After proper application and curing are there any signifcant differences in duability or protection? I have a small toaster oven I have used for baking small parts (as dumb as it sounds it works very well) but I need to finish a 26" barreled action with a brake that takes it up to about 30" plus the action so there is no way it is fitting in a normal stove.

Having spent 10 years in the paint business, I can assure you, there is no such thing as "air cure"........if the coating doesn't use a hardener/catalyst, then it doesn't cure, it dries...........baking it dries the solvents faster and helps the resin flow better.......a catalyst/hardner causes a chemical reaction resulting in cross linking of molecules.......this is where durability comes from.......

Air dry is softer than heat cure.Air dry is about an H-6 on the Graphite pencil scratch scale,Teflons and KG are about an H-3 to H-4.Oven cure is an H-7 or 8 comming out of the oven and will final cure to an H-9 within 5 days.The air dry is for high heat applications and will go into flux and get harder at about 750 degrees.It's used on automatic weapons bbls.and suppressors.