Purchased a Cerakote handguard from Aero. Already seeing some finish wear from installation, and in a few spots from a brass punch barely touching it. With anodizing it would pretty much shrugs off any minor contact with brass/wipes off.

An AR/AK is a tool so I don't really care, but honestly at the end of the day cerakote is just paint.

Are there any cleaners or solvents I should avoid?

Sounds like crappy cerakote job. I have done several and no issues with any of them. No scratches or anything. As far as cleaning solvents if it was done right then there should not be any issues.

Thanks, and it looks like I posted in the wrong forum.

But the same still applies for an AK.

Oh get this the aluminum under it is bare.

I heard ideally it's done over Parkerizing/Anodizing.

I've heard that it doesn't like to stick to smooth surfaces. Supposedly it's really best if it's applied over Parkerizing (not sure why autocorrect just capitalized that...) or that kind of rough chalk board like anodizing.

Also not a replacement for anodizing on aluminum in my opinion. Are you sure it's not clear coat anodized underneath? It's pretty easy to tell if you get a little needle file, it should skate right over it. Anodizing doesn't actually have a color. After they anodize, they dunk the part in a vat full of dye. Some complex chemical process I don't understand sets it permanently. But the dye has nothing to do with the surface hardness. You can skip it completely. It's just an aesthetic thing.

Yeah it's just bare aluminum under it. Read a few threads about it on here. Kind of a bummer. Just glad I didnt also order an upper and a lower just to find that out.

Hopefully their receivers, especially the lowers, aren't just cerakote over bare aluminum. That wouldn't be cool at all.

Yep the material needs to be scuffed up before you Cerakote. I don't have a sand blaster so I scuff it up with high grit sand paper and have never had any issues.

Here is the last lower I did.
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.22 AR I did for my daughter.
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