How about heating the lead bullets THEN apply the powder coat?

[NavyVet1959]

Reminds me of how they used to describe the Johnny Carson show -- 30 minutes of entertainment *squeezed* into 90 minutes.

[Grmps]

DON'T over heat the bullets if you are going to tumble lube!!! You will get a big mess the powder coat will melt around the bullets and become a big glob.

[Dragonheart]

DON'T over heat the bullets if you are going to tumble lube!!! You will get a big mess the powder coat will melt around the bullets and become a big glob.

And how did you find this out? lol, been there and done that.

I use the preheat method on bullets to overcome high humidity. I also preheat larger items for powder coat. I heat the object in the oven to 400 degree then immediately spray. You can see exactly what the coating will look like as the powder melts and flows on contact. Once it cools I cure as normal.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Diarrhea mouth seems to be a real problem on YouTube. There is a lot of really good information on the site, but it takes a lot of time and patience to sift through it.

Ditto: some of the videos are excruciatingly long and the guys really need to write a script so they don't just meander along for 20+ minutes for a 5 minute subject.

Randy

[Cleatus]

I preheat my boolites before shaking and baking with good success. Slow talkers on youtube can be enhanced by setting the speed to 1.25 or 1.5....I know some of the older timers need some youtube help

[fishingsetx]

And how did you find this out? lol, been there and done that.

I use the preheat method on bullets to overcome high humidity. I also preheat larger items for powder coat. I heat the object in the oven to 400 degree then immediately spray. You can see exactly what the coating will look like as the powder melts and flows on contact. Once it cools I cure as normal.

This is what I do with my bullets and I dont charge them up. Sitting on aluminum foil, they get a faraday effect around the bases with my eastwood dual voltage gun (tried bith settings) and the powder simply wont penetrate the charge to reach the lube bands. It will if I dont charge the bullets and it sticks as long as they are hot! I even do this with the stainless tumblers I do as a side business.

Guns have only two enemies: rust and politicians!

[RP]

I have preheated my bullets standing on trays then shot them with the gun using old powder that just did not want to work using the static charge. This also helps with the bases and lube groove areas. Only problem I have its hitting the tray on something when moving it around and do not let the oven door slam shut that is a sure fire way to know bullets over lol

[Lloyd Smale]

I don't see the time savings there. I can put a 1000 9mm bullets in my tumbler for 20 minutes and use that time to reload or cast more. Dump them in a collator and then dump them on non stick Reynolds wrap and stick them in the oven. No standing around for 4 minutes and still have to put them in a plastic container. You can even dump them in the container and shake for 2 minutes and dump them out and bake them. Want to save time? I bought a small apartment sized gas range for 25 bucks at a rummage sale and it allows me to bake at a 1000 bullets at a time on two big trays (at least a 1000) not a couple hundred like a toaster oven and it set me back half what even a cheap toaster oven costs. 20 minutes in the tumbler 20 minutes to bake and with a couple 6 cav molds you will have another batch casted while you wait.

[fishingsetx]

I don't see the time savings there. I can put a 1000 9mm bullets in my tumbler for 20 minutes and use that time to reload or cast more. Dump them in a collator and then dump them on non stick Reynolds wrap and stick them in the oven. No standing around for 4 minutes and still have to put them in a plastic container. You can even dump them in the container and shake for 2 minutes and dump them out and bake them. Want to save time? I bought a small apartment sized gas range for 25 bucks at a rummage sale and it allows me to bake at a 1000 bullets at a time on two big trays (at least a 1000) not a couple hundred like a toaster oven and it set me back half what even a cheap toaster oven costs. 20 minutes in the tumbler 20 minutes to bake and with a couple 6 cav molds you will have another batch casted while you wait.

If it works for you, thats great. For me, the shake and bake, tumbler, etc methods just didnt work. Maybe its the humidity here, maybe its something else, but if I dump them out in a collator, they wouldnt be coated anymore. I coukd barely get the powder to stick picking them up with hemostats and even then, 30-50% of them werent coated enough and had to be redone. ESPC was the only way I could get them coated enough, especially 9mm.

Guns have only two enemies: rust and politicians!

[Dragonheart]

I am a native of the Texas Gulf Coast, so humidity is something I know all about. Shake & bake by hand works sometimes, but it's slow, time consuming and a lot of effort for old hands and shoulders for the reward of a handful of coated bullets.

The tumbling process is the best for speed, quanity, good quality with little effort. The problem with the tumbling process is standard tumblers are designed to be aggressive; too much so for coating bullets. Yes, it can be done in a unaltered tumbler, but not with the best results. I have been doing this since 2012,so I have tried just about everything. I found altering a tumbler was the ideal solution, allowing for adjusting the amount of vibration.

As you can see this is a small tumbler with a #5 plastic paint bucket. A lid keeps in the powder, if needed, Tightening the rods will adjust the amount of vibration. More surface area is created; I typically coat approximate 300 bullets at a time. The powder will stick using this tumbler, because the tumble doesn't get tired, even if it takes 20 minutes. If the humidity is really high a little preheat and it's a done deal and it is not a fragil coating that easily brushes off, like the cool whip method.

For the very best quality, spray is the way to go, but a creates a very fragile coating. It is a lot more set up, time effort and expense. Plus in high humidity your air must be dry! Meaning in high humidity if you do not have a bank of dry air dryers or a cooler, you are going to have problems with the gun and getting even coverage. Lead is an unusual metal, unlike ferrous metals in that lead has a natural affinity for taking a charge, this is the reason lead is used in batteries. So if getting an uneven coating it is not the lead, your air or the powder is the problem in a properly functioning gun.
Attachment 210614

[RP]

I am kind of OCD about the finish on my bullets so the extra time it takes me is worth the finish I get standing and spraying sure it may not matter to most but to me it matters alot

[fishingsetx]

I am a native of the Texas Gulf Coast, so humidity is something I know all about. Shake & bake by hand works sometimes, but it's slow, time consuming and a lot of effort for old hands and shoulders for the reward of a handful of coated bullets.

The tumbling process is the best for speed, quanity, good quality with little effort. The problem with the tumbling process is standard tumblers are designed to be aggressive; too much so for coating bullets. Yes, it can be done in a unaltered tumbler, but not with the best results. I have been doing this since 2012,so I have tried just about everything. I found altering a tumbler was the ideal solution, allowing for adjusting the amount of vibration.

As you can see this is a small tumbler with a #5 plastic paint bucket. A lid keeps in the powder, if needed, Tightening the rods will adjust the amount of vibration. More surface area is created; I typically coat approximate 300 bullets at a time. The powder will stick using this tumbler, because the tumble doesn't get tired, even if it takes 20 minutes. If the humidity is really high a little preheat and it's a done deal and it is not a fragil coating that easily brushes off, like the cool whip method.

For the very best quality, spray is the way to go, but a creates a very fragile coating. It is a lot more set up, time effort and expense. Plus in high humidity your air must be dry! Meaning in high humidity if you do not have a bank of dry air dryers or a cooler, you are going to have problems with the gun and getting even coverage. Lead is an unusual metal, unlike ferrous metals in that lead has a natural affinity for taking a charge, this is the reason lead is used in batteries. So if getting an uneven coating it is not the lead, your air or the powder is the problem in a properly functioning gun.
Attachment 210614

I agree except for 2 points. High humidity doesnt normally affect my gun but had a huge effect on DT by hand. Also, uneven coating can be caused by the faraday effect not allowing the powder to penetrate into the corner creates by the bullet setting in the foil.

The odd thing about ESPC is that some days, it goes on smooth with zero issues and some days are an absolute nightmare. There is no rhyme or reason as to why. I tried tracking the temp/humidity to see if there was a correlation, but after 3 months of powder coating almost daily, I never could figure out a pattern.



Guns have only two enemies: rust and politicians!

[Dragonheart]

I would suggest installing a ground rod and cable back to your metal spray pan. Ground rods are available at the home stores and are not expensive. The ground is also a big benefit if you weld and especially high frequency welding.
The ground will take care of one side of the problem, but the one day chicken one day feathers and uneven coating is a symptom of an air problem. For example my compressor air goes through three 20" coalescing filters before going into the storage tank. Each coalescing filter has a drain to remove accumulated moisture. The air from the tank goes through a particle filter, regulator and through a membrane filter before reaching the gun. I don't think there is any place more humid than where I live and I do not have any problems when I spray. I think if you try the above your spray problems will vanish.

[Ronald]

Another trick that does not require a second step, it to cast hot so they frost. The PC sticks better in shake & bake. As Harrison pointed out, 50 years ago, frosting has no effect on boolit performance.

[fishingsetx]

I would suggest installing a ground rod and cable back to your metal spray pan. Ground rods are available at the home stores and are not expensive. The ground is also a big benefit if you weld and especially high frequency welding.
The ground will take care of one side of the problem, but the one day chicken one day feathers and uneven coating is a symptom of an air problem. For example my compressor air goes through three 20" coalescing filters before going into the storage tank. Each coalescing filter has a drain to remove accumulated moisture. The air from the tank goes through a particle filter, regulator and through a membrane filter before reaching the gun. I don't think there is any place more humid than where I live and I do not have any problems when I spray. I think if you try the above your spray problems will vanish.

Thanks for the info.

8' ground rod already in place. Air is filtered through one bastion coalescing filter and then through a home built dessicant filter and comes out just over -125 degrees dewpoint (borrowed our dewpoint analizer from work to check it). I have zero issues with anything except tight inside corners. I have a side business custom powdercoating the stainless tumblers (yeti and similar) and have been doing it for several years. I have no issue going up to 4 coats but sometimes It wants to spot at 5 coats and above. The funny thing is, I never had that issue with the HF gun I bought several years ago even just using the alligator clip, but the eastwood gun I use now causes problems. I thing it was because ot the FH gun's lower voltage (9kv). The higher the voltage, the worse the effect. My eastwood runs at (15kv or 25kv depending on the switch setting). I would use the HF gun for bullets, but I gave it and my toaster oven away to a guy wanting to get into powder coating cast bullets.

I really wish I could justify an auto regulating gun like the KoolKote 2.0 or similar, but with the cup business winding down (I knew it was a fad when I got into it), its just not worth the cost.

Guns have only two enemies: rust and politicians!

[rsrocket1]

I don't see the time savings there. I can put a 1000 9mm bullets in my tumbler for 20 minutes and use that time to reload or cast more. Dump them in a collator and then dump them on non stick Reynolds wrap and stick them in the oven. No standing around for 4 minutes and still have to put them in a plastic container. You can even dump them in the container and shake for 2 minutes and dump them out and bake them. Want to save time? I bought a small apartment sized gas range for 25 bucks at a rummage sale and it allows me to bake at a 1000 bullets at a time on two big trays (at least a 1000) not a couple hundred like a toaster oven and it set me back half what even a cheap toaster oven costs. 20 minutes in the tumbler 20 minutes to bake and with a couple 6 cav molds you will have another batch casted while you wait.

Most of the time it's dry enough to simply massage the bullets in HF red for a minute or two in a 1 Gallon Ziplock bag. Last week, it was really humid so I put them in the vibratory tumbler for 2-4 minutes. I forgot about 1 batch and it tumbled for 15 minutes. The bullets were coated incredibly well, but I noticed the red powder was notably darker compared to the stuff right out of the jar. I have a feeling that the darkening was due to lead dust mixed into the powder.

That's not a good thing. Take a look at your coated bullet powder and see if it's darker than the virgin stuff. If it is, then lead is pulverizing and the lead dust is getting into the powder mix.