Poor Duracoat experience.. lesson learned.

S

Sawyer.N

New member
Just don't do it.

As some might have seen I had asked for tips, masking my slide so that I could apply duracoat to it. (glock 19 3rd gen). My glock was getting old, and I decided I would spice it up some, and try my hand at learning something new. I decided on a FDE slide and a light tan frame.

I would never recommend duracoat to any friend, UNLESS..they had a lot of experience painting, small tedious items, and new very well how to coat evenly. The outcome, was simply NOT worth the effort, time, and commitment. The

The gun was completely fine the way it was, and I should have left well alone. Now I know some of you older folks will chuckle and say you could have told me that, but I am a relatively new pistol enthusiast, who wanted to try something new

All the sweet 2 tone glocks and other firearms, in a myriad of attractive "tactical colors" can be some what attractive, and unique. BUT I'm here to advise you to either purchase your firearm in a color you like, or let a smith do the cerakote or duracoat you desire to your firearm, unless you are very experienced.

Mine has not turned out to be a complete failure, but my masking job was sub par, causing some leakage into places i didn't want it, and I had to scrape it away, and sand it down, and it now is a sub-par coating job. I'll post some pics after it cures. Today's lesson for me: THE GUN IS JUST FINE AND DANDY THE WAY IT IS.
 
Why does my mind think of this pic that's been floating around the interwebz for half of forever?

Painted_Revolver.jpg


:D
 
Your experience reminds me of a thread started years ago (either on this forum or The High Road) where the op was upset because the diy, "baked-on" finish was completed with his pistol making a trip to the oven. The picture of the warped, crispy critter aftermath drew some hilarious, good-natured responses from the captive audience.
Sometimes taking a chance pays off and sometimes it doesn't but I did learn to never cook a gun. We would love to see a picture of your project...:D
 
I don't know what your Glock looks like, but for $50 you can probably get a professional Cerakote applicator to blast the slide and do a real nice job of finishing it for you.

Oh, and as for the red S&W revolver, that makes me want to cry.
 
I have used duracoat, cerekote, ceramekote, and probably everything in between. What I have learned is this... No painted on finish is even half as durable as anodizing or parkerizing. Anodizing or parkerizing will not look perfect after even a couple years use unless you absolutely baby them. You may not see any glaring marks on range guns, but if you really inspect it you will see some wear marks unless it never leaves the case except for at the firing line on the range.

I have painted stocks. I have painted receivers. I have no issues with a painted finish on a utilitarian firearm so long as touch up is easy. For this you cannot beat a good lacquer paint. A rattle can of rustoleum is worth just about what duracoat is, which is more than double the price.

That being said OP, a paint finish can turn out to look quite nice. Its all in the prep work. At any rate, I think you expected duracoat to be a finish comparable to parkerizing or anodizing. It is not comparable.
 
I have used the Duracoat spray cans quite successfully on several of my AR's. I mask areas carefully and degrease the part thoroughly, if you do not it will be a mess. Once cured for a month or so I have used the rifles as I would any AR and my Duracoat job looks just as nice as a factory Ceracoat AR that I purchased.
It is all in the prep and I think that first month the finish hardens far tougher than some rattle can from Walmart. Using a air brush gives a much nicer finish than the two stage can because you can adjust the amount of the product that is being applied.
There are not many pistols that I would apply Duracoat to, but I do have a Llama Micro Max that was an ugly flat blue, after applying FDE Duracoat the pistol looks like a miniature of the 1911 the Marine Corps recently contracted for. Really neat. No pictures I do not possess the skills with a computer to post them.
 
Last year I thought a coated Ruger would be cool . I took a Ruger Super Blackhawk to a Coater in Indiana he had a great web site a lot of happy customers . This guy was/is a total fail the coating looked spotty it filled things that should not be filled . Ended up having it redone later .

You will fined a lot of coaters on line most have no idea what they are doing .
A very easy thing to get into does not cost a bunch to get started and the money rolls in .
 
** Cant seem to get my photos reduced to an appropriate size for upload.. any suggestions?

Sorry for the delayed reply Gents, was a very long weekend. It doesnt look half bad from an arms reach, but when you get in close, you will notice that my masking job was not sufficient. Maybe I peeled off the tape to soon, because when I did, the tape brought some of the duracoat with it, peeling it right off the edges around the chamber. FDE and light tan. Guess I had to learn some how! Next time ill practice on an old knife first.. Lol.

I know it wont have nearly the same result as anodizing or pakerizing, just wanted to add some personal flavor to a very boring glock 19 gen 3.

Glad i did not oven bake it, as someone said.. Ibmikey warned me about the plastic liner in the firing pin housing.. Thank you!
 
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I've had mixed results with Duracoat. When I was trying some of the spray cans they sell it was hard to get an even coat.

When I bought a little airbrush sprayer from Harbor Freight I had much better results. I Duracoated a couple ARs with that to what I consider a nice result.
 
Glad i did not oven bake it, as someone said..
Click to expand...

I mentioned this earlier in this thread but if anyone wants to see the results of a "Shake and Bake" pistol, the thread (titled "Cooked the 1911 Too Long?" is found in the Semi-automatic Forum, dated 11-14-2010 (sorry, I don't know how to make the link).
 
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Reminds me of an oft-used phrase of mine for some job that looked like crap, which is
" It looks like I did it". Perhaps that applies here .
 
Waiting to see how it looks and what is the good remedy.
Click to expand...

I posted in a reply, that I dont know how to make my image files small enough to upload onto this forum. They are well over the limited data upload cap for this website, and I have no idea how to make them smaller
 
You have to upload your images to an image hosting website, like photobucket, image shack, etc. Then copy the link there and in the reply box here, click on the image button, its right next to the quote button. Then paste the link in the img box. And your pic will come up in your post. Sorry if that wasn't all the right tech lingo, but I hope you get the idea.
 
You learned a lesson and you didn't really harm the gun in the process. Consider it a blessing. Lord knows, many of us have made costlier mistakes.

As an aside, there are lots of after market parts available for most Glocks (not so much the G40 sadly) that you use to spruce up your pistol. Here's an example of one I've used: https://www.lonewolfdist.com/Default.aspx

There might be some others out there too.

Good luck and don't beat yourself up.
 
Every time I think I can do something and save a little money and enjoy an new experience this sort of thing is what happens to me.:confused::confused: You aren't alone in this experience,
 
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