Color your Becker: Hobo duracoatin' my BK9 olive drab

[BRL]

So a fellow in a thread that I now cannot find mentioned a gunsmith buddy of his would occasionally use a technique he called "hobo duracoat"... paint the parts with Krylon, then bake them in an oven at 300F for 30 minutes.

This has been festering in my head ever since, as I'm a color guy and love companies like ESEE that offer more than black. Finally I decided to do something about it, which was to hobo duracoat my BK9 and then, since that's my bruiser, see what kind of hard use the paint could or could not stand up to. Below are my results, along with some thoughts.


Strippin'

Scratchin'

IMMINENT PAINTING

Side one done

Haha omfg I didn't think to check whether my nine-inch Bowie knife would fit in my craft toaster oven. It didn't, of course. Fortunately Wife was out of the house so the kitchen oven was put into production.

Tada!

Now, if you look close enough you can tell that I didn't put too much thought into how precise I was with the paint. There are drips, there is orange peel, all the usual. I figured it wasn't worth spending a lot of time getting the paint right; I just sprayed it on thick, let it set a bit, sprayed some more on, then into the oven it went. Good enough for this experiment.

Test 1: Drive it deep into the chopping block.

Hey, it held up pretty well! The white on there is just wood chunks, not metal.

Test 2: chopping a piece of 3" hard mesquite.

Definitely took some paint off this time.

Test 3: Batoning that same piece of mesquite lengthwise into three pieces.

Really not much steel showing after that.

Conclusion
I would say this is a damn effective way to put a custom color on your Becker. The hobo duracoat came off a little bit easier than the factory coating, although not by much. This might not be best way to color something that sees a lot of hard use, like some of the bigger choppers, but for the tweeners and neckers I would think the paint would stay intact for a really long time. Looking forward to taking my BK16 into new territory... I think I'll see how this OD looks with the coyote brown scales.

Just keep in mind though, if you do venom green then you have to give Jeff Randall five bucks.

 

[Chameleonbear]

That is awesome man... Maybe I'll get my 11 done something similar.

 

[thrillbilly]

thanks! I been hoping someone would ''lab-rat'' this for me!


it was 1066vic BTW that mentioned it, or at least that's who I heard it from


If it held up that well with batoning and chopping, it should work nicely for EDC neckers.

 

[lhanley]

Nice! I don't want to put the effort into sanding and polishing,etc. This will be a great quick fix for me when the time comes.

 

[Nsvens89]

I wonder if it would work any better just roughing up the original epoxy coat and then painting on top of that. It might have a better bond than to the metal. Look good either way. Love that green brown combo. Nice! that would look sweet on a 14.

 

[RogueBowie]

I wonder if it would work any better just roughing up the original epoxy coat and then painting on top of that. It might have a better bond than to the metal. Look good either way. Love that green brown combo. Nice! that would look sweet on a 14.

Haha I do the same thing. Every time I see a sweet mod I'm like, 'that's pretty cool, but imagine it on a 14!'. This mod would definitely represent a little more of the ESEE half of the 14 for sure.

 

[emperorvince]

That's cool. May have held up a little better with a coat or two of self etching primer (which is already an olive type color) before the color coat. I use that when used to paint car/motorcycle parts (wheels etc) after they were stripped. I actually got caught by my wife baking car parts in the house oven..hence why I'm banned from using the oven, even for food.

 

[Renegade90]

Great mod...thanks for sharing the pics. I really like the color.

 

[Bladite]

mmm, hoboing... mmm... mmm, random paint designs. mmm...

 

[CamH_16]

Interesting...

 

[orangish ducktape]

Very cool, I have been wanting t do something like this for a while.

-orangish ducktape

 

[DaxMan]

I like it. An easy and inexpensive way to modify a knife. Best part, if it doesn't turn out just right or you change your mind you are only out the price a can of spraypaint. Thanks for sharing.

Dax

 

[LG&M]

I did this with a TOPs knife. The key B. It worked good I thought. I didn't evan remove the factory coating.

 

[Flying Guillotine]

Nice work, man! But I thought a hobo duracoat meant sticking a BK9 into a box of wine and leaving it there while you play the harmonica. Something tells me there will be more trials of this technique ahead.

 

[Tin.Man]

300 degrees seems a little high, can tooj chime in and let us know if that would affect the temper at all? It looks good though, I am thoroughly impressed how well it held up.

Ive definitely done the using the kitchen oven, damn gf was pissed last time haha

 

[Flexxx]

Good stuff BRL, but I like you naked......I mean I like the BK9 naked.

 

[daizee]

300 degrees seems a little high, can tooj chime in and let us know if that would affect the temper at all? It looks good though, I am thoroughly impressed how well it held up.

Ive definitely done the using the kitchen oven, damn gf was pissed last time haha

I'm not Tooj, but in order to get a target Rc of 58, I bet 1095CV has to be tempered somewhere between 500-600F.
You probably can't even hurt it in your oven.

-E

 

[Chameleonbear]

Maybe if you put it in there and put the oven on the self cleaning cycle.

 

[DOC-CANADA]

Maybe if you put it in there and put the oven on the self cleaning cycle.

The last time I checked, self cleaning temperature was about 830 degrees, unless you own an old model from the '60's, in which case, 1050 F, at least for Westinghouse.

Doc