Painting a parkerized/Synthetic shotgun?

[Billiard]

Hi All,

I’d like to paint a camo pattern on a parked\synthetic shotgun and I’m hoping you good people wouldn’t mind sharing some tips/thoughts/links?
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Thinking of next year’s turkey gun: 870 Police Magnum with ghost ring in the rear and a rifle sight up front, Syn upper and syn monte carlo rear. It has the darker full parkerized finish. I’m putting a Winchoke (it’s the tools available) in the short barrel (offhand I think it is 18.5”) and have an extended XX Full choke that will then put me out to about 20” when done.

After that is done I would like to put a camo paint job on it. I have heard of many different bake on types of good finishes, but am I correct in assuming I cannot bake onto the synthetics since they would not do well in an oven? So I will need something else if my assumption is correct…

I’ll start with a deep degreasing\scrubbing the parked surfaces but am looking for tips after that. I recognize the parkerized finish on it should soak up whatever finish I use fairly well, but anything made for this? Multi colors to allow me a nice camo pattern? Any good paint “patterns” out there?

I am hoping to make it the toughest\nicest finish when done and I am less concerned about the time difference in application of finishes, or the cost differences between finishes...

Many Thanks in advance!

 

[Robert Hairless]

K-G Coatings Gun-Kote applies directly over Parkerizing to make a superb finish. Of course you must clean and degrease everything, but you do nothing else--especially no blasting--to disturb the Parkerized finish. Piece of cake.

I apply it with a Paasche sprayer powered by a tabletop compressor, bake the barrel and action in our oven, and the small parts in a toaster oven. The temperature and time are the same: 350 degrees for one hour.

I don't do camouflage, so someone else will have to chime in with that information.

 

[Billiard]

Hi Robert,

Thanks for your reply! Please Forgive my ignorance, I was considering Gun-Kote however I was concerned regarding putting the synthetic stock and upper in the oven at 350 degrees – would that be safe with the 870P? At what temp do I need to worry about damage, e.g. melting?

 

[simmonsguns]

coating stocks.

If you coat your synthic stock set, spray them down with MEK first, this will give the coating a tooth to hold better.
Same with the metal, use MEK because it does not leave a residue like laquer thinner or some other solvents.
KG makes a stock coating that is an air dry product, it reaches full cure in about 48 hours but goes on much thinner than the oven cure product.
You can use the oven cure on synthic stocks but don't bake them at 350 deg. bake at 175 for 2 1/2 hours, 175 is the lowest point that KG will cure at, depending on how accurite your oven is you might want to go to 185 deg.
As for camo, KG can be sprayed over after 30 minutes, be carefull if you mask off for the pattern, you might want to flash cure at 350 for 30 minutes before you mask, if you are doing a template that's not sticky you can hold the template about 1/8 inch away from the gun and get good results.
Practice on anything with a template first, also the cans you buy from Brownells don't offer much control, your better off getting the coating that you can air brush, there is much more control with even the cost effective Bager kits from hobby stores.
Keep us posted on your work. Paul.

 

[Billiard]

Thanks much Paul, I appreciate both the product recommendations and the tips as well.