I agree with Scott mostly. But also remember he's playing with MGCs and real Mausers. He has a big bucket of Denix Mausers in his bathroom that he wipes his butt with and throws them away. Sure he has a great blaster collection but I wouldn't want to do his laundry.
Anyhow... When it comes to the paint on a Denix, it is not as nice as the finish on a MGC or real broom handle. It's not bad as is, but if you do want to paint over it I just don't trust it. I remember you could easily scratch off the paint with a fingernail. It's not something I would trust a layer of paint over, but that's just me. I think a little rubbing with some steel wool to get the day loose stuff off would be good enough.
Also,,,, Bobadebt has had good results with simply patching up exposed metal of the Denix with just Aluminum Black. This way you do not have to do a coat of paint or remove the original paint.
Let's go back to what Scott is saying. Don't overthink it but I also think you have to look at each blaster as figure out what the prop make was thinking. When I look at The Empire Strikes Back blasters, it looks like they built it then paint the whole thing because the body, scope, and scope mount all look the same type of black. When I look at the Return of the Jedi blaster. To me it looks like they painted the add on parts that were not black prior to assembly like the side doo-dads and the scope mount. The black finish of the scope, scope rings and gun's body all look like the natural finish of the found items. That's my take away. But I will say that people like Scott have been staring at these props a long time. He and Marcus are my go-to guys when I have detail questions and I put my trust in him to do my GK Blaster build.
Lastly, I would not ever do a clear coat unless I was doing a pristine build and wanted to protect it from wear.
