I'm going to attempt to Cerakote my CZ

Z

zeegler

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I've got an old CZ75 that I bought off the EE. It's the old glossy black with a fair number of scratches and just doesn't look great.

So, I ordered this and I'm gonna give it a shot.

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Anyone else tried this? Care to share your experiences and/or results?
 
One of my friends runs a well-known cerakote company here in BC. He says it's 100% dependent upon proper preparation of the subject. Take your time and make her beautiful!
 
Phat Eagle said:
One of my friends runs a well-known cerakote company here in BC. He says it's 100% dependent upon proper preparation of the subject. Take your time and make her beautiful!
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Is he still in business ? Last I heard he was "taking a break" ?

I think we are talking about Cerekote BC?
 
I used 400 grit Emery Cloth to sand the surface smooth where there were chips and/or scratches. Don't worry about the 400-grit scratches themselves, as those will be hidden by the CeraKote. The surface prep and cleaning are the critical aspects of pre-spray preparations. Surface prep with the 400 grit Emery. Clean with Acetone to remove most of the oil & grease. Strip the pistol down and soak in a 100% Acetone bath for 1 hour. Allow parts to dry by heating in oven. Any evidence of oil = back to the Acetone bath for another hour. Once parts are clean, handle only with surgical gloves. Hang parts on wires for spraying. Follow the directions for spraying & baking. Be SURE that you DO NOT TOUCH uncured CeraKote, which is like a "wet powder" until it has been heat-cured. Touch it, even with gloves and you will smudge the surface resulting in a mess. Be very careful to spray then immediately transfer the item to your oven for baking. Immediately clean and re-spray any screw-ups. There should be no need to mask anything on a CZ75 aside from the chamber and muzzle openings (to protect the bore). The slide and frame rail tolerances, etc, are sufficiently loose that they can do with a coat of CeraKote to tighten things up a bit. Once the parts have been baked, they are fine to handle. I like to "finish" mine with a light coat of oil, which the newly-baked CeraKote seems to absorb a bit like parkerizing does. That's about all there is to it. I am partial to a Matte Black Slide and Controls, with a Cobalt Frame. The Cobalt colour is the closest that I have found to Zinc Parkerizing with that distinctive "metallic-charcoal" finish.


Cobalt and Black on an FN Hi Power MK III

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Cobalt on a S&W 3000 Police .12 ga

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SIG Dark Grey and Black on an STI Single-Stack Tactical .45

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Awesome stuff Bartok. I'm actually going to sandblast the parts as per the instruction guide. I'm also going to do a couple of test pieces before I do the gun, just so I can fine tune my spray gun and whatnot. If the CZ comes out nice I may do my AR next.
 
RK99 said:
Will be watching this. I picked up a scratched up Beretta 92S and plan to cerakote it. Going to practice on some bicycle parts first though.
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Bike parts are a good idea. I've been looking around my house for small objects that would be good test pieces. I don't want to use anything too big because this stuff ain't cheap. It cost me $130 shipped for a pint which is about 473ml I think. That's enough to do 13 handguns or 6 1/2 rifles according to the training manual.
 
G_Alan said:
Bartok5
Those really look nice,the S.G. especially . How big of an oven did you use? Hang the parts so nothing touches? Thanks
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Thanks for the kind words! The Shotgun was actually done (or at least organized) by S&J Hardware as part of their annual Remington 870 Christmas CeraKote Re-Finishing Special for $250. I included it because it does a good job of showing how the "Cobalt" CeraKote resembles fine Parkerizing.

zeegler said:
Awesome stuff Bartok. I'm actually going to sandblast the parts as per the instruction guide. I'm also going to do a couple of test pieces before I do the gun, just so I can fine tune my spray gun and whatnot. If the CZ comes out nice I may do my AR next.
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Sandblasting is definitely the way to go for surface preparation! The 400 grit Emery cloth is a "poor man's" sandblasting substitute for those without the means to blast and has worked well for me in the past. But sandblasting is definitely superior in terms of a consistent finish that adheres to the metal with the strongest possible bond. Just be careful how you hang your parts on the metal hangers and be sure not to touch anything that has been coated before baking and you should be fine! It is actually a very simple process made tedious by the need for precise surface prep with the Acetone bath(s), hanging of each part, etc. Try to have fun with it - remind yourself that the end result will be worth the effort that you put into the surface preparation! I am jealous if you have a full-size oven that will take a Barreled AR Upper Receiver, as all I have to work with is a large Toaster Oven. It works great for pistols, but that is about all I can currently do for size.
 
Bartok5 said:
Thanks for the kind words! The Shotgun was actually done (or at least organized) by S&J Hardware as part of their annual Remington 870 Christmas CeraKote Re-Finishing Special for $250. I included it because it does a good job of showing how the "Cobalt" CeraKote resembles fine Parkerizing.



Sandblasting is definitely the way to go for surface preparation! The 400 grit Emery cloth is a "poor man's" sandblasting substitute for those without the means to blast and has worked well for me in the past. But sandblasting is definitely superior in terms of a consistent finish that adheres to the metal with the strongest possible bond. Just be careful how you hang your parts on the metal hangers and be sure not to touch anything that has been coated before baking and you should be fine! It is actually a very simple process made tedious by the need for precise surface prep with the Acetone bath(s), hanging of each part, etc. Try to have fun with it - remind yourself that the end result will be worth the effort that you put into the surface preparation! I am jealous if you have a full-size oven that will take a Barreled AR Upper Receiver, as all I have to work with is a large Toaster Oven. It works great for pistols, but that is about all I can currently do for size.
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I also used my oven to de-cosmo my SKS. Used a drip tray of course, but the wife wasn't super happy about it. LOL

I picked this up from Crappy Tire this weekend. Hopefully it's up to the task.
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zeegler said:
Bike parts are a good idea. I've been looking around my house for small objects that would be good test pieces. I don't want to use anything too big because this stuff ain't cheap. It cost me $130 shipped for a pint which is about 473ml I think. That's enough to do 13 handguns or 6 1/2 rifles according to the training manual.
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Yes. I figured trying on something less valuable and potentially dangerous if I mess up would be a good start. I'm rebuilding an old mountain bike and was going to have some parts anodized. But I got a great deal on a small, slightly used, table top sand blasting cabinet and after reading a bit about cerakote figured that might be a good option for the bike parts too. A small bottle (4oz) should do for the bike parts I want to coat and be a good trial run. Then I'll only need another 4oz for the one pistol (well 8oz as I will likely do the frame/barrel and slide in two different colours).
 
RK99 said:
I think cerakote suggest a grit size of 100 so that one may not work.
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Yes, they do, and although this gun recommends 40-60, I'm pretty sure it will work with 100 grit without issue. Even if I encounter problems with 100 grit, I can't see any issue using the 60 grit.
 
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