To my knowledge, Cerakote is a spray on/bake on finish. Parkerizing, blueing, and anodizing are chemical processes that affect the surface of the metal. In industrial applications this requires tanks of the appropriate chemicals in certain quantities.
I’m noticing more and more guns using Cerakote these days. Is it fair to say that Cerakote generates less in the way of hazardous waste and results in less disposal cost to the manufacturer?
I doubt that any of those companies really care about the waste cost. It’s more about start up costs. We have a local guy that just started building crap AR’s. He’s having lowers milled off-site and in the raw. He can cerakote them inhouse and cheaply. He buys uppers and handguards in the raw as well, then coats them too. A lot of dudes are into boldly colored AR’s and this “manufacturer” get’s them into their hands.
Colored guns aren’t my thing and I far prefer hard anodized uppers, lowers and handguards in black and I prefer proper my barrels to be parkerized.
It’s cheap and fast. The future man like everything else it ain’t worth a damn
If you want a great firearms Finnish that will last. Try this.
My favorite is the Black Simi Gloss.
My method
Disassemble everything degrees and strip everything with something like acetone. Then hang the parts in the oven from cut up coat hangers.
Metal parts. Once well heated to 300* I take outside by the hanger with vice grips into a dry non windy environment, and airbrush it on in a fine light mist until lightly but completely covered. It will sizzle dry on contact so you can use a clean oven mit to rehang it upside down to get all angles And where the hanger was previously attached.
Replace hanging back in the oven at 300* for one hour to cure.
This is not a paint. It is the best firearms coating I have ever seen. It is amazing over anodizing in parkerizing for a ultimate sealed protectant.
My understanding if applied correctly, Cerakote is GTG in terms of corrosion resistance and wear. I had my VP9 slide milled and Cerakoted via that place, and it looks good and so far, shows zero wear:
Not sure how it stacks up against others.
My new Wilson has a DLC coating on the slide.
A paint and coating are used somewhat interchangeably, with paint implying lower tech/performance and a coating higher tech/performance- usually because of chemical crosslinking from either heat or chemical reaction.
When it comes to house paint or gun parts, its the surface and the prep that really determine how good the coating is. With adhesion to the substrate, you are screwed.
So a quick cheat sheet would be that coating performance follows from lowest to best
-single can air dry
-two-component air dry (mix part A and Part B)
-Single or two component heat cure- (and I don’t mean just drying, that it NEEDS the heat to cure).
Cerakoat is one of the few companies that has good tech and good marketing- and even better- good support for the industry.
Sure its not… :rolleyes:
I will say I have some stuff that was colored with Brownell’s Alumi Hyde like 20 years ago and it is holding strong.
Cerakote is demonstrably not paint. Rattle can your AR and it starts wearing before you are finished.
It can be used on motorcycle mufflers and stands up to not only friction, but heat as well. Anyone who has ridden a bike knows how hot that gets.
Cerakote isn’t easy. You need to prepare the surface properly, need a decent spray gun and take care during application and curing.
When the surface is prepped properly and applied properly, should last a very long time and stand up to years of abuse.
There are other options, but none, at this point in time, hold up as well as cerakote. But what do I know, I’ve actually used it.
Try this with paint.
[video=youtube_share;SzpS-5OfyUU]https://youtu.be/SzpS-5OfyUU[/video]
For military small arms we still go with anodized aluminum and Parkerized steel. Is something like Cerakote superior?
Which is a unicorn for almost any industry, so it’s easy to understand why some will assume if it’s easier and less $ to apply than other coatings, it must be sub par to many other coatings. It seems in this very rare instance, it also happens to be an excellent option.
On my Sig factory Cerakoted guns they are sprayed over the anodizing and slide finish (nitron)
It still wears off in spots but it’s not down to bare steel or aluminum.
The SR762 I have has some sort of spray on finish to the receivers that doesn’t appear to be anodized under it as I see shiny aluminum.
I bought a small gravity fed gun to spray a FAL with Norrell’s years ago and never got around to it.
Been thinking of using them again to spray some of my AR’s with.
If you follow the link in post #4 and read the FAQ about the product, it is clearly articulated why the product is considered a specialty coating as opposed to a paint.
I’m no expert, but I thought starting with bear metal was best practice for long term wear.
From what I’m reading, people are saying that Cerakote is more abrasion resistant than Moly Resin. And as “durable” as Cerakote is, it is not as durable as DLC, NP3, Nitride, or even Parkerizing AFAIK.
I agree with this statement. If I had the option for my home brew lowers, I’d anodize, but it simply isn’t practical at home. Cerakote isn’t infallible, its just the best option when you are in DIY land and a good overall option if you like fancy colors. I stick to black for my DIY stuff.
There was a old Remington fact sheet that claimed that Parkerizing was 60% more durable than matte blue.
On receivers, is the anodizing removed for Cerakote or does the Cerakote just go over top of the anodizing?
Proper application is to rough it up in a cabinet blaster but to not remove the ano. It’s a great surface for the cerakote to adhere to.