Cerakote coating issues

[Balta]

Anyone experienced with Cerakote coating?H-Series...
Having problems with same grainy structure looking finish..I have great results before with same cerakote and suddenly it star to look like this,at pic..Contact NIC assuming expired shelf life of cerakote but there denied that possibility ..there say is dry spraying but i have great results before and also with sam fresh cerakote i order later...
Any idea ?

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[Nobade]

It does look old. Are you running it through a fine screen to filter out the chunks? Black seems to develop a lot of crud in it after a year or so. Also, how much cure are you using? I used to follow the directions and mix it 20:1 and would get that a lot. Now I use 10:1 for everything and it looks a lot better. Also make sure your spray gun is clean. A turd in the nozzle will make it spit. All possibilities without being there to see in person.

-Nobade

[Balta]

It does look old. Are you running it through a fine screen to filter out the chunks? Black seems to develop a lot of crud in it after a year or so. Also, how much cure are you using? I used to follow the directions and mix it 20:1 and would get that a lot. Now I use 10:1 for everything and it looks a lot better. Also make sure your spray gun is clean. A turd in the nozzle will make it spit. All possibilities without being there to see in person.

-Nobade
Yes i run it through filter.Like i said ,it worked great..and this start to aperas..I use FRESH cerakote and have great results. But NIC says that is not a paint issue but application ..so i am confused.

[Nobade]

I think they are foolin' ya. It does that when it gets old, as long as you are doing everything right on your end.

-Nobade

[W.R.Buchanan]

I just completed a Cerakote job Two days ago. The Cerakote instructions are made for newbies to spray gun application and whereas they are very thorough what they are saying is simply normal prep work for spraying any good paint.

The paint has not shelfed out. Paint never shelfs out unless the can or bottle doesn't seal completely. Then it simply drys out. If it is still liquid it can be thinned to the right consistency since the thinner is what is gassing off to make it dry. This is why you cook Cerakote,,, To drive off the VOC's (volatile organic compounds.) This is called "force curing."

Paint is made of pigments, and binders, and in some cases VOC's are added to thin the mix. Portrait artists used pigments(ground up colored stuff) for color and egg whites or yokes for binders. Some of those paintings have survived for a thousand years. Pigments don't go away with age, and binders can always be thinned out unless they have fully cured.

Cerakote pigments are ground down extremely fine and as a result can be moved with very thin mixes of binders. They fill details very well without covering the details. See the pics of my shoot. It is really good paint!

What you have is a dry coat. They talk about this in the instructions. You didn't get a wet out of sufficient depth to alleviate the frosting.

The paint is not the problem! I have had this excuse used on me by so many painters I want to puke.

One guy painted my Yellow Jeep with Dupont Centari which is some of the easiest paint to spray there is. He got runs all over the place and blamed the older paint which at the time was only 1 year old. He used excuses like "You'll never see it there etc." I let this guy spray the body because he was supposed to be some Hi zoot Corvette guy who was very good . He sucked and wouldn't even fix it. He blamed the paint. I will no further acknowledge his existence, and this is how I treat everyone who thinks they can lie to me.

It took me three weeks to reprep that body and then I sprayed it myself with the same can of paint. It came out perfect because I do know how to paint! I made sure he saw it afterwards too!

Paint that has "shelfed out" is just an excuse to sell you more paint. I have the rest of that can of Yellow Centari that is about to get used for another project.

On Youtube there are numerous vids on painting with Cerakote. One I saw the guy was using a little Airbrush. I tried an airbrush and it wouldn't put out sufficient paint volume to wet out the surface so I switched to a $12.99 HF touch up gun which worked perfectly. This is the applicator they recommend in the instructions. This stuff is some of the easiest paint to apply I have ever seen!

I used the 24:1 mix ratio as I wanted as flat a surface finish I could get. I used graphite black. I cooked it in a toaster oven.

go here to see my project http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?248592-CZ82-Project

Just re-blast and re-prep and spray it again.

Randy

[Balta]

Randy thank you much for your replay...But i think you miss a part when i say i have use SAME paint with great succes.Why i didnt have dry spray before? Also my latest project with FRESH paint looks god..
See picture
113315
Any another idea exept dry spray? I have this problem with 2 botles of Cerakote,Graphit and Midnight Blue bot not with Satin Mag i bought same time..

[W.R.Buchanan]

Balta: were you using a gravity fed touch up gun? or were you using an Air Brush?

Was the surface wet looking before you stopped spraying?

I found an air brush would not put out a sufficient amount of paint to wet the surface.

That's why I used the touch up gun.

Other than those issues I don't know why you got the problem you got.

I assure you it isn't the paint. you didn't have it long enough for it to go bad. It couldn't have sat on anyone's shelf for literally years before it got sold. Especially Graphite Black which is one of their most popular colors.

The only other possible problem I can come up with is that somehow You didn't mix the paint right. That may include not mixing it enough or not having a sufficient amount of catalyst in the mix.

I bent a piece of welding rod and put it in my cordless drill and used that to mix the paint.

Like I said you need to just blast the paint off and reshoot it.

Sometimes paint jobs just don't come out the way we want them to. The available solutions are,,, leave it alone and be satisfied,,, or redo it.

Sorry I couldn't help more, but it is a long drive from here to where you live.

Randy

[detox]

Hotter shop temperatures will cause the paint to dry before reaching surface and causing rough coating. Try spraying in cooler, less humid indoors or cooler, less humid outdoors.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Balta: on other thing that might help is dropping a couple of BB's or small Ball Bearings into the paint bottle and using those to mix the paint a little better before mixing it with the catalyst.

This might help if the paint is gloppy in the bottle before use.

Randy

[Timgunner]

Randy thank you much for your replay...But i think you miss a part when i say i have use SAME paint with great succes.Why i didnt have dry spray before? Also my latest project with FRESH paint looks god..
See picture
113315
Any another idea exept dry spray? I have this problem with 2 botles of Cerakote,Graphit and Midnight Blue bot not with Satin Mag i bought same time..


The appearance of dry spray can be caused by many factors.
1) inadvertently changing the settings on the spray gun without noticing. I have done this several times and didn't really notice till after spraying the project.
2) setting up the spray gun improperly to begin with. Every time I spray something I break down the whole gun and clean it. Thus every time I have to set the gun properly before spraying the next project
3) the temp of the project. I've cooked gun parts to drive off oil and just left them hanging in the over and sprayed them before they cool down. This will cause the paint to flash and be grainy
4) over spray. While spraying another part I've sprayed past it with out noticing and hit the already painted parts hanging behind it.
5) holding the gun too far out from the surface being sprayed. I don't Cerakote stuff every day and each project is slightly different. It is hard to keep the spray nozle a consistent distance from the part. Since the paint is so thin it can flash dry on its way to the project if the gun is too far out.

There are a few of the many variables that can cause a grainy paint job. It is hard to keep them all in check especially since Cerakote is such a laborious process. By the time I'm ready to spray the parts I just want to get it done! By that point I've lost my attention to detail and it has hurt me again and again. Hope this helps I'm going out now to spray some blue titanium and satin mag on an 1911 and an M&P 40.