How I tumble powder coat with great results:
1) Get this Rubbermaid plastic bowl: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ilpage_o07_s00
2) Put in a few layers of these black plastic airsoft pellets: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ilpage_o04_s00
3) Throw in four or five handfuls of bullets. Use these nitrile gloves to avoid getting body oils on the bullets. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ilpage_o09_s00
4) Sprinkle in enough of this paint to cover the bullets: http://t.harborfreight.com/16-oz-pow...red-93309.html If you want other colors buy paint from smokes4321 on this site. He also sells plastic airsoft pellets and is great to work with. His paint is a bit more expensive but is easier to work with With harbor Freight paint be sure to follow the instructions on the bottle.
5) Put on leather slippers or moccasins in order to enhance the pick up of free electrons (static electricity). While shaking and swirling the container drag your feet on carpet as though you are skating. Don't lift your feet up. Winter dryness helps a lot. This only takes 20-30 seconds.
6) Set the bowl down for a minute to let the dust settle and then open the lid and check for paint coverage. It should be fine but if not repeat step 5. You might need to add a little paint. If coverage is still poor you it might because the humidity is high enough to prevent enough static electricity build up. I've not tried it but Smokes says that preheating the bullets to 150F removes the need for static electricity with his excellent paint.
7) With a nitrile glove on run your thumb and finger along the inside of the bowl to put paint on them and then place your bullets on an aluminum tray with a silicon baking sheet cut to fit the bottom. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ilpage_o00_s01 and http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ilpage_o00_s00
7) Place the tray into a preheated toaster oven at 400F. Monitor the bullet temperature with this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01...ilpage_o02_s00 You want the bullets to bake for 10 minutes after they hit 400F. You will need to fine tune the knob for temp as they are not accurate. Every time that you open the oven door to check the temp you lose a lot of heat so be quick and don't do it to often.
8) Remove your beautiful bullets from the oven, let them cool, and you are ready to size.
If gas checks are needed put them on before painting if they fit well. If they are too loose put them on after.
Painting adds up to .004 to the bullet diameter so size after painting.
This is very easy to do and is cheaper and quicker than buying and using a lubrasizer. The bullets don't smoke, lube doesn't foul up your dies and gun, and you can handle your bullets without gloves after they are painted. Paint also lets you get away with softer alloys.
The heating of the bullets for painting removes the effect of any previous heat treatment (water dropping or oven heat treating) so you need to control your hardness with your alloy.
Note! You don't need to wade through hundreds of pages of stickies or buy a paint gun to get dazzling results. Just do the above and you will soon be an expert.
Also I have not had the need to rinse my bullets in acetone first to degrease then. Not touching them seems to be enough.
Keep it simple and have fun!
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Originally Posted by Hickok
