cerakote air dry versus oven cure

[floormat1957]

I have been looking at coatings that I can do myself rather than having someone else do it for me. I see that Cerakote has an air dry product and an oven cure product. From the comments I read on here, lots of folks really like the cerakote products.

My first question is using these products, is their much difference in the quality and the durability of the two?

I also read where a lot of you are really impressed with black ice. How do cerakote and black ice compare? Which is more durable and is it a process that you can do easily yourself or is it better left to a professional?

Are there any other coatings that I should research in your opinions?

Thanks for your answers and advice.

[Deleted]

Black Ice is a Teflon coating and professionally done...HillBill sent my new build to them last week...their prep work has a great rep. The Teflon coating makes the action smooth as silk and requires no lubricant....This will be a first for me but I have seen all good reviews about their coating....Cowhunter did some cerakoting recently and could give you some info on the process......
Greenhorn

[03mossy]

I just finished my new Stevens/McGowan build in Wheelers Cerama Coat. So far I am extremely happy with it. Time will tell how it holds up. I will have pics up on here in a few days.

[wadevb1]

I wasn't impressed with cerama-coat. I had the surface prepped by aluminum oxide blasting and had coating wear off on many edges. I also had clumping issues during application which made fixing splatter spots a pain to remove.

$50 for prep and $30 for the rattle can was money lost. I plan on sending it out for the real deal. I had one rifle professionally cerakoted and there is a difference in qulaity of finish.

I had better luck with Krylon than the oven bake route.

[10ga]

Apr 13, 2013 13:30:46 GMT -5 wadevb1 said:

I had better luck with Krylon than the oven bake route.[/quote]

I've always been a Rustoleum/Krylon kinda fixer. Trying some new textured finishes now on some stocks. Daughter does art stuff and has spray gun and bake oven for curing so "she has convinced me to let her do a gun for me". I'm looking at duracote and alumahyde. She'll pick the material, I'll pick the color. I'm watching this thread with particular interest. 10

[rossman40]

With any coating surface prep is critical. Absolutely oil free, handle only with powder free gloves and even then minimally. I know one guy that wore a mask not for the paint fumes but so he wouldn't cough or sneeze on the work. Many of the commercial guys will parkerize first to get a good "bite". Coatings like Black-ice (Teflon) or Norrell's Moly Resin relies on their slipperiness to resist wear.

The Black Ice is nice looking but it's major enemy is heat. Blow-by in the primer area will peel it off.

Ceracoat is closely related to powdercoating. It is hard but get it on too thick and it will chip easily, more so on the sharp edges.

Duracoat is basicly an epoxy. More for the artist, plenty of colors. Some solvents eat it up. The one thing people do not realize is that it takes 30days to fully harden.

[cowhunter]

So I had the same question as you. I ended up ordering the heat cured Cerakote. There are trade-offs. The heat-cured is advertised as many times tougher than anything else on the market, and I have not seen anything to disprove this claim. However, they admit the air-cured stuff is not as tough, so I assume it is no tougher than Duracote or any other competetive material. If that is true, why order it over the others? The air-cured has to be used on scopes, plastic stocks, and anything else that will melt or be damaged by 250 degree heat. Ironically, the air-cured material is incredibly heat resistant -- but who needs that? What you want is toughness and rust resistance. If Cerakote's web site is even close to accurate, the heat-cured kills the competition in those areas. I ordered a kit with six 4 oz Cerakote colors and an airless sprayer they recommend. I have had no experience with any other coatings, including air cured Cerakote or Black Ice. So what do I know? To start with, I have had a very positive experience with this stuff -- heat-cured Cerakote. But here is what I wish someone had told me.
Airless is priceless: I never used an airless sprayer before. Just buy the one Cerakote sells for about $30, or gives with a kit. I will never paint anything again with a regular spray can. The airless sprayer allows you to put on incredibly uniform, incredibly light coats of material. Spray cans are a joke compared to a good airless gun. You need an air source that can provide 15 lbs of pressure. I have a good pump, but ended up using a $60 HDX air compressor from Home Depo. It worked great, but is a noisy bugger.
Cerakote goes a long long way, so don't buy too much: I have painted two guns so far -- a Stainless double action 357 Mag pistol and a Lazzeroni Warbird (ss barrel made by Sako)rifle. The instructions say to use about one ounce of material to put in the little cup on the top of the airless sprayer. I didn't think this would be enough. If you test the sprayer with a bit of Acetone, it goes quick. But the actual mixed material is waaaay different. I could have painted six rifles with the one ounce of material. Instead I put on too many coats (probably), and painted my ATV, some tools, and anything else in the way. The cool thing about this is that the smallest amount they sell, 4 oz which costs about $32, goes a long, long way. In fact you probably can paint all your guns and your friend's guns too with the one little bottle. I have six bottles of different colors and they only last about one year before expiring. I have no hope of using all my paint unless Richard wants me to paint all his guns blue and green. The paint is mixed with a hardener, but it does not harden for hours, so you don't need to hurry.
Breaking the Rules:
Cerakote has some stringent rules to follow. I didn't follow them all. How will that effect the longevity/hardness of the coating? Only time will tell. My main objective was to coat gun barrels or actions that were not stainless steel, and which constantly developed rust areas in the humid, wet area in which I live. I keep the guns in a heated closet, but they still rust. Cerakote certainly keeps the guns from rusting. It is nice, especially with the pistol which gets the most use, to not feel like I have to wipe it down all the time. Actually the pistol is stainless, but it would still corrode like crazy when subjected to salt water. Cerakote has stopped all that corrosion. Cerakote is very picky about how the surface is prepared. They almost require that the surface be sand-blasted with Aluminum oxide abrasive. This requires a very good compressor, a box to catch the abrasive, and a sand blaster, among other things. I had other sand blasters lined up, and was looking into buying my own, but I ended up sanding my guns with 200 grit sandpaper and some finer paper, along with using wire brushes on drills and dremel tools. The little wire brush on the dremel tool worked great for tight places. Always wear glasses with a wire brush because little pieces of the wire breaks off all the time, and can hit you in the eyes. They recommend immersing the gun in a bath of acetone. I did this by buying several gallons of acetone and making a bath in a metal box. I used a wire brush on all surfaces and I believe I got all the grease and oil off the surface. Could I have gotten away with spraying with brake cleaner? I think so if you did a good enough job. The idea is to get everything very clean and to abrade the surface so the paint can stick (I tested Cerakote on areas that had not been abraded, and the Cerakote still went on well). Despite my cheating on the rules, the Cerakote went on very smoothly and evenly. It is very hard to make runs with the stuff and with the airless gun. It goes on so thin that you can spray it on moving parts and they keep moving. I made runs anyway by coating some areas way too much and too soon. Then I broke another rule. They say when you create runs you have to stop, clean everything, and start from scratch. I just wiped off the offending runs and re-sprayed the areas. You couldn't tell the difference. I ended up with a bit of an orange peel effect on part of the pistol, but it is OK. I painted the pistol "Zombie Green" because I wanted to ruin the value to any thieves. I can't sell the pistol because I'm grandfathered in by the laws of this state such that I can't buy a new pistol without taking a hunter safety course.
One thing I didn't cheat on was the heating requirement. You must heat the surface for two hours at 250 degrees. The bummer here is that it is a very tight fit to get most barrel/action assemblies into a kitchen over. I used a smoker on top of another electric smoker. You can see it in the background. I had to cover everything with heating duct insulation that comes in big rolls. Cover the entire setup if you need to. You can run a wire through the barrel then tie a nut to the wire and the nut will catch in the action. The whole thing can dangle over the heating element. The result on the rifle was excellent and so uniform that it looked professional. This speaks to the ease of use not my talent. I used a color called Savage Stainless. It ended up being a darker stainless color, but the color is uniform over the stainless barrel and the blued action. The beauty of this stuff is that you can buy anything blued and still make it any color you want, and match it with your barrel. They have some great colors, including a bunch of good black and stainless colors. Why pay someone when you can have this much fun?