CERAKOTE OVENCURE CERAMIC COATINGS Reviews & Ratings

Cerakote is great for protecting a firearm. It looks great when finished. It prevents rust and wear. Two parts with Cerakote applied to both seem to not wear off the coating. Add some oil to the parts and everything moves so smoothly past each other. On the down side it requires investment in equipment to apply it. The process is not difficult but requires some time and effort.

As long as you follow the directions - you cant go wrong - applicant must have a slight background/experience in painting (Painting 101) - Step 1 - Prep (Abraise *Scotch Brite scrub does work* - Cant sand-blast optics and certain polymers, Degrease, Degrease, Degrease - Warm the parts to be coated. Step 2 apply throught HVLP Gun, Prevail Sprayer or Air-Brush it all works just DO NOT stop while making your pass or *in mid-stroke* you WILL create a puddle that will run this stuff is thinner than water - Step 3 Keep it hangin' until you get it to your curing oven or let it hang dry for a week if its the ambient cure - thats it! - whatever route you take to achieve these steps is on you - its ok to improvise - I do no have a blasting cabinet - it just takes me a little longer for prep - You can easily prep Anodized surfaces, parkerized surfaces, blued surfaces, polymers, bare metals etc *Substrates which do not have old paint on them or have been previously painted* - Then your talking a different story the paint MUST be blasted off or the CeraKote will stick to the previous coating of paint (which may not be the best - given the whole plan is to slap on a new state-of-the-art finish to begin with - ya know?) Anyway this stuff rocks and if you keep in mind the important steps when painting anything - PREP WORK IS EVERYTHING!!! Degrease, Degrease, Degrease with Acetone..... You'll be fine!

First I will walk through what I did. Keep in mind I am doing this low budget to start and see if I like it. For heating the coated items, I used a Toaster oven from the Thrift store. I didn't trust the temp controller on the toaster oven, so I used an external temp controller and solid state relay purchased from [...]. This worked very well. I am starting with handguns so a large toaster oven is about the correct size.I sprayed the Cerakote with a Paasche H series air brush with the middle sized tip with about 35 psi air. I held the airbrush about 12 inches from the item being painted. This also works well. It sprays well and covers well and is very easy to get a good even nice coating.For cleaning the item, it is very important to degrease very well. This kit comes with instructions that specifically say to use the Brownells TCE degreaser. This degreaser is a bit pricy for my taste, so I contacted NIC industries and asked about Acetone and they say Acetone works well. I also heat the item to 275-300F. This pushes out the oils from the pores and cracks in the metal or between metal parts. It is above the curing temp of 250F so no additional oils should be pushed out when curing.This kit comes with a large graduated cylinder. For the small parts I am working on, that large of quantities is too much for accurate measurement of small quantities. I ended up purchasing some smaller graduated cylinders. My complete process is Degrease very well by soaking in Acetone.Blast with 120 gritHeat to 275 300FWash with clean AcetoneSpray Cure at 250FSo in short, this product provides a very nice looking finish and is easy to apply as long as you have a the proper equipment.

I use an HVLP gun or detail brush and have applied this as thin as .5 mil... It is a fantastic product and very durable. Preparation is key. Don't skimp and skip or you'll be sorry. Provided you prep properly and apply uniformly you'll be very pleased with the outcome. Also, while a fresh application appears to be dry, don't even consider touching it, as you'll leave a smear. Use care all the way to the oven and after it is baked, you'll be tickled at the result.

I used the graphite black Cerakote to coat a set of Caeser Guerini 32" 28 ga O/U barrels with excellent results. This is the best oven cure product I've tried. I ordered on Monday and had the barrels coated Wednesday night. Couple of notes: 1) Do not use a cheaply made airbrush for application. Cheap airbrushes tend to "hiccup" and will leave you with an spots or an uneven finish. This happened to me but luckily I was able to recover. 2) Do a dry run to make sure you can place you item in your oven without bumping you parts. My home oven wasn't big enough so I ending up using my propane BBQ with the barrel held up on a couple of wooden blocks I made. It worked perfectly. 3) As with all metal finishing, good preparation will make for good results. Blast media will hide in the smallest of places. Make sure the surface of the part is CLEAN. And then make sure it is CLEAN again. 4) I'm not a gunsmith and if I can do it anyone can. Enjoy.

I coated about half a dozen long guns and pistols with these kits. You must degrease and blast properly, you apply the finish and bake. I use an old gun safe with a milwakee heat gun for an over. It is a bit thick for pistols, but perfect for shotguns, bolt guns and semiauto rifles. measure the hardener carefully, it is hard to get it out of the container.

I used a CO2 powered spray gun and it didn't spray the product properly. I had a lot of runs and a lot of overspray. If I had used a airbrush or HVLP gun I'm sure it would have come out better. I do have to say it's very tuff stuff. It took an hour in the sandblasting cabinet to get it off.