Powder coating in the south

[Joe504]

I'm sure this has been answered before, and if so, just point me to the previous post.

If not, here we go.

Does the dry tumble/shake n bake method work in the south? Is it hard to get a static charge built up with high temps and high humidity like we have in the summer?

Im using Hiteks wet method right now, and I like it, but we are all experimenters, so I want to try something new.

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[dangitgriff]

Dude...the South got air conditioning in, like, 1954... No problems doing it in the A/C.

[shell70634]

I use plastic screw top containers from the dollar tree. They have the 5 symbol on the bottom and fit inside my thumblers tumbler container. Fill em half full of boolits with some powder and tumble for 20 minutes or so. If it's a dry spell only takes 10 minutes. Humid days 20. I have noticed that the pc seems to be thicker and a little more textured than hand shaking. I also use more powder than most people. After tumbling I dump em onto 1/4 inch hardware cloth over a container to catch the powder, shake em a bit to remove excess powder and dump them onto a tray that fits in the oven. The tray is hardware cloth wired to the oven rack and lined with non stick aluminum foil. After backing I dump em in the sink with cold water. This has been working well for me.

[Joe504]

I use plastic screw top containers from the dollar tree. They have the 5 symbol on the bottom and fit inside my thumblers tumbler container. Fill em half full of boolits with some powder and tumble for 20 minutes or so. If it's a dry spell only takes 10 minutes. Humid days 20. I have noticed that the pc seems to be thicker and a little more textured than hand shaking. I also use more powder than most people. After tumbling I dump em onto 1/4 inch hardware cloth over a container to catch the powder, shake em a bit to remove excess powder and dump them onto a tray that fits in the oven. The tray is hardware cloth wired to the oven rack and lined with non stick aluminum foil. After backing I dump em in the sink with cold water. This has been working well for me.

Awesome! Thanks for the info.

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[Joe504]

Dude...the South got air conditioning in, like, 1954... No problems doing it in the A/C.

Well, 1, AC can only do so much when the humidity is 100%. And 2, I would love for you to come down here and insulate my garage

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[shell70634]

Ready for the oven
Attachment 270552

[Big Boomer]

Joe504: While I have an air-conditioned basement that is also de-humidified and have had nothing but success in powder-coating in Kentucky, you can do the same thing if your house is air-conditioned. Just take your stuff into your house and do the p/cing. Then you can take the p/ced boolits outside to your shop or whatever to do the baking. You might want to allow the container in which you shake the powder on the boolits to settle a bit before you open the lid while in your house. That will keep the powder from becoming airborne. I know nothing about Hi-Tec's wet method but Smoke's powders are super. One coat is sufficient. I wanted my boolits to look like plain cast boolits so I chose clear instead of a color ... there's nothing but a really slick finish with this powder. I have read on this thread where some powder coaters heat their boolits to like 140 degrees before dumping them into the p/cing container but have never tried that. Good luck in your endeavors. Big Boomer

[Joe504]

Ready for the oven
Attachment 270552

Who's powder do you use?

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[Joe504]

Joe504: While I have an air-conditioned basement that is also de-humidified and have had nothing but success in powder-coating in Kentucky, you can do the same thing if your house is air-conditioned. Just take your stuff into your house and do the p/cing. Then you can take the p/ced boolits outside to your shop or whatever to do the baking. You might want to allow the container in which you shake the powder on the boolits to settle a bit before you open the lid while in your house. That will keep the powder from becoming airborne. I know nothing about Hi-Tec's wet method but Smoke's powders are super. One coat is sufficient. I wanted my boolits to look like plain cast boolits so I chose clear instead of a color ... there's nothing but a really slick finish with this powder. I have read on this thread where some powder coaters heat their boolits to like 140 degrees before dumping them into the p/cing container but have never tried that. Good luck in your endeavors. Big Boomer

I'm gonna try to keep everything in the garage, but that is an option.

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[Big Boomer]

Smoke's ... one of the site sponsers. You will find his ad on the opening of Cast Boolits. Someone will come along here in a few and give you more details. Scroll down close to the bottom when you first log onto Cast Boolits. You will find a list of site sponsers. Scroll down toward the bottom alphabetically to find Smoke. You can click on his web site and get in touch with him. He was very helpful for me when I got started powder coating. Big Boomer

[shell70634]

Joe,
I use Smoke's but mix the colors. I never had good luck with white and yellow alone so I mix it up. Some casters color bullets for specific loads. I don't. Makes for some interesting colors.

Shelly

[camp]

I am in middle Tennessee, humidity will kill the shake and bake method, I just work around the humid days , in the last 2 weeks I have baked several thousand and by spring I should be stocked up for the year, ps keep the powder sealed up on screw cap containers until ready to use

[P Flados]

I use ASBB HF Red shake & bake. Some folks say it is harder to use than "the good stuff", but it is all I have ever used.

On dry days, it works easy.

I live in Southeastern NC about a 15 min drive from the Atlantic ocean. I do my coating in the garage with the roll up door open. On humid days, I just pre-heat the boolits to 130 degf or so at the beginning of the session. This gets the boolits real dry and the powder sticks fine.

[Joe504]

I use ASBB HF Red shake & bake. Some folks say it is harder to use than "the good stuff", but it is all I have ever used.

On dry days, it works easy.

I live in Southeastern NC about a 15 min drive from the Atlantic ocean. I do my coating in the garage with the roll up door open. On humid days, I just pre-heat the boolits to 130 degf or so at the beginning of the session. This gets the boolits real dry and the powder sticks fine.

Thanks!

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[farmerjim]

Another Louisianian here.
I have a 300 sq foot living area in the back of my barn. The wife,cat and I lived in it for 2 years while we built our house. I have a 6000 BTU AC on the back wall. I have several containers from Fred's with the 5 on them. A 10 second shake and swirl puts a good coat of Smokes powder on about 150 boolits. I put them on the tray in the AC and take them out into the barn for a 16 minute bake in the oven. I do the Hi-Tek out in the humid barn.

[cupajoe]

I live 40 miles from the coast so not quite as humid here. I coat bullets in an open garage. I started using small containers with the "magic" 5 on the bottom, swirling and shaking, worked good with or without bb's. On a whim I tried a 3 quart wide mouth container with a 2 on the bottom. I put about 250 bullets in with a 2 or 3 tablespoons of Smokes yellow/green powder, swirled for 15 or 20 seconds, peeked inside and all were coated very well. I dumped them into a fine mesh basket and rattled them around, shaking of the excess powder and dumped them onto an old cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and baked. Worked fantastic. That was 8 or 9 months ago. Since then that has been my way of coating. Friday I did 2200 124gr 9mm bullets, took about an hour and a half, most of the time was drinking coffee waiting on a batch to bake. No magic #5 container, no bb's, just powder, bullets, swirl, dump and repeat. Life is good.

[gnappi]

Having AC doesn't guarantee indoor low humidity in South Florida, and homes are not hermetically sealed. I'm literally surrounded by water in the way of lakes and canals. Copious amounts of rain, opened doors from in /out dog / shopping, mail, garage all add up.

All I can do is not bake on rainy days, keep bullets dry sometimes by warming them with a hair dryer before working with them, and shake them in my kitchen the coolest room in the house. I bake them on my patio.

I also do not mix colors any more. I found that sometimes mixing two colors that coat very well individually coat terribly when mixed, it's not worth it. I have a sufficient selection of colors to make what I need.

[BamaNapper]

I'm in southern Alabama and humidity is stupid high 6-8 months out of the year. I shake and bake Smokes powders with no problems, in the garage, no AC, door open, even during the summer months. Someone else here mentioned here having trouble with Smoke's yellow, but the yellow-green is what I have the best luck with for coverage. Black is my nemesis, always 2 coats. I recommend a sample pack of colors to find what works best for you. Obviously, I avoid hideous rainy days, and have found that I have better luck early morning or in the evenings. Also obvious, on the worst nasty hot humid days I'd rather not spend the afternoon in the garage with a toaster oven so I'm probably not PC'ing anyway. I tried the ASBB, not enough difference to make them worth the extra trouble IMO. With all that said, I cast and PC pistol calibers only. S&B PC results are subjective and we all get to define what is good enough. Even great results for my plinking rounds may be culls to the perfectionist.

Random thoughts if you end up fighting humidity issues (from a non-expert):
1. Don't leave uncoated boolits sitting around in the humidity. Container them up as soon as they're cool enough. Better yet, I often PC before they even cool to room temp.
2. Store uncoated boolits where you are going to PC them. If you store them in the house but PC in the garage, you'll be carrying cool boolits out into the humidity and inviting condensation.
3. If necessary, a minute or so in the PC oven should warm your boolits enough that there is absolutely no moisture on them when you put them in your shaker container.
4. Load your PC, ASBB, and boolits into your shaker container, carry into the AC, then put the lid on. That way you end up with drier air inside the container. Then back to the garage to shake and bake.
5. Don't dump residual powder back into the bag with the virgin stuff. Leave it in the shaking container with the lid on for the next PC session.
6. I store my PC paints and containers in a sealed tote in the garage. More for mess control than anything. When I come across a desiccant pack I toss it in the tote. A couple hours in a warm (250 deg) oven now and then keeps them working.

[NoZombies]

It's pretty humid here. I found that if humidity was a problem, a few minutes at low temp in the oven drove the humidity off of the bullets. Now I've got A/C in the shop, but before I did that I ran a dehumidifier to keep the moisture at bay. The PC powder needs to be dry as well, I keep it in condiment containers, like these:


And keep them in a sealed 5 gallon bucket with a rechargeable dessicant thingy. The condiment containers make dispensing easy. I coat year round.

[memtb]

Slightly Off Topic......farmerjim, St. Francisville? I think I know where that’s at! My younger brother lives off of Tunica Trace, and my cousin’s husband worked in law enforcement (Sheriffs Office and City) for many years! With the water going down....maybe you can go out and kill something with those cast bullets on Cat Island! memtb