Powder buy the pound Ford light blue

[mullannix930]

I tried my first attempt at powder coating bullets yesterday. Needless to say the results were not good. I used PBTP Ford light blue, a number 5 bowl and baked for 20 minutes.

Large bare spots and the wire screen ripped off coating.

[slide]

I will make a couple of suggestions. Go to amazon and buy yourself a digital thermometer with a thermocouple. Drill a hole in a bullet and insert thermocouple and squeeze the bullet down Hossfly's idea) on thermocouple. Lay this t-bullet in when you bake. You can monitor the temp of your bullets and follow the mfg. instructions. For instance, if the instructions say 400F for twenty minutes,when your t-bullet hits 400F start a timer counting down from twenty minutes. Get yourself an old ammo box (50 rounds) Cut the bottom off or drill out the holes to where the bullets will go in easily(poppers' idea). When you get it full lift it off and do another fifty. You will need some sort of pan for this. Lay parchment or silicone baking mat in the bottom of pan. No more marks. You can't trust the dials on these small ovens. A lot of guys put a p.i.d. on their ovens which will help. I went through the same things you are going through and came up with the t-couple bullet idea.

[AndyC]

The boolits actually look pretty good, baking-wise, so you're off to a good start. I never had much luck with bare wire screen, so I bought some non-stick aluminum foil and lined the screen with that - problem solved and the boolits came out very good.

After that I wanted to experiment and bought some silicone sheets and then some copper-style baking sheets and those work very well - slick and more permanent than the non-stick foil which does eventually tear.

Don't give up - you're actually off to a good start.

[mullannix930]

I’ve heard people talk about second coats. When do you do a second coat and how?

[slide]

You can do a second coat when you don't get complete coverage. I use two coats on my rifle bullets. Now, I am being honest and not critical. I would melt those back down and try again. You are just starting out and even if these didn't work out you learned. Don't be afraid to shake off the excess powder. New guys are afraid if they shake too much they won't get coverage. I did the same thing when I started. If you could find a flat pan you could set those onto it by hand. Use a pair of nitrile gloves and put a little powder on the tips of fingers. A lot of guys use tweezers but I use them for pulling splinters. If the powder comes off of the bullets when using gloves then it has not had enough static to make the powder stick. As far as how just do the same thing you did with the first coat. One coat should get the job done.

[bmortell]

if the bare spots didnt exist till after baking then just place the next batch nose up on foil one at a time with scissors and tap of extra on the bowls edge. if you pick up one with a bare spot drop back in to be re-shaked. then bake and confirm if they look proper. worry about fast production methods like dumping later.

[JM7.7x58]

I preheat my oven. It has ceramic tile and 1/8” aluminum plate above and below the “chamber” that my wire basket fits into. I bake for a half hour. This gives the bullet enough time to come up to part temp, about ten minutes, then 20 minutes of cure time.

I use clear Eastwood PC Powder. I still get wire basket marks, but I don’t have patches of PC delaminate from the bullet. It is much harder to see wire marks with clear PC.

It looks like you had puddles of pc on one bullet that has a square wire mark on it. Make sure to aggressively shake your basket to remove excess powder before baking. Or use a little less powder next time.

Josh

[slide]

Remember there are two kinds of foil. One is non stick. If you choose to use regular foil you will have a mess on your hands. Those bullets will stick to the foil and be very hard to get off. If you use the non stick make sure the non stick side is up. Have you gone to youtube and watched videos on coating bullets? Some of them are junk but some are pretty good. Learn all you can!

[frkelly74]

I have used 1/4x1/4 hardware cloth material rather than screen. Leaves very little area for the coating to stick. Also I get the boolits out immediately when the oven cycles off and scrape them onto a catch trough made of the same hardware cloth, you kind of agitate the boolits so they don't stick together also as they cool. If they cool in place , in the oven, they are glued in place and then are hard to get loose without damage.

[mullannix930]

I am using the 1/4 hardware cloth. I will get a thermometer for the oven. I am also going to try tumbling longer to see if it helps.

I didn’t wear gloves and am wondering if oil from my skin may have been a problem.

[slide]

Now your thinking. Keep it up! Do you have a vibratory tumbler?

[AndyC]

I tumble mine for 5 minutes like this:



Works perfectly. After that I dump the bullets into screen cloth, shake them around for maybe 15-20 seconds onto cardboard sheet to get off any excess and then bake in my tray.

I tend to grab handfuls of raw bullets to dump into the plastic tub before vibrating in the powder and I've never noticed oils from my skin affecting anything.

[Huskerguy]

I use powder by the same company. It seems like you may have a couple of things going on.

The coverage issue may be from either not getting enough powder on evenly or you could be baking too long and the powder is flowing down.

I painted cars for years and taught it at a college, paint flows, even powder coat. There is always fine line between hot enough and too hot. I started with a really inexpensive oven and it works fine, I didn't check it with a thermometer, but I preheated what I thought was 400 and then put bullets in for 15 minutes. I did the stand up and basket methods. You cannot avoid some contact with sides of bullets in the dump method.

I prefer to stand them, yes it takes time and I use forcepts. My "theory" is the paint flows down and more evenly. I put them on non stick parchment or non stick over Matt's that both work well. I have also seen people crumple up non stick foil so bullets don't rest on the flat using the dump method.

I now have a digital oven that is much more sophisticated. Do I get better bullets? No. Two much heat will just make the PC flor and it has to go down. Think about it.

Try 50 or so making sure you have good coverage knowing you will likely always have spots where the bullets contact each other. Use tweezers or gloves and tap off excess and stand them up on something non stick. Set your oven at what you think is 400, preheat a d out the bullets in for 15 minutes only. I have tried dumping in water and letting air cool with no difference.

When we painted cars and from watching industrial powder coating baking, remember they are in a big oven and the temperature is generally close and varies in various areas of the paint booth.

Try this and let me know through PM how it goes.

[Garyshome]

It's that Ford color, try a Chevy color!

[DHDeal]

It does seem eveybody does this somewhat differently. My technique is I use heavy Rubbermaid containers with the thick snap on lids with BB's for each color container. I swirl without trying to break the container with an occasional shake. I dump the whole mess onto a large aluminum baking sheet with the correct size 1/4" grid. I lightly shake the sheet to make the BB's drop down and it knocks off the extra powder. I use large curved forceps to pick each up and set onto a toaster oven pan with a silicone mat. When it gets full, I transfer into the oven that's preheated and stabilized at 400° for 30 minutes (verified by a good oven thermometer). I then do the next batch and that pan is waiting to go in the oven long before the last batch is cured. Seems like a lot, but it's PDQ. I can fill up a pan for the oven in 15 minutes or so with the small bullets taking longer obviously as there'll be more in the pan.

I've read a lot about the Furd Blue color and besides it has Furd in it, I no like! Seriously, I'll usually add about 25% clear in my colors for a translucent shade but really for clear's ability to give such a great even coat. Clear coats best for me, but I love color, so....

[mehavey]

Dumb Question du jour: ¿ PBTP Ford light blue ¿=? Eastwood For Lt Blue ?

[Conditor22]

I’ve heard people talk about second coats. When do you do a second coat and how?

They look good for a first coat, did you try the smash test, hammer a coated boolit into a 1//4 in thick penny and/or into a cube to see if the PC (powder coating ) flakes.

It looks to me like you are having a little bit of an adhesion problem (the wire is pulling more PC off than normal, the hammer test will let you know about that)

Technically, you do a second coat by only baking the first coat until the powder flows, let the boolits cool to the touch then do a second coat this was the PC will integrate/bond/adhere/stick together better, but you can just second coat it after the boolits are cool enough to touch, I would bake at 400 for 25 min.

If you want/need to quench, do it after you apply and bake the PC, you can pick up contamination quenching (fast cooling in water) that stops the PC from sticking well.

I just get an oven thermometer, set it on the shelf you will bake on the adjust the oven's temperature until it reaches 400°, put your PC'd boolits in a preheated oven and bake for 25 minutes (may be a few minutes longer than needed to make sure you get a full cure

manufacturers say

RAL 5012 Ford Light Blue
POLYESTER TGIC WEATHER RESISTANT POWDER COATING FOR INTERIOR OR EXTERIOR APPLICATIONS.

CURE SCHEDULE = 400F/10 MIN @ PART METAL TEMPERATURE

meaning after the boolits reach 400° bake for 10 minutes in this case you would need a way to measure the temperature of the boolits. I've found that 25 minutes in a pre-heated oven covers all the powders I have found.

GLOSS LEVEL = 85% ON 60 DEGREE METER
RECOMMENDED MIL THICKNESS = 2.0 – 3.0 MILS
SPECIFIC GRAVITY = 1.2 – 1.8
THEORETICAL COVER0AGE = 51.5 SQ. FT.
SALT SPRAY RESULTS = 1,000+ HOURS


PS not all powder work well when baked lying down or piled together.

[Conditor22]

Dumb Question du jour: ¿ PBTP Ford light blue ¿=? Eastwood For Lt Blue ?

NO, just the same color just like a blue mustang and a blue pinto are the same color but very different inside