I wanted to see how much interest there maybe for a cerakote business doing only air cure. I’ve been doing air cure only cerakote for myself only for several years and I enjoy doing the work. I’m considering getting my FFL so I can do cerakoting on the side. I do not have an oven, but may move that direction in the future. I believe I can do air cure for much cheaper than traditional oven cure. I’m not sure what the cost would be as of yet.

So, is there a market for air cure only cerakote? If so, what would be acceptable cost for this service compared to traditional oven cure?

Please do not get this thread locked. Any responses or PM’s for any work will be ignored, I DO NOT HAVE AN FFL. My understanding is that cerakoting is gunsmithing and I will not do any work or discuss any work until I have an FFL.

Also, I have spoken to Arf staff about me posting this topic. I will not violate CoC for the site and will not take any work from the site until after my FFL is established and I have paid for and approved adds on ar15.com.

Never tried it just the traditional baked one. Mainly due to the air cure shipping cost being way fucking ridiculous vs. the the traditional baked version. Although for high heat stuff like a barrel or suppressor the air cure is better. Also I have only done my own stuff and a few things for friends. First attempt not to good some dry spray left a sandpaper texture on the piece. After adjusting it no more issues.

How long does it take to air cure?

I have two small stainless parts I want black. I looked at the air cure products on brownells and it takes a couple weeks for full cure. The quote I got for traditional cerekote was half the price of the part so I'll pass on that. Probably end up using spray paint

The manufacturer says it can be shipped in 24 hours and takes 5 days to fully cure. I have done several patterns that I usually have to wait an hour or so between colors, but that depends on the humidity.

Yeah I would think there would be a decent market for it, since guys are always trying to color match optics, polymer furniture, etc, to their blasters.  Having an option to Duracoat would be good, especially if it was as durable as Cera.  Personally I am not comfortable applying heat to optics and polymers, although others do.  But for the general public, I think having a coating where you can perfectly match all sorts of dissimilar materials/objects on a firearm would be a great advantage.

Not to mention not having to heat cure things.  This allows you to move away from harsh chemicals and the need for a good oven.  So more "green", less chemical exposure, more cost-effective all-around.  Why not.

I didn't think of the angle of color matching, but you are absolutely correct. Below is the first pattern I did for myself.

Yeah that was the reason I originally got into weapons coating with "Kal Guard" rattle cans (before they were "KG Gunkote"); you had these AR's with 10 different shades of grey parts; with the old "Kal Guard" you could get a consistent gray coating over the whole piece- steel bbl, and alum receiver parts.  The original formula was a nice match to early Colt park gray.

It was originally used by the motorcycle industry to coat exhaust systems and crankcases; we used to buy it from the local Kawasaki shop in San Diego.  The local Teams used it to coat their "CAR-15's" and MAC-10's for maritime ops.  That's how we found out about it.

So yeah, there's something to be said about getting a consistent finish across the board, especially nowadays with all the optics and furniture in play.

Nice job, BTW.

Interesting, thanks.