Who are some 'hide vendors that do a good job cerakoting with a good turn-around? I have a rail and bottom metal i need coated to match a receiver.
Thanks!
Thanks!
Gunsmithing Cerakoting Vendors
- Thread starter powderBurnz
- Start date
My shop is a certified applicator. Turnaround is about a week right now. Check out our website if you are interested:
www.Sonoranst.com
www.Sonoranst.com
What color?
Whoever you get to do it, make sure they are certified Cerakote people. There's tons of people doing it in my state, and there 3 total certified ones.
Tungsten H237Q
BULLSHIT.
You think you need a fucking degree to spray Cerakote?
OP, I've got it on the shelf. Couple little pieces like that takes no time at all when I'm running other stuff.
If you want to send them to me with a prepaid return envelope I'll do them for no charge.
And if you're not happy, I'll PAY for a "Certified Cerakote Applicator" to re-do them to shut up idiots like that.
PM me if you like.
I've seen plenty of em that have been done and are not done right. I don't know how you do it nor do I care, but if I'm paying for it to be done on my multi thousand dollar gun, I will absolutely make sure it's done by someone the manufacturer says "knows what they are doing" . That said, if you want to do some stuff for free to prove how good of work you do, I will happily send you some stuff and post your work here.
We've been applying Ceracote products since 2009 when I opened this joint. I've yet to be "certified". In fact I find that a bit hysterical because I know for a fact that were doing shit C/K hasn't even ever considered.
Case in point:
You have an action, say its made by BAT, Defiance, ARC, etc... (just pick one). You start masturbating the thing on the bench and marvel at how smooth it is and blah, blah.
Step One: Take a set of gauge pins and start dropping them down the bore of the receiver until one sticks. Note the size of the pin.
Step Two: Throw a micrometer on the OD of the bolt body and note that dimension. Now subtract the small number from the big one. There is your clearance.
Step Three: Review the Ceracote website. Last time I did this (over a decade ago) I noted that they suggest the product is best applied at the film thickness of 1 mil. For those that don't habla, that's .001" of an inch. (one thousandth) What they DON'T tell you is that the pigment saturation varies from one color to another. Graphite black is about as easy as it gets. It lays on, levels out, and your golden. Desert Sand, Mcmillan Tan not so much. . . That stuff doesn't hide the substrate for shit. You feel as though you should get a Power Roller out when using it.
So, if blacks and dark colors saturate well at/near .001" and the lighter earth tones require significantly more material, what do you do when you have one of these ultra-tight, bench resty type actions before you? You do what everyone else does right? You tape off the raceways and send it?
If you brought me a classic car and I neglected to paint the door jambs because of this I'd fully expect to be choked to within an inch of my life. Actually, a quarter-inch of my life because cars are just that cool.
Do the math:
Let's take an action that has a .700" dia receiver bore. The bolt is .697". That equates to a .0015" clearance across the radius. Now you apply Graphite Black and because you're badass, you get it applied at exactly .001" (1 mil) film thickness per the NIC recommendation. This is to both the bolt and the receiver. Now your receiver measures .698" and your bolt measures .699".
What you've done is create a .001" interference fit. There's no way in hell that thing is ever going to work. If we change this up a bit and go to an earth tone such as DT or MT we only aggravate the condition because they don't follow the 1 mil rule for the film thickness.
30 or so years ago I wanted to build racing engines so bad it nearly killed me. I learned how to use a Sunnen MBB horizontal hone to resize connecting rods and wrist pin bores on pistons. I bought one of these things and then paid Sunnen an absurd amount of money to make me custom diamond single stroke hones capable of sizing an interrupted bore. That was almost a decade ago and it's how you fix the dimensional issue you get confronted with when doing this work.
You get with your client and review the color(s) being applied to the parts. Then you measure and size the receiver accordingly before you ever even think about filling the paint gun. It is not uncommon at all to hone .005" to .01" out of an action depending on what color combinations are being asked for.
Bottom line: Experience far exceeds a classroom and what happens in industry always outpaces what is taught by people who are mandated to follow a certain curriculum.
One more example:
C/K says you MUST degrease a part with acetone right? Lemme tell you. If you got a guy doing this day in/day out, you're killing him with that shit. Acetone is really, really bad for the human liver.
Dawn dish soap and hot water works miracles and it doesn't make your hands look like your a Hiroshima survivor. Wipe it down with a little alcohol afterwards and you're golden. -Plus, you don't have zombie-eyed employees wandering around looking like a struck match and its pennies on the dollar with ZERO hazmat disposal concerns.
Case in point:
You have an action, say its made by BAT, Defiance, ARC, etc... (just pick one). You start masturbating the thing on the bench and marvel at how smooth it is and blah, blah.
Step One: Take a set of gauge pins and start dropping them down the bore of the receiver until one sticks. Note the size of the pin.
Step Two: Throw a micrometer on the OD of the bolt body and note that dimension. Now subtract the small number from the big one. There is your clearance.
Step Three: Review the Ceracote website. Last time I did this (over a decade ago) I noted that they suggest the product is best applied at the film thickness of 1 mil. For those that don't habla, that's .001" of an inch. (one thousandth) What they DON'T tell you is that the pigment saturation varies from one color to another. Graphite black is about as easy as it gets. It lays on, levels out, and your golden. Desert Sand, Mcmillan Tan not so much. . . That stuff doesn't hide the substrate for shit. You feel as though you should get a Power Roller out when using it.
So, if blacks and dark colors saturate well at/near .001" and the lighter earth tones require significantly more material, what do you do when you have one of these ultra-tight, bench resty type actions before you? You do what everyone else does right? You tape off the raceways and send it?
If you brought me a classic car and I neglected to paint the door jambs because of this I'd fully expect to be choked to within an inch of my life. Actually, a quarter-inch of my life because cars are just that cool.
Do the math:
Let's take an action that has a .700" dia receiver bore. The bolt is .697". That equates to a .0015" clearance across the radius. Now you apply Graphite Black and because you're badass, you get it applied at exactly .001" (1 mil) film thickness per the NIC recommendation. This is to both the bolt and the receiver. Now your receiver measures .698" and your bolt measures .699".
What you've done is create a .001" interference fit. There's no way in hell that thing is ever going to work. If we change this up a bit and go to an earth tone such as DT or MT we only aggravate the condition because they don't follow the 1 mil rule for the film thickness.
30 or so years ago I wanted to build racing engines so bad it nearly killed me. I learned how to use a Sunnen MBB horizontal hone to resize connecting rods and wrist pin bores on pistons. I bought one of these things and then paid Sunnen an absurd amount of money to make me custom diamond single stroke hones capable of sizing an interrupted bore. That was almost a decade ago and it's how you fix the dimensional issue you get confronted with when doing this work.
You get with your client and review the color(s) being applied to the parts. Then you measure and size the receiver accordingly before you ever even think about filling the paint gun. It is not uncommon at all to hone .005" to .01" out of an action depending on what color combinations are being asked for.
Bottom line: Experience far exceeds a classroom and what happens in industry always outpaces what is taught by people who are mandated to follow a certain curriculum.
One more example:
C/K says you MUST degrease a part with acetone right? Lemme tell you. If you got a guy doing this day in/day out, you're killing him with that shit. Acetone is really, really bad for the human liver.
Dawn dish soap and hot water works miracles and it doesn't make your hands look like your a Hiroshima survivor. Wipe it down with a little alcohol afterwards and you're golden. -Plus, you don't have zombie-eyed employees wandering around looking like a struck match and its pennies on the dollar with ZERO hazmat disposal concerns.
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Wow...thanks so much for the opportunity. Think I'll pass....
Chad,
Ain't that the truth...
When I first started spraying six years ago, I was confoozed...thought I must've been doing something wrong. One pass? Nope...Two? Nope...
Three? Maybe... Four? Probably...
Same with KG, the earth tones, light browns are a nightmare. I mix up double what I would for good 'ol Graphite Black.
Now, I won't dismiss the Cert course outta hand. CK can be used on a lot of different substrates, for a lot of different applications. So maybe there's something to it, for those that use it for other "stuff"- but I kinda doubt it. Basics are the same no matter what you're coating.
And methinks you'd be surprised to find how many "Certified Applicators" don't have FFL's... you need to drop off, and then hurry back same day to pick up.
I've repainted a bunch of "certified applicators" work. Just cause they took the class, doesn't mean that they don't end up cutting corners (costs) later on. Also, there are applicators that took the class, and have had their certified applicator status revoked because they continued to use a competing product. Factory certification doesn't mean as much as reputation and customer reviews, at least as it pertains to painting firearms.
Of course the certification doesn't mean as much as lots of customers experience. If you spray Cerakote for a living or as a part of your living, seems to me you'd care enough to get certified by the manufacturer AND have tons of good customer reviews and referrals. I honestly can't believe the nerve that was obviously hit by suggesting that someone use a certified applicator??? That wasn't my intention at all, but I also stand by what I said.
