Anodizing & Painting

[Willtallica]

I just played Call of Duty 4, and after grabbing this guy's customized AK with the steel colored in blue tiger camo I'm awed.

I can't find a picture, but it comes off of the steel nice enough to inspire me to look into coloring the steel parts on my AK so would anybody be familiar in coloring metal professionally on firearms?

I used to know about it for paintball markers, and usually unique colors would run at more than $1200, but if I'd get what I saw I'd consider it.

[Warpt762x39]

You can't anodize steel. Anodizing is a process for aluminum. If you want blue tiger stripe camo look into Duracoat. They have dozens of different camo paint schemes. One of the guys on here got his AR done in pink and white for the misses and I think he said it only cost him about $300 to get it done. Duracoat sells kits to do it at home too.

[Willtallica]

That's actually kind of impressive, and they said that the coats should last for several lifetimes.

Well this is something for me to consider. Thanks dude

[Warpt762x39]

Not a problem

[SteveWag]

Check out these:

http://www272.pair.com/stevewag/heater/heater1.html

http://www.gswagner.com/6.5matchrifl...tchrifle3.html

http://www.gswagner.com/mosin-nagant/metal/mnmetal.html

http://www.gswagner.com/mmrifle/mmrifle5.html

I used black and silver but now many colors are available. VERY tough, it will NOT come off if blasted. If a smooth surface is painted it will come right off.

Steve

[emsjeep]

I found out the hard way that Duracoat sucks...well, not sucks, I'm still not sure about that, but its not so easy to get right. I did everything right, followed the instructions, surface cleaning and sanding (couldn't sand blast, but I shouldn't have to). It seems to be going ok on the plastic parts but it isn't the best medium. They sell a matte overcoat to "even out the differences" trouble is that you can turn a matte coat into glossy if you spray it too thick or unevenly. There is no way to correct anything, you have to start over. The stuff came off of my AR lower when I drove the pins through and scraped off the reciever and mags when I introduced them and then dropped them out. If you wind up doing it yourself I would suggest deviating from their instructions and layer all of the colors, that is, paint the entire surface of the firearm (unmasked for the first color and masked for every color thereafter) instead of using the female masking. Allow a day in a dry room temperature setting before applying masking and wait 2-3 weeks to reassemble the whole thing. I'm still working it out, and I think I'm going to have to do my G27 over again, but its not easy.

[Jackal]

I found out the hard way that Duracoat sucks...well, not sucks, I'm still not sure about that, but its not so easy to get right. I did everything right, followed the instructions, surface cleaning and sanding (couldn't sand blast, but I shouldn't have to). It seems to be going ok on the plastic parts but it isn't the best medium. They sell a matte overcoat to "even out the differences" trouble is that you can turn a matte coat into glossy if you spray it too thick or unevenly. There is no way to correct anything, you have to start over. The stuff came off of my AR lower when I drove the pins through and scraped off the reciever and mags when I introduced them and then dropped them out. If you wind up doing it yourself I would suggest deviating from their instructions and layer all of the colors, that is, paint the entire surface of the firearm (unmasked for the first color and masked for every color thereafter) instead of using the female masking. Allow a day in a dry room temperature setting before applying masking and wait 2-3 weeks to reassemble the whole thing. I'm still working it out, and I think I'm going to have to do my G27 over again, but its not easy.

What exactly was your surface preparation? This is a very important step. No paint or oil can be present, just bare steel (or parkerizing). Park is best because it slightly etches the steel, which makes for a better adhesion in addition to sand blasting. I tried to do a durabake job without blasting but found that there really is no alternative unless the paint is really old in which cause you could use electrolysis.

Also....did I read you want to paint a GLOCK? I'm confused a bit...are you doing it for a different color than black?

[emsjeep]

Surface prep for the AR was decreasing sandpaper grits down to bare aluminum. A few washes with water for dust, dry, heat dry in oven, more sanding, wire brush as needed cleaned with compressed air and then stripped and degreased (whatever was left) with the stripper they sell. It then got several coats over a few days, dried for 1 hour at about 115 as per their instructions. Cooled to room temp and applied following coats. It still chipped on assembly about a week later.

The Glock is now in Urban digicam, primarily black (as it has to remain "black" for liberal state registration purposes, they gave me a problem with it anyway). The plastic parts seemed to take it very well. I had some overspray trying to use a female mask and couldn't get the right black base color back, basically I would have had to start over to get it perfect. Then I realized a little too late that the thickness of the matte coating dictated whether it was actually matte or glossy. It came out OK. I mean, I bought a cheaper gun to try this on for a reason, but I might get the slide blasted off and start over some day. I painted the barrel black too, that scraped off the feed ramp and leading edge of the visable portion even after a few weeks of setting up.

[SteveWag]

When painting steel the surface MUST be chemically etched or better, blasted. If not the paint will scrape off. I have lightly blasted and baked on paint and then tried to scrape it off by rubbing the barrel across the edge of a piece of angle iron with all my force. No paint loss, just a change from matte to gloss where the iron rubbed. I have also masked off a SS barrel and blasted it, removed the mask, then painted and baked. Where the barrel was not blasted I could remove the paint with my finger nail.

Paint designed to be baked actually “sets” when heated to it’s curing temp. Dry but un-set paint can be removed with thinner while paint that has reached curing temp cannot.

Steve

[Jackal]

Surface prep for the AR was decreasing sandpaper grits down to bare aluminum. A few washes with water for dust, dry, heat dry in oven, more sanding, wire brush as needed cleaned with compressed air and then stripped and degreased (whatever was left) with the stripper they sell. It then got several coats over a few days, dried for 1 hour at about 115 as per their instructions. Cooled to room temp and applied following coats. It still chipped on assembly about a week later.

The Glock is now in Urban digicam, primarily black (as it has to remain "black" for liberal state registration purposes, they gave me a problem with it anyway). The plastic parts seemed to take it very well. I had some overspray trying to use a female mask and couldn't get the right black base color back, basically I would have had to start over to get it perfect. Then I realized a little too late that the thickness of the matte coating dictated whether it was actually matte or glossy. It came out OK. I mean, I bought a cheaper gun to try this on for a reason, but I might get the slide blasted off and start over some day. I painted the barrel black too, that scraped off the feed ramp and leading edge of the visable portion even after a few weeks of setting up.

Hmm. That sounds pretty thorough. My experience has been with steel mostly, and as a metal I don't particularly like aluminum....its far too soft and doesn't sand as nicely as steel.

To maximize results, I parkerize the steel prior to painting. For aluminum one would anodize it. I suppose you took off the anodizing when you sanded down to bare metal. Without knowing more, maybe etching it with anodizing and then painting would work in the future.

I asked about that GLOCK because it has one of the best coatings a gun can have. I did a double take when you said you duracoated it, but then I see you didn't take off the under layer. To each his own...would like to see pictures though.