Several years ago I modified a Stag arms lower to look appropriate for my m16a1 upper. I painted it with norells moly resin. Fast forward several years and the moly resin looked horrendous; It had changed color to a dark green gray, was starting to flake and even was wrinkling. I finally got some access to a aluminum oxide blasting cabinet and cleaned her up, and prepped her....so now the question is; what is the appropriate duracoat color for my lower? I have heard many good things about duracoat and it seems to be more resilient.

Thanks,
Moulton

why not anodize it?

I would but I ground down and filled in the stag head with jb weld. Yeah.....bad mistake but I did it when I was younger.

A couple of years ago I decided to do a faux retro lower in Duracoat.

The Duracoat "Colt Gray" is too dark.  

I mixed ACU Light Tan 50-50 with Colt Gray and it came out pretty close to the retro light anodized gray.  However, remember that a painted surface will always look different than an anodized one.

Norrels moly resin "flat gray" or "grayish flat black" look like the original Colt finishes. Flat gray is more of the bluish gray SP1 color, and grayish flat black is more of the older M16 color, and it looks more like anodizing than duracoat does.  Here is my rifle in FLAT GRAY just for an example

How has your finish held up? What kind of prep work did you do?

Maybe I did something wrong in the prep work or it did not cure at all.

"Hello Kitty" pink

Explain what you did to prep? What did you use to degrease? Did you use latex gloves while handling? I don't have any experience with Norells but I will tell you that Duracoat scratches very easily.I would try the Norells again and just make sure you prep it right and bake it.

Receivers are NDS anodized, receiver extension, stock nut, receiver end plate, and charging handle are DuraCoat Parker Grey.





All steel here is Parker Grey.





M16A1 receivers are Parker Grey, XM177E2 is NDS anodized.



I'll try some mixing, see if I can get a closer match.

If you have it blasted already, I'd try the Norrells again. Mine turned out tough as nails on the blasted parts and parts that were parkerized. Very close match too.

ETA more detailed info:
I actually washed my parts in Dawn dishwashing soap first, dried them,  then hit them with brake cleaner while wearing gloves. My oven only goes down to 200, so I preheated the part to that for about 30 minutes, shot a thin coat, back in the oven for ten minutes. Three thin coats like that.  I also cooked my parts for about an 1.5 hrs at 375 after to give a flatter appearance. In between coats use a high powered light to look for missed areas or spots from all angles. I also recommend setting the flow rate with the set screw on the airbrush to get consistent coverage with less chance for thin areas. I found myself making dry passes because I forgot to pull back on the trigger. You also have to keep sloshing and shaking the moly resin or it will settle to a sludge on the bottom of the cup.

What I like about the moly resin is it's  very chemical resistant and drinks gun oil without getting gummy or weird. Plus it's basically dry lube that bonds and has some lubrication properties itself.  

Here's my project.  It matches the nodak upper pretty damn close. It's the only part besides the safety and rear pin in the photos that doesn't have moly on it.

That looks great!

+100

Thanks guys! Its almost done, needs a nodak lower still. Soon, very soon!

Its holding up good, there is one small little chip by the rear takedown pin, I've been contemplating refinishing it in grayish flat black. To prep I just cleaned the parts off, and heated them up with a hair dryer. As I sprayed, i did very light passes and continued keeping it hot with the hair dryer as I painted. Then I cured it in the oven afterwards for whatever time/temp the website said to, didnt have any smell while curing. I am very pleased with the product, though I feel as though I could have done a better job applying it, it was my first try. I've since gotten much better at it, I've refinished a bunch of buffer tubes and other smaller parts and they came out looking just like gray anodizing. I might give the rifle another coat to touch it up a little. Like I said in my other post, the FLAT GRAY color has somewhat of a bluish tint to it and looks very much like the anodizing on old Colt sporter semi automatic rifles, the GRAYISH FLAT BLACK looks more like the anodizing that was seen on M16 rifles. If done right, moly resin is durable and looks nearly identical to anodizing.

looks awesome! what color is that??

Thanks!  The bottle says "gray-black flat". I actually took the nodak to Norrels house (he lives ten min away) and did a color match with his samples and early xm-16e1 lowers. The next shade darker is a dead ringer for the darker uppers of the seventies like my CH marked upper. the next shade lighter than the bluish one is the color of this stock or pretty darn close:

Not a bad idea IMO

I wish I had done the safe and fire on the passenger side of my SBR lower before doing it.


Brent. the 607 project looks good.... Your going to have fun with it

Thanks John! Considering a Form 1 at this point and going correct.

I ordered some DuraCoat Colt Gray

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