Hello all,

I am wondering if it is possible to Cerakote yourself and what the steps or process is? I have a few "beater" guns I thought I might try to coat.

Thanks for any help and information.



ddj

I've been dabbling with it this winter. Started out using the Brownells aerosol KG Gunkote to refinish some alloy bottom metal, then got an airbrush and went whole hog with NIC heat-cure Cerakote. I already had a sandblasting cabinet and an old oven I could use.

Basically you detail strip, solvent clean, sandblast, degrease, spray, and bake. Hardest part was learning how to spray without fisheyes, runs, and blotches.

free miner - Nice work.

I have a buddy who has a power coating business and said I could use his materials (ie. sandblaster, oven, sprayer, ect) What temp do you bake at? How do you protect the barrel and rifling? I thought it might be fun to play around with a few of my guns.

Thanks for all the information and help.


ddj

couple things i'd watch if using commercial/industrial type stuff is the blasting media they use. Lots of them use 60-80 grit and lots of pressure. NIC recommends 100-120 grit aluminum oxide. I found around 40-50 psi worked well, a little slower but you have better control.

I found a hobby airbrush an absolute necessity to be able to paint all the nooks and crannies without building up wet cerakote everywhere. You set the airbrush fine as possible and paint all the interior, holes, inside corners, etc, from a few different directions, then the last thing you do is set the brush wider and do an even coat on the outside large surfaces. Having no painting experience, I did it reverse order the first time, but thankfully un-baked Cerakote comes off with MEK or acetone.

I just used a dowel and a piece of inner tube shoved in the muzzle, and an empty case with scotch tape around it in the chamber to protect the chamber and bore. Also stuck old screws in all the threaded holes to protect threads.

One thing you must do is after detail stripping and initial cleaning is to bake the barreled receiver at 200-250 for a couple hours to drive out any oil in the barrel threads, If you don;t, it will all creep out when you cure, and will contaminate the area all around it (guess how I know).

I used an old stainless steel un-coated rod through the bore to hang the barreled action when baking, though if you have access to a big oven you could jsut hang it from the rear gurdscrew hole. The cure specs are 2 hours at 250 or 45 minutes at 300

I also got a jar of various sized alligator clips and magnets from harbor freight and made up painting tray on a small sheet of plywood. For baking the small parts I just laid them on a tray covered with clean aluminum foil.

One thing I need to work on is figuring out how to control the gloss levels. You can vary the gloss level when you mix the Cerakote, and also by reducing air pressure. The rifle in the pictures is more matte than I would prefer.

as free miner noted you can get a more glossy finish simply by increasing your harder %

NIC will flat tell you not to use your home oven...and to wear a mask when painting with it. the chemicals are not good for your health


I built a heat box large enough to hold barreled acions. Heated by a cheap HF heat gun... works like a charm

Can you touch it after it is dry to move it to the oven? or do you have to move it via the holders attached?
thanks

Thanks guys. I really appreciate all the hep and information. I'm don't want to start a business and thought it might be a fun project on a couple guns. I will check on the type of grit my buddy is using and he has an oven that you can stand up in to do parts. Does anyone give a step by step process to follow?

Thanks again,

ddj

Let me know how it works out for you. I've also got a friend with a large commercial powder coating business, and was thinking about doing a rifle myself.