I NEED HELP WITH POWDER COATING

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mashburn posted this 12 March 2020

Hello To All Of You Accomplished Powder Coaters,

I decided a while back that I was going to start powder coating my cast projectiles. I gathered up all of the necessary equipment and bought a new toaster oven and traded it to my wife for her old oven and was ready to get started. My knowledge of powder coating is limited. Okay here are the results, I couldn't get any powder to stick to the bullets at all. I would like to know how much powder to put in the butter bowl for how many bullets and how many plastic BB'S. I swished and swished this way and that way and even put it all in a somewhat smaller container and set it down in my vibratory case cleaner, still no powder on the bullets. The bullets that I was trying to coat were .17 caliber pills and if you have every cast .17 cal bullets you will roll them and around in your fingers a lot  looking for small defects before you accept or reject them. I thought they may have a lot of gooey finger prints on them so I got out some new bullets and washed them in lacquer clean and let them dry and then went through all of the processes again. NO BETTER LUCK.

The first mix of powder, bb's and bullets seemed to have too much static electricity. The bullets, powder and bb's would lump up into big lumps and wouldn't agitate. The later mixture that I tried lumped up but near as bad as the beginning attempt. I dug through all of the old posts on the forum this evening and found some interesting info: guess what. One contributor said that Harbor Freight flat black pain would not adhere unless you used some kind of static gun.  Since I was just getting started and not wanting to spend any more money than necessary on paint, until I learned what I was doing, guess what I bought. That's right-Harbor Freight Flat Black.

Before I order new paint I would like to know what kind of paint works best and I would appreciate all of the helpful info that you experienced powder coaters can give me. Guess what I learned how to make Harbor Freight flat black stick but it goes on too thick. Take a bullet in your tweezers and dip it into lacquer thinner and give it a good shaking to sling all of the lacquer thinner off. Sift a little paint powder on a smooth flat surface and lay the bullet down and roll it through the powder. I used my finger and would mash the angled point down to make it go down to the paint. It puts a coating on immediately but it is a way too thick. Kind of resembles a minature wooly worm.

Thanks,

Mashburn

David a. Cogburn

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Spindrift posted this 24 April 2020

I have noticed that the powder seems to cling easier in the winter, when humidity in the air is less.

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mashburn posted this 24 April 2020

It's me again,

I have been trying to master powder coating for several weeks now as you can tell from this discussion. You solve one problem and later the same problem comes up again, but the way you solved it before doesn't work. However despite all of this I have been able to turn out what I consider perfect bullets, and will be shooting a lot of them next week. Here in Oklahoma our weather has been changing so much lately. An example is 94 degrees one day and a week later we had a freeze. To me, I've come to believe that the atmospheric conditions have a tremendous effect on the powder adhering to the bullet .One day, when the temperature had dropped severely, I went to the shop and did some powder coating. I didn't turn any heat on, in the shop, and had the easiest and best day of coating that I have had. The question is, have any of you noticed this or was it just one of those things

Mashburn.

David a. Cogburn

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mashburn posted this 22 April 2020

Hello to all,

There is one thing that I have definitely learned from this discussion. Here is the one thing: The responses that I have received from forum members sure have been more helpful and intelligent that what I found on u-tube..I have dug through a lot of u-tube videos and have found a little helpful information, but you have to surf through so much mularky to find it, it just isn't worth the time and trouble. .Some of those people need to get a job and a life.

Thanks to all of you responders, you have been very helpful.

Mashburn

David a. Cogburn

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Spindrift posted this 12 April 2020

Mashburn, so nice to hear you’re making progress!

Good luck with your shooting and load development!

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mashburn posted this 09 April 2020

Hello Ken and 4and1,

More food for thought. Right after the bullets were cast by my grandson while I was shaking and baking other bullets, I grabbed a handful of the problem species, that were still quite warm and put them in the shaker and they took powder immediately. Afterwards, when I tried to coat them a few days later would not take powder. I thought, I will warm them up like they were right after casting and they will take powder, verdict was, they wouldn't. I found that cleaning in lacquer thinner-acetone- and hot dish soap washes had no effect. I experimented with different amounts of BB's and different amounts of powder in the shaker with limited results. I quit fooling with them for a week or so and decided to try again, they coated to some extent but I don't think the powder baked on well. About a week later I tried some more bullets that had not been cleaned at all,, they had been setting in a open top container in my shop and they took powder immediately and baked and sized perfectly. Years ago I found that if you were trying to touch up a spot on a rifle with cold blue you could take a paper towel and put some purex on it and it would etch enough for the blue to work much better. I have been thinking about this. But here's the question, I would think you could create  more static electricity on a smooth, slick surface than you could on a etched one.

I have another question- Has anyone experimented with the effect of the atmospheric temperature on the ability of bullets to take powder? The temperature had dropped quite a bit when I coated them successfully and I had no heat on in the shop. Of course, here we are having summer like temperatures most of the time.. It was 94 degrees yesterday but in the 70's today. Now the little .17 cal pills is a different story, I finally got them to coat but I culled a lot of them. I'm going to cast some more bullets from that alloy and let them age a few weeks before I try to coat them. I still have that alloy in my pot.

Thanks for your responses and information.

Mashburn

David a. Cogburn

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4and1 posted this 09 April 2020

I will offer a response to Ken's post, for thought. Many people who make their own jacketed bullets, and squirt their own cores, will boil them to clean the lube off of them. One thing that is used is TSP in the water. Forgive the spelling- trisodiumphosphate. I can attest that it leaves the cores with a dull "oxidized" finish, not a shiny one. People who use TSP believe the oxidized finish will help the core to adhere to the copper jacket. 

 

Maybe the same for PC?

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Ken Campbell Iowa posted this 09 April 2020

mr mashburn ... ok, maybe the pc sticks better to a bullet that is " primed " by a little oxidation ... so how about speeding up the process by::

soaking them an hour or 3 days in a container of richer oxygen gas  ... keeping on the safe side by using an ozone generator ... ? ... or ? soaking in h2o2 ...? ...  dang i shudda stayed awake in chem class ...  

*************

so now real cowboys wear boots and big hats and shoot pink girly bullets ? .... 

ken

edit: ... oh how about casting them hot and frosty ?  in the first place ...

 

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mashburn posted this 09 April 2020

Hello Tom G,

Speaking of you no longer having any hard alloys, to my understanding, powder coating relieves the need for hard alloys. Or that's what I have learned here on the post. I am just starting to shoot powder coated bullets and have no tested proof. That was the main reason I went to powder coating, I wanted  a softer bullet for hunting, yet able to shoot at higher velocities. Good luck.

Mashburn

David a. Cogburn

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mashburn posted this 09 April 2020

Hello Spindrift,

I thought you would like to know that I finally got the problem alloy bullets to coat. I'm not sure what the trick was, I just kept fooling with  little different techniques and finally it started to work. The first batch that I got to coat didn't seem to be as tough as they should be but the last batch that I did nothing to, no washing, no heating, coated wonderful and sized without loosing any coating. Again, this batch had aged a week or so since I did the first ones. I still think it is the alloy. I will cast more bullets from this alloy and let them seat for a few weeks and see what happens when I try to coat them.

Thanks for all of your help,

mashburn

David a. Cogburn

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mashburn posted this 09 April 2020

Hello,

I want to thank all of you people who have taken time to post info. on this thread.  Anybody who wants to get started at powder coating can, if he reads all of this, can have a head start on a lot of problems that will be encountered. I have been able to use this info to learn how to coat in a short time, but don't expect that you won't run into other problems to solve.

Thanks to all,

Mashburn  

David a. Cogburn

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mashburn posted this 09 April 2020

Hello Tom G,

Thanks for your addition to my thread. I, like you am relatively new to the powder coating activity. One thing I can tell you is, don't powder coat in your wife's oven. There are some very vile fumes released. 450 is about the top heat limit available in todays market. My wife had a older model that went higher but I haven't seem one in years. My oven is convection and has 4 heat elements but all four will only come on when you set it on toast, and then you don't have convection. I checked the temp on mine, with a pyrometer, and it will go about 475 instead of maxing out at 450. It holds its temperature pretty steady. Like one responder said, insulation is probably the answer. It was a fairly expensive oven when she bought it. I'll probably be disagreed with on this next statement by all the powers that be out there, but I wouldn't spend the extra money for a digital control. To me that is just a waste of money, and more likely to give trouble in the future, and now here will come the comments.

I've only been coating a few weeks but by reading and asking questions I've been able to have mostly success. There is a lot of goood information that has been posted on this thread.

David a. Cogburn

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GP Idaho posted this 09 April 2020

An oven capable of holding a pretty stable and accurate temperature is one of the more important items to have for powder coating. Buy a quality convection oven and consider the use of a P.I.D  Gp

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Brodie posted this 09 April 2020

 Tom G,

If you want to even out the temperature of your toaster oven add more insulation around the outside of the oven.  It is probably showing so much temp. variation because it cools off so quickly.  If it were better insulated the temperature would not swing so rapidly.  I don't know a lot about powder coating, but I have had a great deal of experience with adjusting and managing water baths, ovens, and heating elements.  Stay Safe!

B.E.Brickey

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Boschloper posted this 09 April 2020

Tom:  My wife gave me a toaster oven for Christmas. It is an inexpensive model with 2 elements and a pot control. My son gave me a digital thermometer. I use the oven for powder coating only. The cure temp. for my powder is 400 and I don't have any trouble getting that hot with a load of 100+ .45 pistol bullets. I use the pot for a course adjustment and fine tune to the digital.  Once I get it tuned in, it holds about +/- 20deg. I drilled a hole in the back of the oven and stick the probe in so it is just above the tray of bullets. My powder coating mentor uses a convection oven, and I borrowed it before I got mine. I don't see any advantage to the convection. I can't say I have checked the accuracy of my oven, but it seems repeatable to the digital thermometer, which is not calibrated. 

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Tom G posted this 08 April 2020

Guys,  

 

With the advent of being "locked down at home"  I've decided to try powder coating. I've been following your work with great interest and seek your advice.  Since I recently sold over 1,000 lbs of my linotype and 200 lbs of monotype I no longer have any hard lead to alloy with my wheel weights. 

For harder bullets than WW+T I will need to water drop or heat treat the lead. So, I am contemplating buying a toaster oven.  I've always used my wife's kitchen oven but lately we replaced the old 20+ year old one with a new glass topped one. I know better than to ask her if I can heat treat bullets or powder coat in the new one. I can't blame her as she has never liked me doing bullets in her cooking oven. 

I want to powder coat my pistol bullets so i'm hoping I can buy a toaster oven that will do both Heat treat and powder coating. After looking at a bunch of toaster ovens, I see that most of them only go to 450 deg. max. Also, there seems to be two different temperature control systems ; Digital and those with a ( what I assume is a rheostat control. I suspect that if a toaster oven can hold an honest 450 deg. it will suffice to heat treat bullets. I don't think that any of them would have a problem reaching powder coating temperatures. 

My questions are, has anyone actually checked the accuracy of the oven as to how the set temperature and the actual temp that it will hold agree?  Will they actually hold an honest 450 degrees with a load of bullets in them?  Do you think that buying a digitally controlled oven is worth the price or is one that just operates off a pot. (potentiometer) sufficient ?  What is the temperature spread between oven on and off as it cycles? My wife's old oven used to regulate the temperature up and down in about a 50 degree range. I,O.W,  it would come on at say 400 and click off at about 450 deg. and the temperature curve if you plotted it would look like a saw tooth!!  I don't know if this is important in baking paint or heat treating bullets. 

I'm not sure what the "convection" feature really is. Is it just a fan that circulates the air inside the oven? Is it worth paying for if you are baking bullets. It seems that if the bullets were kept the same temp. on the top as on the bottom it would give a more consistent heat threat or paint melt. I know from heat treating in my wife's oven that baking setting is better than broiling. Broiling got the top of the bullets too hot from the radiant heat and didn't heat them as uniformly as baking. Some of the more expensive toasters have 4 heating elements, Is that an advantage for our purpose or not worth the money? 

Am I asking too much to get one that will heat treat bullets as well as power coat?

As you can see, I have a lot of questions and little experience. So, I would appreciate any advice you experienced powder coater's my have to offer.  

Tom G. 

NRA life,  CBA life. Past CBA Secretary 

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shuz44 posted this 08 April 2020

I just started powder coating for the .44 mag by using a powder product offered by a guy named Smoke4320  on the Cast Boolit site.

I located a number 5 type 1 quart container with a screw type lid from Zip Lock, and it works great and you can actually see how the boolits are being coated because the container is translucent.

Shake for 1 minute, put on a tray using needle nose pliers and placed on parchment paper, and bake in the oven at 400 deg for 20 minutes and you're done!

Mine came out beautiful, and there was great accuracy and no leading whatsoever outta 2 different revolvers that have throats that are .4285. I have no idea what the bore measures, but I always previously got a slight lead wash in the forcing cone with my load of 8g of Green Dot. 

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mashburn posted this 29 March 2020

Hello again Spindrift,

I checked the thermostat on my oven with my pyrometer and the thermostat was fine. I am basically treating my powder the same way that you are and adding a little each time I start a coating session. It has got to be the alloy from which these bullets were cast. All of the other bullets that were cast from a different alloy worked fine. I don't have any bullets that aren't lubed and sized the regular old bullet lube way, so I am going to have to cast some more bullets before I can compare the results. I think I'll take a few days break before I start again.

Mashburn

David a. Cogburn

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Spindrift posted this 29 March 2020

For the first session with a container of that size, maybe a teaspoon? Quite a bit of the powder will stick to the walls of your container. When the container is «broken in», maybe half the amount of powder.

When starting a PC session, I have found it helpful to add a little fresh powder. If I use only the powder left over from last time, it is much more difficult to get the powder to stick.

Checking the thermostat sounds like a good idea. The container used should not affect the appearance of the final product. 

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mashburn posted this 29 March 2020

Hello Spindrift,

I switched to a new container. It is 5 1/2 by 1 1/2. It worked much better but still leaves a lot to be desired. How much powder would you put in a container this size? The bullets that I coated in the new container didn't bake near as slick and glossy as others. When they were baking and I would peep in on them, they

Mashburnlooked different, The paint didn't look as glossy or as liquified. Keep in mind though, these are the problem alloy bullets that I have been trying to coat. I think, that possibly the thermostat has gone bad in my convection oven. I'm headed to the shop now and am going to take the pyrometer off of my heat treating furnace and check my oven temperature.

David a. Cogburn

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Spindrift posted this 28 March 2020

I also liked the look of the gloss, black; glad it’s working out for you. The reason it didn’t work for me, might have to do with my particular container. Maybe I left the lid of for too long, or something? 

That’s the good thing with a forum, we all get to share out experiences and learn from each other.

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