Need Help: Gun Kote finish screwed up.

[godogs57]

Thanks in advance for any help here. I have used Gun Kote finish in the past on some daggers sent over to Iraq and have had no problem with it....all in olive drab color. Now I get some in matte black and just can't get the stuff to work worth a damn. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

I had a blade bead blasted this past week. Get it back and then I wipe it down with acetone. Pre-heat it to 100 degrees per the instructions, spray on the first coat...lightly. I let it dry for at least 30 minutes, again, per instructions, and then coat #2 goes on. Dry for about an hour and into the oven @ 300 degrees for one hour. Afterwards the finish bubbled on the blade and I tried to steel wool it off to fix things up....hell the whole finish, that is supposed to be close to bullet proof, just rubs off! I can take my fingernail and scrape the rest of it off if I had the time. No adhesion whatsoever! Thoroughly po'd, I take it to my scotchbrite wheel and just take the whole $%&* finish off and start over.

Coat #1 is on and dries overnight, tonight I preheat the blade in preparation for Coat #2 and the finish is tacky at best...sticky like it was only half dry.

Anybody got a clue what might be happening? My olive drab paint jobs went as advertised...they are close to being bullet proof.

Is Gun Kote a good finish? Have you had experience with other similar finishes that are better? Again, thanks in advance.

Hank Hammond

 

[deker]

Have you switched brands or containers of acetone since the OD GunKote worked? I seem to recall Fitzo saying that in his testing, hardware store acetone left a residue. I'd imagine that goo left behind by acetone could be the culprit. Also, after rubbing down with acetone, did you touch the blade at all with bare hands? Finger oils might screw stuff up too. I'd say, scratch it dry on wet/dry paper, blow it clean with comporessed air, and try again. Also, wear rubber gloves through the whole process.

Of course, I've never used GunKote, so I'm kind of just guessing....

-d

 

[Andre V]

I have been using gunkote for a few weeks now and am highly impressed with it.

The problem might be that you are waiting too long between coats.

I do light passes with my airbrush, wait a few seconds and continue. I am doing light fogging passes though, i am not applying a lot of paint per pass. I just keep doing this until i get good coverage.

I had a problem with bubbling once when i tried to apply a different colour (brown on black).

In that case i waited about 1/2 hour for the previous black coating to dry, before i applied the green. Maybe try doing fogging light passes, with a few seconds between coats. All your heating temps seem okay.

Good luck.

 

[godogs57]

Thanks for the suggestions, but it seems like I am doing like y'all are....still scratching my head on this one. However, my acetone DID come from the hardware store....perhaps I need to steal some of my wife's actetone?