Posted: 2/27/2013 10:11:12 AM EDT
| Has anyone successfully done this at home? I watched the official video on youtube and the process seems pretty complicated. I guess I shouldn't be wondering now, I have 8 oz. of duracoat tactical black on the way from Brownells. I plan to duracoat over park next week. |
| Duracoat looks stupid simple, but I'm not going to underestimate the care that needs to be taken. I plan to duracoat 2 AK's, and then park and duracoat my PPSH/AK conversion. I've used gunkote with great success, but brownells is backordered on that and they been out of stock since late 2011. |
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Just like painting, its all about the prep work.
Take your time. Wait for degreaser and cleaning agents to dry thoroughly. Spray thin, even coats. Allow layers to dry thoroughly. Use someone elses oven or an old oven...your wife will have your head if not. Enjoy |
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I've done gunkote which is similar to cerakote. The baking as mentioned smells horrible.
On AKs, the rule was to sandblast, degrease, parkerize, degrease, paint, bake. The paints only hold up well if they have a good surface to bond to which is why parkerizing helped. It etches the metal. |
| I hate duracoat.....Cerokote on the other hand is butt ugly simple to use......clean with acetone....spray with a spray gun .....bake 3 hours at 250 if oven cure.....let it hang for 45 minutes if air cure.....the air cure will be dry to the touch and hard as nails in about 10 days.....both are exceptionally durable..... |
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Quoted:
I hate duracoat.....Cerokote on the other hand is butt ugly simple to use......clean with acetone....spray with a spray gun .....bake 3 hours at 250 if oven cure.....let it hang for 45 minutes if air cure.....the air cure will be dry to the touch and hard as nails in about 10 days.....both are exceptionally durable..... Yea, but they talk about soaking parts in the degreaser not just spraying them. I was afraid I wasn't set up for that. I hate painting stuff, I'd much rather be doing something else, almost anything else. Do you soak the parts or liberally spray them with degreaser. I planned on using brake cleaner, then pouring acetone over them before painting with Duracoat. Would that have been good enough for Cerakote? |
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Quoted:
Quoted:
I hate duracoat.....Cerokote on the other hand is butt ugly simple to use......clean with acetone....spray with a spray gun .....bake 3 hours at 250 if oven cure.....let it hang for 45 minutes if air cure.....the air cure will be dry to the touch and hard as nails in about 10 days.....both are exceptionally durable..... Yea, but they talk about soaking parts in the degreaser not just spraying them. I was afraid I wasn't set up for that. I hate painting stuff, I'd much rather be doing something else, almost anything else. Do you soak the parts or liberally spray them with degreaser. I planned on using brake cleaner, then pouring acetone over them before painting with Duracoat. Would that have been good enough for Cerakote? If you are doing multiple guns daily, spraying solvents is hazardous and expensive. I forget but I think its a can or two of brake cleaner per gun. The tanks are a safer, less wasteful, and effective way to degrease. I used - Brake cleaner - Cheapie portable sandblaster with regular old sand in it outside - HF Airbrush - Toaster oven or Propane smoker for curing. There's nothing they are doing in that video that makes the finish any better than my process.Their process is cleaner, faster, and more repeatable. |
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Prep work is the secret to both Duracoat and Cerakoting. Degrease, degrease, and degrease!
I have used both, both work very well. I have done more with Duracoat that Cerakote. Both hold up about the same if you prep properly, and follow the directions! Duracoat is a little easier to apply at home with an air brush, low volume spray gun, or a Preval Aerosol Sprayer and it is easier to work with if you are mixing colors or doing a multicolored job (ie. camo) If you go with Duraocat degrease, it loves a bead blast or light sand blast or parkerized surface. Let it dry fully before assembling - I have had great success letting it dry for a month + before assembling. With either product you can not go wrong if you plan you job, follow the directions, do ALL of the prep work, degrease fully and degrease again, tape/plug what you do not want to paint, and with both make sure the ambient temperature is above the recommended min. Take it easy M1S90 |
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I've never used cerokote but I've painted dozens of guns with Moly Resin. I have a process that has evolved over time that works very well. Here's how I do it.
Degrease with brake cleaner, then I heat the parts in the oven. My oven is very hot and the lowest setting is about 350. I let them get good and hot. I usually let the parts cool some before applying another brake cleaner application. If not the brake cleaner just atomizes. Heating the parts will help oil and solvents and such creep out of hard to reach places. I may or may not do a second heat and then degrease again depending on what I find in the bottom of the cookie sheet. Of course I wear rubber gloves during all of this to keep oil from your hands getting on the parts. Once the parts are properly cleaned I pre heat again. I also keep my Moly Resin in the refrigerator so I soak the bottle in hot tap water while preparing everything else. I keep the bottle in hot water and just refill my little spray bottle as needed. Also important is to shake the bottle really good before refilling. I've found the hotter the parts are during spraying the paint the better the finish, it also makes the finish much flatter black, same with Flat Dark Earth. In the beginning I painted my first round of AK's using semi gloss and it was very hard to get a nice even finish without the heat. I usually have lots of parts to do at once and use a cookie sheet with clean aluminum foil covering it. I take the whole cookie sheet of parts out on my back pouch and spray them one by one on a sheet of old plywood. Many times I'll also be doing a complete AK or AR barreled action which I hang using coat hanger hooks from the bottom of the oven rack. You have to take the flash suppressor off and hang at an angle in my oven. I usually paint a group of parts while others are in the oven. Then swap out, painted parts back in the oven to be heated again before painting another coat. All the parts are kept hot and usually 3 coats of paint applied. Then I bake all the parts for one hour at 350 and let cool. The next day I apply a heavy coat of motor oil and let sit usually a day or two. The really flat paint seems to absorb the oil and leave a really nice finish. One thing I forgot. In the beginning I sand blasted all of my AK kits but never did the AR's. Now I don't blast anything. If it needs cleaning up because of rust or something like that I use a wire wheel or brush and paint right over the existing finish and I think it seems to adhere better than after blasting. Like I said this process has evolved and some of the things I do I can't remember why I started doing that way but it works. Let me know if you have any questions and I hope this is helpful. |
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AK's are a PITA to prep........they continually bleed oil. Degrease thoroughly and then heat in the oven. This will bleed oil out of the pores, nooks n' crannies. Then degrease and heat in the oven again. Do this repeatedly until you get no more oil bleeding out at least twice in a row. Always seems to take me at least 3 runs through the oven 'til there's no more oil, and sometimes more.
I want mine done, but don't feel like doing it myself. I'll either take it to Accurate Ordnance or Spartan Armory and have them do it. Thinking of getting away from my normal color schemes......going with mud brown on the barreled receiver. Stock, pistol grip, forend and small parts will probably be matte black. |
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I had a setup for Cerakote but it was just too much of a PITA unless you do several guns a week. I ended up throwing it out after my HVLP sprayer broke and covered me in Cerakote. I wore matte black on my hands for about a month. Ill leave it to the pro's.
Rattle can Gun Kote (Brownells) is easy and durable though. I have done a few small projects with them with great results. |