Aluma-Hyde II Issues

[THE DARK KNIGHT]

Ok, so I've been working on my custom AK project, thanks a ton for the help so far.

Along the way I have a few questions. I followed the following procedure for each piece painted:

- Sanded to bare metal with 100 grit
- Degreased with Brakeleen brake cleaner
- Painted in 3-4 light coats ~5 minutes apart with Aluma-Hyde II parkerizing gray
- Then left in front on a hairdryer to heat the parts for 6-8 hours
- Then left on the table to dry for a week

After painting the magazines the finish came out odd. Near the top of the magazine seams and the ridge on the back side, the magazines took on a "wet" gray, and look much darker than the rest. What caused this?

Second, the paint when dry has a powdery finish to it. It's been four days so far. On my test piece, I can scrape the powdery finish off with my fingernail. The paint is on just fine, but the powdery look is lost after a fingernail scrape.

After a week or two of curing, will the powdery finish not scrape off with a fingernail? Mind you, the finish isn't scraping off. It has a powdery, parkerized metal texture, which gets "flattened" by a fingernail so to speak.

 

[tango2echo]

Either you got it too hot or the brake cleaner wasn't fully evaporated is my guess.

I degrease, lightly sand, degrease again, let dry for a coupe hours, shake the hell out of the paint, lightly spray flash coats 3-5 minutes apart, let dry for 3-4 hours, then heat to about 135f for 2-4 hours, and left to dry at room temp for 10-14 days. Once done the finish is tough as hell. You can scratch it, but not with a fingernail.

t2e

 

[jimmyraythomason]

Perhaps you aren't shaking the can enough(assuming you are using an aerosol can). Aluma-hyde II requires several minutes of vigorous shaking to remix the pigment and the carrier agent. Otherwise uneven coverage can occur regardless of the spray pattern. Long story short,the powdery look and the wet look should dissappear with a LOT of shaking.

 

[zhyla]

Any updates on this? I just did 4 coats of the park. gray alumahyde on a slightly rusty blued magazine. As a prep I steel wooled, then I hit it with brake cleaner and then wiped with acetone. It seemed dry enough after 20 minutes so I went ahead and sprayed it.

The finish looks very much like parkerizing. It's somewhat rough. I wasn't expecting the roughness, I figured it would be just a matte gray not a textured finish. Is it supposed to be like this? I shook the crap out of the can before and during use. I put down coats thin enough that it wasn't until the 3rd coat that the bluing didn't peek thru.

It looks great but I wonder now how hard it will be to keep clean.

 

[dfariswheel]

Could be you're "fogging" the coating on.
Spray painting is a skill you have to develop.
Hold the spray too close and you get runs and sags in the finish.
Too far away and the spray starts to set up before it hits, and this gives a rough, powdery surface.

Some "parkerize" type gun coatings are intended to have a slightly rough look to match real park.

 

[zhyla]

Yeah, Brownells doesn't say much about what the finish texture should be so I'm not sure whether I applied it too far or not.

 

[bkjeffrey]

Shake shake shake....................and shake some more. Aluma hyde has to be shaken alot for proper material mixing.

 

[zhyla]

Yeah I shook it really good. The result looks so close to parkerizing that it's probably just the way it was intended, just not what I expected.

So I let it cure for 7 days and shoved the mag into the pistol a few times and... well, it scrapes off pretty easy in the magwell. Also I mistakenly sprayed a coat or two on the inside and now the mag follower doesn't reach the exact top of the mag and trip the slide catch properly. So I would say definitely not a good idea for magazines. But it seems like tough stuff if you're not going to have parts rubbing all the time.

 

[matai]

I'm just about to Aluma-Hyde my 10/22 receiver and trigger group. I read somewhere to stick it in the oven prior to painting at about 180 degrees for a while, then paint it, then put it back in the oven at 180 then let it sit out for about a week.

Does that sound like a good process?