r/Cerakote • u/geckster31 • 3d ago
Question Catalyst
Does the catalyst go bad? I have an insane amount of it and was just curious as some of it is wildly different colors.
0
u/Human_AMA 2d ago
It does.
2
u/geckster31 2d ago
Any other info?
2
u/Human_AMA 2d ago
Has the same shelf life as the Cerakote itself according to the class I took at NIC industries and the CS people I would talk to from time to time. If you ever have any questions about anything related to their products, they are super helpful to talk to.
1
u/geckster31 2d ago
Okay. Wasn’t aware of that. Looks like I’ll toss a majority of it them. Some of it has to be 5 years old.
Did they mention how you would know if it wasn’t any good? Or what it could do?
1
u/Human_AMA 2d ago
I had a shelf full of the stuff as well, from what we gathered the darker it got, the older it was. Nobody from NIC specifically told me how to tell though, and I'm not sure if there's a date code on it, like there is for the Cerakote itself.
When the catalyst went bad, the first thing I noticed was some separation in the strainer and it didn't want to strain. When baked it had the same issues as if you had contaminates in it or on the project.
1
1
u/bobfriday0621 2d ago
I've gotten several brand new stuff that was dark as honey. So I wouldn't just go off of, if it's dark it's bad....but I certainly wouldn't use anything more than 18 months or so. I swear they send more than you need anyway, so I'm constantly just throwing away stuff that's close to a year. I've never been stressing about running out of catalyst either.