simple Hi-Tek coating

[Ausglock]

If you get bullets sticking together, reduce the amount you are using for the second coat and shake a few minutes early.


Smellykid. The candy Apple is very nice glitter red.

[smlekid]

I don't know if Candy Apple will suit or not?


Attachment 211349

Yep that will do nicely Red for 9mm green for the 45
will be in touch

[dikman]

Yep that will do nicely Red for 9mm green for the 45

I was like that when I first started, and kept all the pretty colours in separate containers. Now they just get thrown together in the buckets they're stored in and when I'm reloading I just grab a handful of whatever's on top.

[Grmps]

Yep that will do nicely Red for 9mm green for the 45
will be in touch

Hi-Tek is the industrial chemist that designed Hi-Tek coating, Hew doesn't sell to us Yanks
If you want to buy some,

Donnie hi-performancebulletcoatings a VS here

link to the online store

http://hi-performancebulletcoatings....ercoat-powder/

[Grmps]

Anyone getting any "Siamese Twins": bullets stuck together after the bake?

As I was running short I used a new batch of the black cherry for my second coat, preparing the same mix I used before (20 g in 120 ml acetone), from the same container of HiTek and the same acetone, well mixed (vigorous shaking with a bullet in the container), letting it stand for a few hours, more vigorous shaking each before each application, using 5 ml on 4.5 # of the same casts I've always coated, baked the same way. Same oven (a Breville) at the same temp and time. Same shake and turn halfway through. Same trays.

For the first time, I got bullets stuck together. Usually side by side, occasionally end to end. Pulling them apart will expose a tiny bit of lead. Wipe and smash tests pass for every bake.

This did not happen with the first coat, which used the prior mix.

The one thing I can think that was otherwise different was that part of the acetone I used to mix up the new batch was the wash I used to clean up the bullet coating container. This made up a little less than a half of the acetone. I'd tried to used it before as a first coat, but it was too dilute, so I thought it wouldn't add much HiTek to the final mix, figuring at most it might get the final mix close to the standard 20 g per 100 ml others use.

I've found that 5 mil to 4.5# is a little much.
I use a bit (I know reall technical) less than a mil per # on the first coat then
just a little under a mil per # on the second coat.
I make sure they are COMPLETELY DRY, then warmed and none stuck together before going in the oven
and never have any problems with sticking

[HI-TEK]

Hi-Tek is the industrial chemist that designed Hi-Tek coating, Hew doesn't sell to us Yanks
If you want to buy some,

Donnie hi-performancebulletcoatings a VS here

link to the online store

http://hi-performancebulletcoatings....ercoat-powder/

Grmps I think that he is located in down under area, not in US.

[smlekid]

Hi-Tek is the industrial chemist that designed Hi-Tek coating, Hew doesn't sell to us Yanks
If you want to buy some,

Donnie hi-performancebulletcoatings a VS here

link to the online store

http://hi-performancebulletcoatings....ercoat-powder/

I'm in Australia so I have that covered

[popper]

ASBBDT 1035 gold powder. Cooked at med on hot plate. Back row is single coat - lots of swirl, front (7) is 2nd coat. Not perfect but works. No acetone. I'll size when cooled and see if it does well.
Attachment 211417
Edit: Cooking 3rd coat now. Had to put a cover over the hot plate to get temp high enough - stuff must be a really good thermal insulator. 2nd coat had color come off but it sized fine - no rub-off of the coating. Be a while before I get to shoot in the 30/30. At any rate it works. When I get to cast some more I'll try a real thick single coat.

[Avenger442]

When I get to cast some more I'll try a real thick single coat.

Popper
A really thick single coat will probably not pass the smash test. If you try it hope you have better luck than I did on about 10 pounds of 45s.
I tried a thick coat and I had to melt them down. Coating didn't come off on first smash test. I tried to size them and it was cracking up when sized on about half of the bullets. Smash tested another couple of bullets and it was coming off down to the lead. It was actually two batches of bullets that I had dumped in together. I think one batch may have been just on the edge of too thick and the other went past what I could get by with. Will never know. But it was an excuse to cast again.

[popper]

Attachment 211484
I got the same results after the last coat/cook as I got when using acetone. Dark color and bad smash. These were sized before coating. By thick coat I mean just one coat DT, vs 3 I did here. I'm also remembering something told me about alloy, Sn & Sb tend to make the Pb surface 'textured' (Sb 'wash' ?) that would help the adhesion. I used Cu/Zn/Sb in these and the Cu locks the Sb into a molecule. Pb has NO surface pores. At any rate, dry vs wet is the same result as far as I can tell, dry is less mess. Farther tests prob. in Feb as lots to get done this month and weather is 'chilly'.

[4719dave]

Dont size before you coat

Attachment 211484
I got the same results after the last coat/cook as I got when using acetone. Dark color and bad smash. These were sized before coating. By thick coat I mean just one coat DT, vs 3 I did here. I'm also remembering something told me about alloy, Sn & Sb tend to make the Pb surface 'textured' (Sb 'wash' ?) that would help the adhesion. I used Cu/Zn/Sb in these and the Cu locks the Sb into a molecule. Pb has NO surface pores. At any rate, dry vs wet is the same result as far as I can tell, dry is less mess. Farther tests prob. in Feb as lots to get done this month and weather is 'chilly'.

[Avenger442]

Attachment 211484
I got the same results after the last coat/cook as I got when using acetone. Dark color and bad smash. These were sized before coating. By thick coat I mean just one coat DT, vs 3 I did here. I'm also remembering something told me about alloy, Sn & Sb tend to make the Pb surface 'textured' (Sb 'wash' ?) that would help the adhesion. I used Cu/Zn/Sb in these and the Cu locks the Sb into a molecule. Pb has NO surface pores. At any rate, dry vs wet is the same result as far as I can tell, dry is less mess. Farther tests prob. in Feb as lots to get done this month and weather is 'chilly'.

[Grmps]

popper when doing HiTek -w- acetone, the primary cause of poor adhesion is the coating isn't completely dry before baking.
too thick a coating does not dry well.

My question is why do it like PC? the cost would be prohibitive @ $10.95 for 3.5 oz

[popper]

Cause I can? Just an experiment. Eliminates the problem of drying properly. These were the only I had that aren't already PCd.

[snscasting]

Attachment 211484
I got the same results after the last coat/cook as I got when using acetone. Dark color and bad smash. These were sized before coating. By thick coat I mean just one coat DT, vs 3 I did here. I'm also remembering something told me about alloy, Sn & Sb tend to make the Pb surface 'textured' (Sb 'wash' ?) that would help the adhesion. I used Cu/Zn/Sb in these and the Cu locks the Sb into a molecule. Pb has NO surface pores. At any rate, dry vs wet is the same result as far as I can tell, dry is less mess. Farther tests prob. in Feb as lots to get done this month and weather is 'chilly'.

In my experience(about 40,000,000 bullets coated) you can have the oven temperatures too high. If I hit 430*F I would get some flaking when smashed. If they're coming out darker than they should and you're at 14:00 or less you may have the ovens too hot. Some may disagree but I have experienced a lot of failures in the past that were fixed by lowering my oven temps to a max of 405*F.

That would be the first thing I would try to change since it is a very simple adjustment. If that doesn't work, cut down to about 15 grams/100ml and use about .8ml per pound.

[popper]

Sns - think you are right, this stuff seems to have a smaller temp band than PC. No acetone, just shake & bake.

[HI-TEK]

Sns - think you are right, this stuff seems to have a smaller temp band than PC. No acetone, just shake & bake.

Popper,
I don't know about temperature band comparisons, but it would be interesting to run powder coating at 250C and see what happens.

As posted several times previously, the Hi-TEK coating only requires 3 minutes to fully cure after reaching the 180C . After such cure the coating performs adequately.

I cannot understand why any one wants to keep heating and baking for longer and at higher temperatures?
It just does not make sense.

If you consider your tests, using Hi-Tek as a powder, the coating residue, is no different to coatings that had been applied from solvent systems, as dry resin is same as the powdered version after drying off Acetone.

In terms of ovens not being set correctly, is hardly the fault of the product.

From what has been published on this blog, powder coating is baked at 200C for 20 minutes to cure.
I wonder, what will Powder coating look like and perform like, after 20 minutes at 250C temperature?
It will be an interesting comparison between coatings.

Further, commercial guys had reported, that twice Hi-Tek coated casts, had been baked at 200C for 3 weeks, at 8 hour days.
Coating was dark, but passed all tests, and shot most accurately and no Leading, smashed OK and no wipe off, and no flaking.

What seems to be the problem with that????

[kevin c]

Coating container wash mostly is OK for first coat. Keep in mind, that first coat will always be or should be very thin, and may appear uneven, blotchy...

By your washing coating container, then adding more coating, you really did not have any idea of just how much coating you ended up with in the wash Acetone...

Thank you for your comments, Hi-Tek.

Perhaps I misunderstood using the wash. Are we talking about putting a few mls of fresh acetone into the dry, empty container to dissolve the coating left over from just coating one batch, and then putting a second batch of bare bullets into the container right then to be coated with the wash as the entire first coat? That implies that the amount of HiTek that coats the bullets is only a part of the total added to the container, wouldn't it?

I had actually used the same wash acetone to clean several consecutive coating batches - even though it looked thin and had very little suspended solids, I see by your comments that it had more than enough HiTek in it, and adding more was just overkill.

I didn't see any bonded bullets at the halfway point shake, but it is possible I just didn't see them.

Going back over my notes, I think I had previously used a larger batch size, up to 20 % more weight - that probably made everything that much worse,

I will try diluting my super concentrated mix and/or reducing the volume added

[Ausglock]

The wash from the swirl container is used to make up a new mix.
But.... bear in mind. I washout after about 10,000 coated. and use about 200mls of acetone for the wash.
When I mix, I do 2 litres of coating, 400mls of Catalyst and 2.8litres of Acetone for a 5.1.7 mix. The 200 mls of wash makes up some of the 2,8 litres.
For powder, I do 800gms of powder to 4 litres of acetone. the wash is part of the 4 litres.

[Grmps]

Popper, I think you need to use the acetone to completely incorporate all the dry ingredients in the HiTek powder into a solution to allow a thinner coat than ASBBDT and HT powder can give you. when the powder "melts" it leaves too thick a coating for proper curing / adhesion, thus your less than desireable results.
I've never had a drying problem with HiTek.I use <1mil solution per # of boolits, swirl no more than 15 seconds, I dump on a wire tray, set the tray on a wire rack in front of a fan. They are always dry within 30 min, then I put that tray on top of the oven to warm for 1 bake cycle. ( I live in the NW and it rains a bit here).
I started out by asking Trevor and Joe a lot of questions, --- I was trying to over think it like a lot of people do.