I’ve used AHII before, it’s great but the stuff literally takes weeks to fully air cure. I read somewhere (internets) that you can speed this up by baking it at low heat for 8 hrs or so and it comes out hard as a rock. I have no doubt this speeds it up.
I’m refinishing a Magpul stock and I’m wondering if the polymer will stand up to a slow oven cure at a low temp(<200F) without damaging/weakening it.
It’s the last thing I have to coat on this gun and I don’t really want to wait 3 weeks to put it back together.
Anyone know the heat tolerances for the polymer Magpul uses by any chance?
Never tried baking any. But I have had good results by letting the parts sit in full sun for a few hours, and then spraying and letting them continue to bake in the sun. This time of year around here that means about 93 degree days, and in full sun on a reflective background like aluminum foil, it can get well over 100. It cures pretty quickly. Good to touch in minutes. I’ll let them “sun bath” all day if possible. It’s worked well for me.
Alright, got everything finished and re-assembled.
A few things:
Alumahyde II cures very quickly in a 180-200F oven. I left my parts in there for 5 hours and then let them cool. Very matte and very hard finsh. On the small metal parts it is (so far) comparable in texture and hardness to gunkote. Time will tell how chip resistant it is. I made some scratch marks on the inside of one of my scope mounts and it is pretty tough to scratch down to bare metal. Couldn’t do it with my fingernail, took some scratching to get through with a mini-screwdriver. Pretty good, and I’m now convinced with AHII this is the way to go.
The polymer magpul items handled the low temp curing with no obvious problems. I left out a couple PMags I painted for comparison. This morning they are still somewhat tacky and have a strong paint smell to them. The other items are perfectly finished and they honestly look like they came that way. Zero tack and very nice, hard matte finish.
After curing the Alumahyde OD is in fact pretty close to the Magpul OD color. The Magpul is still a little darker and “browner”, but it’s pretty close. I’m still glad I painted everything to match. YMMV. Yes, I do care about my colors matching.
So here’s some pictures:
Here’s a Magpul OD PMag, and a AHII finished Pmag:
Camera settings make a big difference in how the color appears as well.
Yeah the camera plays tricks with the actual color. The photos where it looks like OD green are what it actually looks like IRL. I wanted some closeups so people could see the texture of the finish. It really looks and feels just like it did before painting.
I would say Alumahyde II is very easy for anyone to apply and get good results.
Of course proper surface prep, cleaning and degreasing is key, but another thing that I think is important is pre-heating the parts. I use a toaster oven to keep the parts that are “on deck” nice and warm. When the lightly fogged Alumahyde hits them, it instantly evaporates leaving the nice flat finish you want.
I think the best thing about it that I learned this time around is that oven curing Alumahyde at a low temp for 5-6 hours works and works well. If you get excited about a project like I do, nothing is worse than having to wait days or weeks to re-assemble. You actually can paint, cure and assemble the same day just like Gunkote.
Is the gun in the top picture done with Dark Earth or Coyote Alumahide?
You stuck your stock and mags in a 180 -200 deg. oven for 5 hours or just the metal parts?
Did and does your oven still smell like paint?
The color is Matte OD Green Alumahyde II. The first few closeup pics look nothing like the real color you see in person.
Everything got baked at 180-200 for 5-6 hours. I left out some of the PMags
to air dry and they still to this day aren’t as hardened as the stuff I cooked off.
Oven doesn’t smell at all now. Only slightly when you are doing it.
The baked on Alumahyde is absolutely rock hard on both the plastic/polymer parts as well as the metal.
Here’s some pics of some of my other Alumahyde/Gunkote projects:
Ruger .30-06, Refinished the gray stock to Matte OD.
My buddies Stoeger Cougar in OD Gunkote, did the barrel in Matte Black Gunkote, polished the barrel tip:
Ruger 10/22 “stainless” rifle and scope refinished to Matte Black. Gunkote for the reciever and Alumahyde for the scope. OD green Hogue stock, 16.5" Tac Sol barrel. Serious fun. Thing weighs like 3 pounds, it’s probably my favorite plinker right now.
Once you do one and find out how easy it is to get good results, you start looking really hard at all of your other guns and thinking about what you could do with them. It’s fun and relatively difficult to make a permanent mistake.
