I'm thinking about having my sgl 31 having Norrells Moly Resin over Park, is this a good finish near to that of the Russians?

Its better, but its even better over a Sand blasted surface (aluminum oxide).

Blast the metal, park it, apply moly resin and bake.

Outstanding finish! My favorite for the builds I did.

That is all I use any more.  It is really tough stuff, but it is also easy to touch up.

Big fan of moly resin here. Tough stuff and looks great. Performs really well over bare metal that has been sandblasted as a previous poster mentioned.

Adrock1

Would you say it is close to the Russian finish on the AK-74?

Anyone get work done at AZEXARMS.COM ?

I have a Romanian G rifle built by Mario at Piece of History Firearms and my finish is Moly over park. It is the nicest and appears the most durable of my AK rifles, far superior to any factory finish.

I've had a very simlar discussion with someone in the past, and I agree that the coatings on fresh park is better than just freshly blasted steel.  Park is a very porous surface with a microscopic "honeycomb" lattice like internal structure.  That is why park was first used as a military finish, because it holds oil much better than just steel alone.  For the same reason it also holds paint and coatings better and supposedly increase the coatings chip resistance.  The caveat being that thin old park that has been burnished through much use will have lost much of the advantage that fresh park has.

I've been wanting to ask, but since you brought it up, how does K-G GunKote compare to the Norrell's Moly Resin product?  I thought I read somewhere once that the moly in the moly resin gave it good dry lube properties but also detracted a bit from its toughness and therefore GunKote was cited as being the tougher of the two finishes.  Each having their own advantages, with Norrell's having the edge in lubricity and KG having the edge in wear.  Has anyone done a side by side on these two products?

Sorry Charly, but that is internet lore.

This is taken directly from John Norrell's website:

Refinishing Procedures

Pretreatment: All Metals
The surface of the parts to be coated should be clean and free of any oils, solvents, etc. Best adhesion is a freshly abrasive blasted surface using 60 to 90 grit aluminum oxide at 60 to 80 psi. Placing Moly Resin over other coatings or finishes may produce less than desirable adhesion, however, some existing finishes work fine. Glass bead airblasting polishes metal and may produce a surface poor for proper adhesion, therefore aluminum oxide in 60 to 90 grit is recommeded. Best cleaning methods appear to be soap and water; however, a chemical cleaning with MEK, acetone, etc. is also acceptable. The dullest finish for each color is achieved by abrasive blasting before coating. This will give the best coat bonding and adhesion, as well as, uniform texture. Sandblasting removes minor scratches and metal surface imperfections. You may have varied adhesion results over a blued finish as some are too smooth to allow proper adhesion. If you rough up or totally remove the blued finish with sandpaper, you may have acceptable adhesion. Chrome or nickel-plated parts should always be abrasive blasted for best adhesion. After sandblasting, rinse parts off with soap and water to remove sand dust and oil from the air compressor. In regard to air pressure used to abrasive blast the metal, use low pressure of 40 to 50 psi for aluminum and 60 to 80 psi on steel. For steel that is rusted, you may need to boost the pressure to 100+ psi, however, high air pressure over 80 psi with any abrasive media tends to crush and destroy the media and shorten it useful life.
That is why Kal-Guard, which makes a very similar product to Norell's Moly-Coat also sels a cold Parkerizing solution.  See the above link.

And Kg says:



And is why KG sells the K-phos.

In any event, you can believe as you wish, but working in an industry that uses, and having training in the application of, industrial coatings (non-firearms related) I'll stick with what I said earlier.

We were talking about MOLY RESIN, and if the application directions from the man who sells the stuff aren't sufficient for you to understand that a freshly sandblasted surface will offer the best possible adhesion for MOLY RESIN, then obviously nothing I could ever say will help.

Thanks for the spelling lesson, and enjoy your gun coat.

Coating adhesion requirements are pretty much the same regardless of manufacturer since the two products are very similar in composition and application.  A coating's adhesion is simply a factor of the anchor pattern provided by the substrate, and a fresh blasted and phosphated surface provides a superior anchor pattern than blasted steel alone.  I didn't see anything in the text you quoted from Norrell's that said anything against application over phosphate.

I did a little reading on Norrell's site and found this:



... on this page on their site.

In the text quoted in the earlier post the abrasive blasting recommendation is referring to bare untreated metals or metals with non-textured surface treatments such as blued or plated surfaces.  Park does provide an excellent anchor pattern for coatings and is in fact better that just blasted steel.  It is not internet lore, it is fact but you are free to believe as you wish and act accordingly.

HAHA!

Same web site


I believe thats enough to call

That's because you are drinking the park kool aid. Here's a hint: what about this line?

"Best adhesion is a freshly abrasive blasted surface using 60 to 90 grit aluminum oxide at 60 to 80 psi."

See, here's the thing, it's impossible to have a freshly abrasive blasted surface that has been parked, because then it's not a freshly abrasive blasted surface, it's a parked surface.

You park guys crack me up, you guys will go to your graves proclaiming the wonders of park, no matter what. If it rusts, "you didn't oil it enough"; if it's the wrong color, "it wasn't applied right," etc, etc.
If Micheal Jackson had had as good a promoter as the parkerizing process, then he would be president right now.
I've never needed any disclaimers or excuses with the moly resin finish because it just works. It's easy to apply, you almost can't screw it up, and it's fully cured in 1 hour, screw that 3 week crap with the other gun finish!

The bottom line is that park might have been the best finish in the past, but the moment John Norrell mixed his first batch of moly resin, park became #2.
But please feel free to spend time and money parkerizing your parts prior to applying moly resin, just know that the finish on my "sandblast only" rifles is still going to last longer



He just throws that in there because unlike me he is smart enough to not argue with you "park" guys.
What's the very next sentence? I even highlighted it for you. Why would you spend extra money parkerizing when anybody with a 5th grade reading level can clearly see that he gives much more weight to using.... what?...
a freshly abrasive blasted surface

That's it. Class dismissed

I have owned both....  And i have seen bare metal that has been sandblasted w/ aluminum oxide....  Yeah, i also don't send my rifle off to have it applied.  Hands on experience is a bit better than trying to interpret a web site.

I was speaking of "fact" in regard to the relative anchor patterns of parked steel as compared to bare blasted steel.  

If you that doubt were to look at both surfaces under a microscope it would become readily apparent.  Blasted steel is just peaks and valleys and just looks much like a rugged mountain range under magnification.  Phosphated steel on the other hand has an open matrix type of lattice structure that provides a great deal more surface area and areas for mechanical "lock" than blasted steel.

The quote you posted is simply a testimony to the corrosion resistance of the product.  It is in no way a comparison of the two surface preparation methods.

Like I said before I do have just a little knowledge of the subject.  Industrial coating application is just one of the many things that I oversee on a daily basis in my day job and I do have a NACE background with training dating back for over 10 years.

Fo those that don't know, NACE stands for the National Association of Corrosion Engineers.

I'm not a park fanboy.  Phosphated steel has its place and purpose but bare park alone isn't very good for anything other than holding oil.  It holds oil better than just abrasive blasted steel though.  And the same is true of coatings that are thin enough to take advantage of its lattice structure before solidifying.

I never said that Moly Resin on fresh blasted steel wasn't good.  It is.  I was simply saying that Moly Resin over park being better wasn't just internet lore as Mr. iamgOku so rudely asserted.  Either one will work I have no doubt so I don't guess I understand all the hoopla.  

The various statements about the properties on bare steel have no bearing on the subject so I simply found and posted the direct quote from Norrell's site as a counterpoint to the irrelevant one posted by iamgOku.

Everyone can take it all for what they will.  I really don't care.  I use my knowledge to my own advantage and I'm willing to share it with those that care to listen, but it really is no skin off my back when others choose not to learn from or listen to others that may actually know something more than they do themselves.

To each their own, I suppose.  I come on forums to learn and help others when I can offer something.  I don't come here to prove who has the bigger dick.  

 You contradict yourself with every opportunity.

NACE   looks like a professional organization for the application of........ well nothing that deals with any of the products or services at hand.

Maybe its time for some UPTRAINING  

I'll just stop there...  Yeah, this forum is filled w/ a lot of know it all and Fanboys.  Apply the finish the way you want to.  Having the actual experience of applying both methods myself is enough for me.  So good luck OP.

Edit:  i wanted to add that my Cyber Penis is quite small, girls laugh at me

Parkerizing is the best base for a paint finish.



 

I agree, but MR is not a paint finish

True. Moly is much better on park because of it: moly's flow under heat causes it to permeate the park lattice, giving better adhesion.  I don't park, but have used moly, teflon/moly, Dura and GK over factory applied and fresh park and hard coat anodizing.

You don't have an argument, simply a non-contextual source.  Mr. Norell is responsive to email, as is Jim Fuller with Rifle Dynamics.  You could submit the question, in context, and post the response(s).

To each thier own...

It's still a spray and bake finish, though.



 

There's one and only one reason why I believe park to be inferior to a freshly sandblasted surface, and that is it's surface hardness.
Park is soft, so who cares if it makes a pretty crystalline structure. Sure, that structure is great for holding oil, but it's a soft layer between the hard steel and the (relatively) hard moly resin.

Read what real materials engineers say about park (manganese phosphate)

They say it's so soft, it's hardness is basically unmeasurable. Do you really want that between your rifle and your finish? Sounds like a good way to experience flaking to me.

But do what you want, I've made my point here. If it gives you a warm fuzzy feeling to spend more money parking your parts, far be it from me to stop you. I know my rifles are covered.

I guess it helps if you actually read what the engineers say :

FYI- you can only pencil test moly resin as well, it won't rate an RC/similar, so you point is...?

all my rifles (save for wife's purple tantal) are moly over park.  hers is duracoat over park.

no finish issues with any of them, and i'm not kind to them.

Here's what Molyresin looks like over parkerizing. Blasted with 80 grit AlOx before parking. 50-50 blend of Norell's flat and semi-gloss black. Appliled in 3 very light coats on hot (150 degree) metal straight from the oven using a HVLP sprayer. Cured for 1 hr at 300 degrees.

As compared to true AK-74 Russian finish, it's a reasonably good match in terms of blackness and gloss finish... However, the teflon/molybdinum in the finish makes it flow very smoothly into the parkerizing and thusly when it's cured it has a more smooth texture than a true modern Russian finish applied at the Izhmash factory. All-in-all, I'd say it's the finest finish you can apply to a firearm, but maybe not the most perfect match. IMO (and I have pretty high standards), it's "good enough" as a match for modern Russian finish (AK-74 included).

Look at the photos and decide for yourself.

http://www.avtomats-in-action.com/pro26.html

THirtycal

Great looking rifle!  Thanks for the pics and write-up.

I have used Norrells to finish many a ak, best results have been over a well parkerized base.

Parkerizing will form in all the nooks and crannies too. The moly just won't coat everything. It won't get into the nooks and crannies like the park does. So if you park then paint, you get the benefit of the park to hold an oil film in places the moly doesn't reach and coat well.

Here's one I built. Semi gloss moly over park. Iron Wood beech stock set too.



I've used moly on my projects for three years. In my experience it does work best over a parked surface. Excellent wear resistance.

Personally, I don't care what those directions say about it. I have done it both ways and seen how it works over the years. Park, then paint is best.

YMMV.

OK, y'all can get back to bickering now.

Nice rifle!

Every rifle he's built is just as incredible, that much I can vouch for.