Metal Spoons / Paint & Clear Coat

[Knockout]

Hello, I am new to this site this should be the first post of many from me.

I am currently working on creating some custom spoons for fishing on the great lakes, not alot of manufacturers make the colours or the quality of blade im looking for so I decided to make some myself.

I have made the tooling stamped out the blades and electroplated them silver, and copper.

Question and advice would be greatly appreciated on the following:

1. Surface preparation

a) for some colour combinations I have been told to use self etching primer in white colour any other suggestions?

b )for lures that I want the metal to show through and do some fades what should I do to prep the surface? I read to try 10% nitric acid with water soak for 10-20 seconds.

2. Paint Types

a) the only paint that I could find to do metal spoons was Vinyl Paint made by CSI Paints, any other choices out there?

b )issues with the vinyl it doesnt seem to get that hard, seems that I can mark it with my finger nail? Any ideas?

c) I spray the paint with airbrushes it was sugested to thin the paint to a 1 to 3 ratio. the thinner would be composed of 3 parts vinyl thinner to 1 part vinyl retarder. The mixture seemed to cobweb too much and dry before hitting the blade, I changed my mixture to 1 part thinner mix to 2 parts paint. This seems to be ok but it takes several coats to get the richness in colour that I like. Any ideas on mixing vinyl paints, with thinners and retarders for airbrushes would be great.

3. Air Pressure, I am not sure whats the correct air pressure to use with an airbrush, so far I have been using 45-50 psi it seems to be ok but I wouldnt know otherwise, any guidance to these issues would help.

4. Clear Coat, i read the other post but I didnt see much information on clear coats for airbrushes or vinyl paints. I currently have a vinyl based clear coat but to me it seems soft. Do you need to heat cure this type of paint? or how long does it need to dry?

5. Tip size I have 0.3 0.5 0.8 mm tips what should be used for what with these paints?

6. Making maskings for spoons, currently I have tried a few things, tape, paper, even using a dremel on a spoon and drill then laying it over top. I was thinking of vacuum forming sheets of polystyrene over some spoons then I could use an art knife to cut in patterns. Any ideas?

Does anyone else on here make metal fishing spoons?

Thanks in advance, hope thats not a question overload!