3D Printing Cerakote your 3D Printed Parts!

[OverTheTop]

Stumbled onto this whilst looking at Cerakote for a work project.

https://www.cerakote.com/cerakote-industries/3d-printing
Seems to do a good job of finishing the 3D parts

 

[SolarYellow]

It's nothing more than a reasonably high quality paint with a two-part, oven-cured binder and ceramic powders in the solid package. It's not "ceramic coating" stuff.

Kind of a pet peeve of mine how oversold it is in various markets.

 

[Sandy H.]

It's nothing more than a reasonably high quality paint with a two-part, oven-cured binder and ceramic powders in the solid package. It's not "ceramic coating" stuff.

Kind of a pet peeve of mine how oversold it is in various markets.

Is this the same stuff people sometimes put on certain gun parts? I had a friend that swore by it for that application, but I'm not into gunsmithing, so I never used it. He said it was tough as heck and it sounds like it would be interesting if it made 3DP parts stronger/better finished easily. I might check it out at that point.

Sandy.

 

[SolarYellow]

Is this the same stuff people sometimes put on certain gun parts?

Yes.

It builds up thickness, so you can't use it anywhere that slides or has to fit. It doesn't hold up to sliding wear on non-critical mechanical interfaces.

In order to get it to stick to metal and not just flake off, you have to do a serious abrasive blast. That totally obliterates any original surface qualities as well as any galvanic protection or conversion coating that may have originally been there. Because there can't be any galvanic protection, the Cerakote is completely vulnerable to filiform corrosion starting at the edge or any other place where the coating cracks, chips, gets scraped or just has enough porosity for chemicals to get through.

 

[Sandy H.]

Yes.

It builds up thickness, so you can't use it anywhere that slides or has to fit. It doesn't hold up to sliding wear on non-critical mechanical interfaces.

In order to get it to stick to metal and not just flake off, you have to do a serious abrasive blast. That totally obliterates any original surface qualities as well as any galvanic protection or conversion coating that may have originally been there. Because there can't be any galvanic protection, the Cerakote is completely vulnerable to filiform corrosion starting at the edge or any other place where the coating cracks, chips, gets scraped or just has enough porosity for chemicals to get through.

Thanks for the information. Sounds like it might have applications in places, but is not a 'fix-all' solution. I'll have to learn more about it at some point either way as it might have a sweet spot in certain applications.

Sandy.