Kevin c,
The great thing with this coating is, that you can recover and re-cycle product back into solution if it has not been baked.
As Trevor said, you can wash all containers and recycle dried residues, then use wash solvent to make a new coating mix.
Also, if you make mistake, or use too much coating, it is a simple situation to add only a little more solvent , and add more non coated cast. That way you use the coating which is now spread/extended over larger amount of cast.
Joe, Do you think If I used 1 mil of straight mek per pound of bullets do you think the residue on the sides of my power tumbler would dissolve and adhere to the bullets in 15 - 20 seconds?
Great question.
My guess is that the coating will dissolve, but more slowly. It may be simply better to put in the uncoated alloy with the MEK, put a lid on it, and shake.
Leave it for a little while, and shake again. Examine and if its working, simply repeat shake a couple of times more and check again.
Just how much coating you have in your coating container is really a guess. Adding a little more solvent wont hurt at all, as you can dry it off after you dissolved the coating from your container. Main aim is to use up the coating and coat the projectiles instead of container.
If you don't want to re-use the wash, It makes great weed killer.
I've dumped probably 20 liters of mixed coating on the weeds over the last few years.
Hooroo.
Regards, Trevor.
Australia
I think if the buildup gets bad, (so far it hasn't I also built a powdered coater this is the only way to go to get great consistency and do bigger batches (8 pounds/3.63 KG) per batch) My coater does double duty as a 2 gallon brass polisher, I just change the tilt of the bucket.
That is a great set up.
In the Green bucket, you may have enough to recycle and re-use. What seems to happen, with time, and using the coating system, each load with added coating can become much too much coating, then, each made up coating dose will start to solubilise what is in the bucket. The more dried coating build up you have inside bucket, it is more possible to end up with a much more concentrated brew that is coating your casts.
Thanks, Joe, I have a separate bucket for each color.
I think I'll start going 20% heavier on the MEK, see if that takes off a little coating and slows down the depositing.
From my understanding, worse case scenario I'll have to go 3 coats to get the color I want and I might get a smoother finish but I can't complain about the finish I get now.
The way I deal with coating build up is to put 5 to 6 pounds of bullets in the container with a splash of Acetone then put the lid on and shake and swirl until it looks about right for the first coat. I do this 3 to 4 times to get the bucket clean from heavy build up.
One problem I have had is when the bucket gets too much build up SWC bullets will pick up a glob of coating from the sides of the bucket when dumping on to the screen, keeping the bucket clean and using 125 ml to 20 g solves this problem.
Just add about 25% more bullets to your normal batch and squirt a little acetone on the top edge of the thicker coating that is stuck on the bucket. The extra bullets will be high enough to help knock that coating off. I do this about every 4 times that I coat my standard amount of bullets.. this keeps the bucket clean and makes for clean, slick bullets. I then use pretty much the same amount of coating that I use for my normal amount of bullets(but I don't let my bucket get caked up very much so you may have to cut back a little on the amount of coating that you use.)
So ioon44 and snscasting, just so I am sure I understand, that splash of acetone and the load of new bullets cleans the bucket and acts as the first coat for those bullets?
And to be sure I don't have to melt 2500 cast and extra heavily coated boolits, if they all passed the wipe and smash tests, they should be fine to use?
Right again. The aim is to make sure, that first coat is well bonded, and it does not have to look pretty. Second coat makes it pretty, and covers imperfections left with first coat.
What is now becoming more clear is, that it seems that coating containers having a build up is suggesting too much coating is being added each time, and or, using a strong brew.
The excess is wiped from alloy and remains on coating container where it dries.
As coating is very forgiving and is recyclable, the residue inside coating containers is not lost, and can be re-used.
I'm looking into another oven... There is a house oven that is a convection oven. Anyone try the electric house convection oven for baking. I would like to know if those have enough forced air to properly get the heat to cure the Hi-Tek?
Thanks for all your support.
But you have modified your oven. I'm thinking just a normal convection oven from a store that would be in a house that I can buy. I'm meaning the large house oven in convection style.
Tony N,
A straight convection oven is not the best thing to use. If you can get one (second hand) usually thrown out, then install a fan through the wall.
Fan forced circulation is required to bake the whole tray evenly and also speed up baking process.
Without heat circulation the baking is uneven, and you get hot spots and cold spots inside oven so you really don't know where you are with how long baking time is required, and if adequate.
Without a fan you can get same tray over baking on one side, and other side not baked enough. This is main reason why there is variation with results especially of you load up the oven without fan forced air circulation..
FOR BEST RESULTS, YOU NEED FAN FORCED AIR CIRCULATIO IN OVEN
This has been discussed many times previously.
I have been using a normal convection oven from a store for about 4 or 5 years, the only thing I done was add a layer of bricks to the bottom rack.
I also use a digital K-type thermometer to keep track of the actual temperature in side of the oven, I do 10 to 12 lbs of bullets in 12 min with 2 trays.
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |