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DIY cerakote alternative (moly resin)

Catfish55

Private
Full Member
Minuteman
Apr 20, 2012
9
0
36
Edgewood, NM
First of all I am not being paid or compensated at all for talking about this Moly-Resin, just a great product I wish I had found out about sooner. I've been looking at cerakoting some guns for a while now but couldn't get over the price. For a nice 3 color pattern camo I would spend nearly as much as I bought a couple of the guns for. After doing some research I found Jim Norrell's moly-resin and gave it a shot. I first did a cheapy Taurus pt111 that was already beat up for practice then did the AR-15 and .44 mag in the pics below. The cost is really low compared to cerakote and a lot easier to do at home where you can put whatever kind of pattern you want, or individual parts. As a bonus, it creates a thin enough coat that as long as you don't overspray it, can be used to coat internal parts and is even advertised to act as a dry lube not requiring oil which in the desert where I am is great! They don't have as many colors as cerakote, but I plan on experimenting with mixing colors and seeing how they turn out here pretty soon.

I put the link to the website with all the manufacturers info and recommendations at the bottom, but here are a few things I learned.

1.- Prep work is everything! preheating your gun in the bake oven and using a good solvent to get the oils out without leaving residue is the biggest part on ensuring a good quality finish

2.- Use a practice piece first! don't rush straight into your baby $2000+ gun and make your mistakes there.

3.- By far the most bang for your buck on a permanent finish. I painted my AR with 3 colors and a 2 layer camo. Total cost including the amount of paint I used, airbrush (which cane be used again and again), and can of air was well under $100. Probably closer to $70 by my guesstimate, and I did it in just 1 day. No waiting 2-3 weeks for a slow business to get your gun back to you.

4.- It is NOT as hard or long lasting as cerakote, but the pic below is my AR after a year of coyote hunting and plinking, being scraped through brush, mud, gravel, sand etc. and it still looks good without ever being touched up. Even if you do have to touch up the paint sometime, its easy to touch up just one spot.

5.- Baking in your kitchen oven does not create the fume/odor that other products do. It is noticeable during the baking process, but clears out within a hour of completion. I've baked 3 guns in the kitchen oven and the wife hasn't even complained once.

6.- There are high gloss, semi gloss, and matte paints available, but you can use preheating the gun before painting to control the finish even further. For example the .44 mag was a matte paint that I did not preheat the gun at all before painting and it gave it an almost semi gloss finish. Vice versa preheating to 300 degrees will give a very flat finish.

7.- There is also a air dry finish for things you don't want to bake at 300 degrees, but I have yet to experiment with that.

8.- The instructions recommend abrasive blasting, but I sprayed directly onto the AR factory finish and used 440 grit sandpaper on the .44 mag and it came out perfectly fine.


All in all its a fantastic product that let me save a lot of money and time while getting the exact paint scheme I wanted on my guns. Anyone else on here using it? If so please add some tips and tricks you've found, I'm still learning as I go. Next project I think will be painting a new built project a gray.
John Norrell Arms - FAQ's
 

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I have used it before with good results. Seems to go on a bit thicker than bake on cerakote and is a bit less resistant to scratching in my opinion.

Wouldn't hesitate to use it on another gun as I have a few bottle of the stuff laying around.