light head paints
- Thread starter tharg
- Start date
wquiles
Flashaholic
In my opinion, for Aluminum, the best is to use no coating/paint, and have the piece processed with HA-III (hard anodized type 3).
The HA-III electro-chemical process "transforms" the external surfaces of the Aluminum, resulting in a new surface that is very tough, very resistant to scratches, salt, and many other chemicals. It is "the" best process for Al, and why companies such as SureFire and others that do military gear always use this process to protect the Aluminun pieces.
However, doing HA-III properly is very dangerous due to the strong chemicals used, and it is not what I would call a "trivial" nor "easy" process to do at home. Note that doing HA-III is "not" the same as those easy to use/apply hard anodizing kits that you can buy on-line => those are only for HA-II, or the "basic" anodizing which is very easy to remove/scratch, and provide little protection.
The next level down in protection for Al are the ones that use a special paint/coating which are baked - the same finishes being used a lot now-a-days for firearms, and firearm parts/accessories. There are various types, and you can find them by their trade names, the more populars being Cerakote, Duracoat, and Moly Resin. Just like with true HA-III, the metal preparation is ultra important, but you "can" do those at home on a small oven, and using mostly an airbrush. These finishes are much, much better than the plain anodizing, but a level down from HA-III (which again, it not a coating - it permanently changes the surface of the Aluminum!).
The next level down in protection comes from Powder Coating, and the basic type II anodizing (basic finish on a factory Mag-lite). Those are much easier to scratch/off or peel off compared to Cerakote, Duracoat, and Moly Resin. I have a full powder coating kit at home, and have tested the surface against basic anodizing and although it is better than the basic anodizing, it is not that much better - you can even dissolve powder coating by wiping it down with an easy to get solvent.
The last thing I will mention is the thickness of each process. The HA-III transforms the outer surface, and increases the size a little - enough to note on threaded parts, so parts that are going to be threaded should not have a very tight fit before HA-III.
Cerakote, Duracoat, and Moly Resin "generally" (depending on how it was applied/sprayed) create a very thin surface, small enough that firearm parts that were fitted prior to these coatings still fit fine after the coating, and this also means no problems on threaded parts.
Powder coating is the worst here - compared to the other processes above, it has by far the thickest coating, and threads have to be completely masked off. Fitted parts will not fit well after powder coating, so your results might vary depending how thick a layer you end up with, which can get even worst once you add a second later for protection [like UV layer] which is commonly added to powder coated parts to increase their resistance to weather and "outside" conditions.
Just my 2 cents worth.
Klem
Enlightened
That's very informative...Where would you go to get parts HAIII coated, and what do you think it would cost? Is it worth doing that or doing your own baked coating?
The way it works is they have a certain "basket" size. They will do a minimum order price based on the "basket" size. Usually $150 or so. You can probably get 20 maglites done for that minimum... Now, since the mags are type II, they will have to strip them... That's an additional price per piece. You can, however, put them in a caustic solution and strip the type II. You will then need to polish if you want a nice finish. If you don't care about it being dull, then no need to polish.
No baked coating will stand up as well as HAIII.
wquiles
Flashaholic
Excellent question. And the answer is cost. It cost a lot of money and takes a good deal of time, to properly do the HA-III process. So to lower the cost on a piece, they only do a batch of many pieces at a time - each operator has a min. number of pieces they will run, so if you only have 1-2 pieces, you are out of luck, or you would have to wait until the operator has other pieces to complete the min. - otherwise the cost/piece would be very high.
Here in the forums we have had many "batches" of HA-III in which forum members send their pieces to be done in HA-III, but it does not happen very often (which I think is unfortunate). The other problem with HA-III is that the finish and color of HA-III varies quite a lot - there is not a lot of control in the process, so it is not consistent. Even the really good HA-III from SureFire has a lot of variation from batch to batch - it is funny when you see a SureFire light (lets say like the M6) that has been in production for 10+ years - when you put a lot of those lights side by side, you will clearly see that the HA-III color is "not" the same. So unless you send all of the pieces of a light at the same time (head, body, tailcap), you are pretty much guaranteed that the colors will be different.
Given that (realistically) you can't do HA-III on your own home, your options are:
1) find a local HA-III processor, wait until they have enough pieces to do a batch
2) or find enough folks interested so that you collect enough pieces so that your processor will do a whole batch just for you
3) or find an alternate method to HA-III
(note that on 1 or 2 you really have zero control over the results/quality until "after" the parts come back. Some folks when using a new processor will sent a few "test" pieces to check their quality, but even then the results are not consistent from batch to batch).
Of those options, I chose #3 since I wanted to have more control, and I wanted to have the ability to do single pieces at a time. I chose first powder coating, until I found it not being "good enough" for me, so now I am currently testing Moly Resin, which is one of the premium baked products you can do on your own.
Oh, and I forgot to mention above, HA-III is electrically non-conductive - if your light used the threads to pass electricity, after HA-III, the light will not work. In fact, HA-III is great for heat-sinks since you can glue an LED to the heatsink without having to worry about the base of the LED being tied to the '+" or the "-" of the battery. I have not looked into the electrical conductive qualities of the other baked solutions "yet" ;)
Will
wquiles
Flashaholic
Yes, from what I have read/study, that is my understanding as well, but the good baked solutions are pretty tough - tough enough to withstand firearm use/abuse, which is why I feel they are a good alternative to HA-III.
It is worth noting that of the baked products, Moly resin is self-lubricating (edit: so they claim), so in theory (I have the kit home, but I have not tested this yet) Moly resin "could" be a good finish for threaded areas as it might not need lubrication (or very minimal), unlike HA-III which is a "rough" surface treatment, which most definitely needs lubrication on all threaded areas. I would still rather have HA-III and lubrication on the threads, but I am looking forward to testing Moly resin some time this year ;)
Will
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Klem
Enlightened
Thanks guys, looks like it's baked for me.
baked for me to! if it starts to chip or looking bad ill just strip and do it again.but i well prob sand blast the light head before spraying.might help to hold better. but thanks for all the info.. prob use the brownells gun kote products and see what happens.
wquiles
Flashaholic
If you go to the Moly resin site, you will see details/instructions as to how to touch-up/re-coat parts:
"Touch Up:
Moly Resin™ may be applied over an existing cured Moly Resin™ finish. Cured parts or complete firearms may be retouched by simply wiping the surface with alcohol, acetone, etc., preheating, and applying Moly Resin™ very lightly with an airbrush over any marred or scratched surfaces. Cure at 300 f. to 325 f. for one hour for thermally cured Moly Resin."
Will
wquiles
Flashaholic
As an update to this thread, I started a new post where I am testing parts that I coated with powder coating and Moly Resin, compared to OEM finish, in case it might be of interest.
Moderator - I hope I am not violating any forum rules by this link. If I did, my apologies and please remove this post.
Will
Moderator - I hope I am not violating any forum rules by this link. If I did, my apologies and please remove this post.
Will
lucca brassi
Enlightened
It is pretty hard your test Will with those tethraeders special they are new and don't have rounded edges and tips.
For divers I think you do same test with add of salt water.
I think that is imortant to see how will conection between paint and metall surface act when is paint surface wounded.
For painting I think exist test where you have to cut on paint with sharp knife a net . Smaller square / painting is better . ( In our electronics forum someone tested painting on aluminium for front boards panels )
Find it in second
http://www.nstcenter.com/docs/PDFs/TechResources-FederalTestMethodStandard141D.pdf
http://www.defelsko.com/technotes/adhesion_methods.htm
But I think your method is pretty good - realistic.
Good work as usual ;-)
For divers I think you do same test with add of salt water.
I think that is imortant to see how will conection between paint and metall surface act when is paint surface wounded.
For painting I think exist test where you have to cut on paint with sharp knife a net . Smaller square / painting is better . ( In our electronics forum someone tested painting on aluminium for front boards panels )
Find it in second
http://www.nstcenter.com/docs/PDFs/TechResources-FederalTestMethodStandard141D.pdf
http://www.defelsko.com/technotes/adhesion_methods.htm
But I think your method is pretty good - realistic.
Good work as usual ;-)
