Question for any experienced Cerakote applicators!

I'm going to start Cerakoting some guns this week at my house, and I have all of the necessary equipment to do the job properly (solvent tank, media blast cabinet, spray gun, etc.).

Anyway, I'm a bit hung up on the order of operations. Cerakote recommends in their training manual that an applicator first degreases, then "sand" blasts the parts. Some videos I've seen online follow the opposite order of operations, which intuitively sounds smarter to me. After all, #100 Aluminum Oxide is pretty fine media, and I imagine it would be hard to remove that residual dust before applying the coating if you didn't do the solvent soak after the blasting.

Have any of you experimented with this stuff? What works best in practice?

My plan was to do the following:

1) Basic degrease with non-chlorinated brake cleaner (just to keep my blast media from getting nasty).
2) Sand blast.
3) Soak in acetone.
4) Gas out in curing oven.
5) Spray.
6) Cure.

 

I would go by whatever procedures Cerakote recommends. After all, they probably have the most hands-on experience with their product, and they have a huge incentive to make sure people do it right so their product’s reputation stays as solid as possible.

 

While I do tend to agree with that theory, I also realize that in practice people often figure out ways to do things that work better than those stated in the manual. Plus, Cerakote (NIC Industries) has a couple of things in their manual/video that slightly contradict each other. Obviously I'm looking to apply the best possible coating, so that's why I'm asking. And, as far as spray-on coatings go, Cerakote is definitely one of the more technical ones!

 

Just spoke with my gunsmith/builder/machinist friend. He Cerakotes a lot. He said one has to degrease, preferably overnight to draw residue out. Then acetone. But he said after blasting you should never do anything to the metal. Just passing it on.

 

Thanks for that perspective! I guess my thought process was only that if Cerakote is so sensitive to dirt and oil, I probably couldn't count on it coming out of the media blast cabinet completely "sterile". But, again, I'm just trying to get this stuff figured out still, so I appreciate the information.