Refinishing Magpul Stock w/ Alumahyde *UPDATE WITH PICS WOOT*

[Erik Eastman]

I've used AHII before, it's great but the stuff literally takes weeks to fully air cure. I read somewhere (internets) that you can speed this up by baking it at low heat for 8 hrs or so and it comes out hard as a rock. I have no doubt this speeds it up.

I'm refinishing a Magpul stock and I'm wondering if the polymer will stand up to a slow oven cure at a low temp(<200F) without damaging/weakening it.

It's the last thing I have to coat on this gun and I don't really want to wait 3 weeks to put it back together.

Anyone know the heat tolerances for the polymer Magpul uses by any chance?

Winner gets free OD gunporn.

Thanks

[RD62]

Never tried baking any. But I have had good results by letting the parts sit in full sun for a few hours, and then spraying and letting them continue to bake in the sun. This time of year around here that means about 93 degree days, and in full sun on a reflective background like aluminum foil, it can get well over 100. It cures pretty quickly. Good to touch in minutes. I'll let them "sun bath" all day if possible. It's worked well for me.


-RD62

[andre3k]

I'd like to see the results of this. What type of prep work needs to be done on a stock before you apply the Alumahyde?

[Erik Eastman]

Just a good cleaning and degreasing is all I'm doing.

I'll post some pics when I'm done.

[Erik Eastman]

Wow, the OD gunkote does not even come close to matching the OD Alumahyde. The Gunkote is much more green, AHII is more greenish brown/tan.

I like the OD Alumahyde color much better.

And neither color matches Magpul OD green, which is a darker green/brown color.

Ended up finishing everything over in the OD alumahyde, since I cant bake the stock, Pmags or the MIAD grip.

Too bad since I really like the gunkote durability, but at least the AHII is only $10 a can instead of $30.

I didn't paint one OD PMAG, I'll post the color differences when they are cured.

Oh, btw, I called Brownells and they said "no problem, send it (Gunkote) back".

They are refunding me the can of Gunkote, even though I used some.

[Erik Eastman]

Alright, got everything finished and re-assembled.

A few things:

Alumahyde II cures very quickly in a 180-200F oven. I left my parts in there for 5 hours and then let them cool. Very matte and very hard finsh. On the small metal parts it is (so far) comparable in texture and hardness to gunkote. Time will tell how chip resistant it is. I made some scratch marks on the inside of one of my scope mounts and it is pretty tough to scratch down to bare metal. Couldn't do it with my fingernail, took some scratching to get through with a mini-screwdriver. Pretty good, and I'm now convinced with AHII this is the way to go.

The polymer magpul items handled the low temp curing with no obvious problems. I left out a couple PMags I painted for comparison. This morning they are still somewhat tacky and have a strong paint smell to them. The other items are perfectly finished and they honestly look like they came that way. Zero tack and very nice, hard matte finish.

After curing the Alumahyde OD is in fact pretty close to the Magpul OD color. The Magpul is still a little darker and "browner", but it's pretty close. I'm still glad I painted everything to match. YMMV. Yes, I do care about my colors matching.

So here's some pictures:





Here's a Magpul OD PMag, and a AHII finished Pmag:


Camera settings make a big difference in how the color appears as well.


This is closer to how it looks in person.