There was definitely a learning curve. I watched many of the videos on youtube and Lauer has posted his own videos. They do make it sound like the finish just jumps on the firearm and snuggles in, not really. I used an air compressor and a cheap air brush from Harbor Freight. I hated the air brush and bought a Badger air brush from amazon much better. The first time I painted a knife and roughed it up then degreased with the Trustrip and painted it and it flaked right off with my finger nail. I called Lauer, which I must say if I had any questions the guy picked the phone up every time I called and talked as long I wanted and answered all my questions. He told me that you Trustrip (degrease) only once and as the first step, then you rough up the surface and blow off anything left over with the compressor. Another mistake I made was laying the paint on too thick. It takes longer for it to bond when you lay it on thick. Once again I called Lauer and he told me to spray a "layer" and let it "flash". What he was saying is apply a light coat that looks wet and wait a few minutes until it looks dry and then apply another layer until you get the coverage you want. This process worked great. This was the first one I did, I did have to sand some areas down and reshoot them, but once I learned the "layer flash" technique it went smooth. IMHO I think it will hold up as well as bluing, if you draw and holster a blued gun over and over you will get wear at certain spots. The thing I like about duracoat is if I do get wear, I can just reshoot it. I am not even close to trying to blue a firearm.
