and can’t vouch for it. The good ones (higher ratings/better reviews) aren’t all that cheap either.
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Lol Great minds. I already have the teal one in my cart at Ebay, just for banging around at home. But I do still want to seal the finish. I know there’s metal sealers… have a few good ones from my jewelry days, but they’re old enough that I’d want to buy new can. I’ll probably have to reapply it every few mos, just because the sealer will wear off with use just like the metal finish, itself.
@anon28032772 They’re not particularly inexpensive, but if memory serves, theres a LOT in one of those spray cans… certainly enough to seal our two Nanos a number of times, as well as more mods in the future. Sounds like I just need to buy one and try it and see what I see.
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In my past experience, placing any coating on metal other than chemically etching/electroplating is extremely temporary at best. If you still are interested in examining metal treatments without delving too deeply, might checkout consumer decorative coatings:
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Keep in mind the punk is already coated when looking for sealants.
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So far, I’m looking primarily at higher end/best quality Jewelry sealants, since they’re designed for use on metals already coated or with a patina added… basically what they do is prevent the decorative patina from degrading, and add a protective layer that stops oxidation, gives some protection against wear. No way really to use a straight up enamel, since those normally dont play nicely unless you’re looking at bare surface, which we aren’t in this case. I’ve done a bit of research… I’ll let you guys know how it goes.
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