Cat shouldn't be used for powder coating.

[nelsonted1]

I'll get to the cat in a minute.
I've been reading about how to powder coat bullets with electric. I've read all about electro-static or whatever the special spark everyone is searching for. I read how one should get special black air soft bbs to generate a super-good spark. Me being me, I never follow the pack and usually search for a better way, so I thought since carpets sometimes can make sparks fly I could line my rock tumbler with a piece of carpet and then run it with bullets for a few hours.
Then, I got sidetracked, wondering why one should get a special Tupperware #8 bowl to shake when we have gallon milk bottles cycling through the house every day. I found I could shake the jug with no chance of the cap coming off winding up with completely coated bullets.
So then, as I was shaking, I wondered why with the electric fencers not being used, why couldn't I use one to throw a spark but that would probably on just pulse some electric without the static.
That's when all hell broke loose. I was rubbing our cat watching the sparks jump at least 3/4" from the hair to my hand and one of those electrical storms tore loose in my head. Why not use the cat to generate electricity? I could see no downside except for the cat possibly getting mad. So I dug out a five gallon pail with a lid, a whole bunch of bullets which went in the pail with a cup of powder coat-black. I carried the cat in the living room, laid him on his side and holding front feet in one hand and back feet with the other I started to sweep the cat in big arcs back and forth. I started to speed up faster towards the end what with the horrible sparks and the cat biting harder and harder. I took the cat in the garage with the pail then realized I couldn't coax the cat in the pail! What with pushing down the lid and the cat arguing I realized I needed help so I called my brother to come around and help. Between the two us-or three of us counting the cat- got the cat got into the pail, shut the lid and we rolled it back and forth and shook it some.

The next door nieghbor heard the hollering and the cat noises and he came over to help. He was so excited over our technique he agreed to take photos for you cast bullet guys. Problem was he had the camera settings set crosswise somehow and photographed the whole thing without a chip in the camera. Dang it all anyhow.

The good side of the experiment was we got an extraordinary powder-coat, just awesome. The downside was the idiot brother leaving the door into the house cracked open. The stupid cat ran through the kitchen, dining room, across the carpet, onto the couch and scaled the drapes leaving a coat of black powder across the whole downstairs. The wife is due back from ladies aide in a couple hours. My brother and nieghbor went home and I have to clean it all up. That and get the cat to quit howling and come down from above the window. The curtains are yellow and the walls are white but that is just an aside.

All in all, this experiment was very mixed. The actual coating using cat-based static electricity was an astounding success! The method we used needs some consideration before we try duplicating the results.

I'll get back to you with any updates.

Ted

[nagantguy]

Good God man you may jave just stumbled unto the greatest scientific discovery in an age!

[leeggen]

Good gosh man don't you know you were supposed to put the bucket with lid tightly on, onto one of those roller thingies that keep the bucket turning. That way you don't get back aches from bending over and rolling the bucket. Be a man and blame it on your brother, that is what brothers are for. As far as the cat goes tell the wife you found a stray black cat. After all it is holloween this month.
CD

[runfiverun]

somehow I am sure this is the cat's fault.

[fast ronnie]

Have you ever tried cleaning the toilet with a cat?
There's a pretty good post somewhere about that one!

[depoloni]

I ain't'd met a domestic house cat yet that I didn't reckon better off dead... arrogant, selfish little you-know-whatses. Any making use of 'em for more than sucking up good oxygen I tip my hat to ya!

[big bore 99]

Been having good luck with a key tied to a kite and the string to the tumbler.

[nelsonted1]

Good gosh man don't you know you were supposed to put the bucket with lid tightly on, onto one of those roller thingies that keep the bucket turning. That way you don't get back aches from bending over and rolling the bucket. Be a man and blame it on your brother, that is what brothers are for. As far as the cat goes tell the wife you found a stray black cat. After all it is holloween this month.
CD

The lid had to come off to see how we were doing. When we unlatched the lid my brother was supposed to hold the cat back with double-layer leather bomber mittens which was supposed to beat back the cat bites but the cat was more than he could handle. He claimed the mittens were too stiff. I think he didn't calibrate the one, two, three open sequence as well as the cat did. The cat is really not used to being in the house since it is a barn cat so we were surprised it could find the drapes.
My brother suggested we should haul the cat up to the top of the water tower downtown and drop the pail and cat down the enclosed ladder. It is pretty straight down and would bounce on the way down.
And as far as the rotating thingy I expect you are alluding to a cement mixer. My brother works at the Midwest Tent and Awning company. He suggested bringing back a seconded supersized pair of pants they make make and pull it over the mouth of the cement mixer the neighbor has. Then instead opening the whole mixer and losing the cat we could get the cat to go down a leg and then hold her in the leg while we inspected our tumbling process. I told him we are overthinking this whole thing.

[dikman]

I realized I need help

I corrected the obvious mistake.

[nelsonted1]

There is another thing I missed. Instead of getting bit a bunch of times and bypass the clawing and yowling fitting the cat into the pail we could carpet the inside the of the cement mixer. Don;t even bring up carpeting the inside of the dryer. The cat would have no chance at keeping her footing. We have to let the cat have a chance at maintaining some dignity in all this. That is part of the reason we don't get too mad at all the biting and clawing. Since she is a central character in this thing she should be allowed to have some input in our experiments.

[nelsonted1]

Rubbing her across the carpet to build up the static electricity is going to become more and more difficult the more times we try to address our schemes failures. If we put her in the carpeted mixer the shouting between me and my brother would be greatly reduced.

[warf73]

Hmmmm been telling the girlfriend we don't need a cat......... but maybe we do

[pipehand]

Our cat likes plastic bowls. Now where is my HF red?

[Half Dog]

Is there a special breed that would work better than others?

[runfiverun]

I'm thinking this would work a lot better with 3 cats.
there is no way 1 cat would possibly generate enough static ions for this to work.
now if you had 3 cats they would keep each other going and have enough leftover static to get the job done properly.
2 cats might be enough but they would get bored with each other in a short while and start ignoring each other.

[popper]

Toss a mouse or rabbit in with the cats to prevent boredom (of the cats or observer?). Pre-scratched boolits BEFORE sizing?

[mold maker]

Since it's the cat fur that makes it work, Is there another way to safely skin the cat? That would separate the cat from the trauma and contain the mess........

[Smoke4320]

Bullets might suffer from cat scratch fever

[nelsonted1]

Toss a mouse or rabbit in with the cats to prevent boredom (of the cats or observer?). Pre-scratched boolits BEFORE sizing?

This reminds me of something that happened when I was a kid. A friend and I were coon hunting in the backyard. We shot a big one out of a tree. Then we tied the front and opposite back legs together and slung the coon over my buddy's head and shoulder. It was a long walk back like a 1/4 of a mile in the dark. When we got to the car Jim dumped the coon in the trunk followed by the dog. We got in the car, the engine started and all of a sudden the car started to rock, bounce and a horrible growling and snapping sound broke out. We knew right away what was happening- the coon had been stunned or was sleeping until we dropped him in the trunk. Watching Jim's hands shaking while trying to get the key in the lock (in the dark) was a supreme moment which I fully realized telling my family a few hours later. Can you imagine me, a 14-yr-old, trying to cut the twine string or pull the coon over Jim's head, then drive him to the ER and explain to the Dr that he had a coon tied to his back and it got mad and started tearing Jim up around his head, shoulders, hands, face and etc? With any luck at all Jim could have been bitten by the dog in fracas.

The trunk opened, finally, the coon jumped out and then the dog. We were hollering like maniacs looking at the coon a couple feet away rearing up on his hind legs with the twine strings still flapping off his legs. The hollering was the coon, of course, plus the dog and Jim yelling at me to shoot him one second and yelling at me to not shoot the dog the next. We finished off the coon and as the dog was busy biting the devil as hard as he could we looked him over for loose flaps of skin or disembowelment. Somehow he came out of it with no apparent markings due, I think, to his winter coat.

I am wondering if the doog and coon had stirred up some electric struggling in the trunk, there had to be something going on. Problem is if it was conducive to extraordinary static I don't know how the night could be repeated. I still wonder about it, though.

A few nights later Mom heard some barking outside and thinking it was our dog she let him in. It was Jim's 125 lb hound she'd let in the house-which had never happened in his lifetime- and she was stunned at the strange dog tearing through the downstairs rooms. She said she never saw such a big dynamo in her life. She opened the door and made him get out. Then we showed up looking for the dog. She still talks about that dog coming in the house.

[bikerbeans]

Thanks for convincing me to try powder coating boolits. Would it be helpful to use a cat that is the same color as the PC. If so, where do you buy calico PC?

BB