Powder coat 1st attempt - PBFTBBTDTFT!

[Plate plinker]

KICKSTAND has asperly aimless ammo.

[kickstand]

Run 'em through the sizer, they'll be fine.

I don't care who you are, that's funny!

[P Flados]

I have used a LOT of the HF red. I am on my second pound, and there is very little that goes to waste.

I do the coating in my garage with the big door open. As someone just a few miles from the Atlantic Ocean, I frequently deal with very high humidity.

I have come to belive that it is not so much the humidity, as it is dampness.

There is an easy cure for dampness. Preheat the boolits to 130 °F to 150 °F at the very beginning of the session.

Before I tried preheating there were more than a few days where I had to put in much much much more than normal shaking to get even OK coverage. On one occasion, I rember bringing boolits from the house (say 68 °F) in the garage on a very warm & humid day. I do not think I ever got good coverage even though I cooked them & used them anyway. On that day, the boolits were probably below the dewpoint and the dampness just killed the static. After say 5 minutes of shaking a batch, the boolits probably warmed up to above the dew point, but the moisture was now in the powder and messing with the build up of static.

Now that I know about the pre-heat trick, I can get really good coverage with absolutely no extra shaking. Also, I have not needed to keep the boolits warm as I put batches through the tub. I just pre-warm the whole batch (typically around 500), then start the shake & stack phase one handfull at a time.

I have had more than a few "problem" sessions and more than a few session where preheat was used to get fast and easy coverage in very humid conditions. This is not a hit or miss thing. I works and it makes sense.

[cwlongshot]

Something else I have found.

Temp, just because the oven says 400... dosen't mean a THING!!

Get a temp a real temp and see what you are REALLY cooking them at! I harbor Freight laser temp tool can be had cheap and works great for this. Mine are now easily kept 395-400.

Mine was off like almost 100 degrees off! My first batch actually melted a bullet! the powders do have flexibility, but I have found you cant go much over 400, but temps as low as 350 isn't always a killer. Time also, this will very with bullet size as well... No its not super sensitive, at lest not with powders I have used so far. But it is different at least a little between makers products.

Good luck,
CW

[gpidaho]

I usually do the shake and bake these days but I do have an Eastwood basic electrostatic gun. If a certain batch of powder is hard to work with and doesn't cover well I use the gun. Even HF flat black covers perfectly (good looking bullet) when using the electrostatic system. Gp

[GregLaROCHE]

I bought some powder off of eBay and it worked great in a Tupperware type knockoff. I hadn’t heard about the BBs then, so didn’t use any. I shake for around a minute. I’m meaning to try some BBs and will probably buy from Smoke next time I need more powder. There’s been so much good said about his products on this forum.

I keep a container for each color and add powder as needed. Yesterday the boolits weren’t coating well. I found I had a crack in the container. I dumped out the boolits and powder, then added fresh powder and the boolits. Worked great after that. I figure moisture got through that crack and ruined the powder.

Also keeping all lube or oils off the boolits is important. I once got some WD overspray on some. I washed them first with brake cleaner and then twice with acetone, but still couldn’t get them to coat well.

[Smk SHoe]

I have about a dozen " Rubbermaid" sandwich containers. Each has it ASBB's and own color. Containers are short enough to get the bullets out but big enough for a decent sized handful of bullets.

[Big Boomer]

As I made my first foray into powder coating, I looked around and really had no container to give it a go. Then I noticed an empty Tite Group powder container, the label I had peeled off some time back. I thought I would give that cannister a try. It has a screw-on cap, of course, and the # 2 on the bottom. Put a bit of Smoke's clear into the container and dumped a double handful of Lee 125 RF 9mm/.38 Spl. boolits into the cannister and screwed the lid on. Shook it around for a bit and dumped the well coated boolits onto my Cuisinart mesh tray with a piece of cardboard underneath to catch the remaining powder. During this time the convection oven was getting up to temperature and I placed the mesh tray into the oven. The oven has a wide swing in temperature … 370 degrees to 430 degrees. However, everything turned out nicely. Got to looking around and found a 2-lb empty powder container which also had the # 2 on the bottom and started using that. Took about 150 .45 ACP boolits (Lee 230 gr two lube groove RN) and some black airsoft BBs from Smoke and those boolits in quantity powder coated just as well as the 9mm/.38 Spl. First try and success. Something to note: the powder coating process was done carefully in our basement that is air-conditioned and dehumidified. However, did not want to get the powder into the basement air so was careful about allowing the powder to settle down in the container after vigorously shaking the container and as I dumped the boolits, BBs and excess powder onto the mesh tray. Unless something goes awry, it looks like I have my system rigged and ready. Big Boomer

[gpidaho]

Big Boomer: Powder coating truly is a pretty simple process if a quality powder and a reasonable amount of care is taken. Glad it's working out for you. You'll love how easy your guns clean up when you use powder coated bullets. Gp