a trick for tumble powder coating

[cptkeybrd]

Ok guys, this works great. Used HFT red, black air soft bbs. Harbor says 15-20 after they start melting, that's what I do and it works great. No one has mentioned putting in water after to harden. Anybody? I dump mine in cool. Water after and will chk hardness tomorrow.
I use a blk & decker reg oven I lgot off eBay 12.99. I know heat treating for one hour will raise bhn so worth checking I use #2 alloy 14-15 bhn.
Thanks to all for your experiments I believe this is the easiest and cheapest. No solutions to dry and dispose of or breathe.
Fun Xmas present and a new trend.

[pretzelxx]

That short amount of time probably wont help with hardening the boolits, you need to cook them longer. Search heat treating your boolits. The fast cool just helps cool them down at that point.

[bangerjim]

Water quenching PC is brought up all the time. Mentioned in MANY MANY threads!

Some do it because they think they need extra hardness. I do not. 10-12 is plenty hard for me. That is why I mix my alloy for 10-12. If I would drop them, they would be waaaaaay to hard at ~30. I air cool them.

But do it if you feel you need more hardness and do not have the alloy to mix. Since you are only heating to 400, you will not get nearly as much hardness as dropping immediatly after casting.

If you do want harder lead, try mixing it for a harder alloy as I do. Very uniform and repeatable as opposed to water quenching.

banger

[fcvan]

I've been using a Black and Decker oven for a while, and have used Harbor Freight Flat Black and several colors from Prismatic Powders. When I first started with the HF black I set the oven at 400 and started with a cool oven. I waited and watched and it took about 5 minutes for the powder to gloss over, then I set the timer at 20 minutes. Worked great. I started playing around and just started putting in cold, setting at 400, and setting a timer for 20 minutes. Still great.

when I started using Prismatic Powder, I set the oven at 375 and the timer at 15 minutes. Perfect! Recently, I picked up an oven thermometer from Walmart for $5. I set the oven at 375 and waited for the oven to warm up. The oven was dead on, pretty happy about that. I have since loaned the thermometer to a buddy who is just getting into ESPC and using the Amazon Chinese Craftsman knock off. I bought one too and found it way more convenient than my HF gun. Life is good

So, for the tumble coating. When I want a bunch of boolits done fast, I tumble coat with a Cool Whip container, 2 layers of ASBBs, Prismatic Powder, and parchment paper. 30 seconds of shaking has given me great coverage, very smooth, but the powder I was using didn't give an even color. The powder is a top coat with a little pigment but the idea was coverage and speed, not beauty. I shake up the boolits and dumped them onto a cookie sheet. The ASBBs roll away which makes grabbing the coated boolits with hemostats pretty easy.

i have found that shaking the cookie sheet from side to side, making the boolits roll, helped remove excess powder and leave a very even coating. One coat has been more than enough for the Lee 309-230 5R boolits I use in my 300 blk. I was fan folding the parchment paper to keep the boolits from rolling and touching and that worked great. Now, I'm using a tray from the store, a microwave bacon cooker, which has raised ridged which create little troughs. I think the trays are melamine or something and oven rated. I lay down the parchment paper, place the long skinny boolits, and bake accordingly. Life is very good. This PC stuff has really been a fun and successful adventure

[bangerjim]

95% of people that try PC'ing are successful at it, using the BBDT or the ESPC method.

The other 5% just didn't hold their mouth right!

banger

[cptkeybrd]

I have done an assortment of my boolits with one coat of HF Red with black BB's and they have coated great. I do dump in cool water after.
Passed all tests now time to load up.

[Jr.]

Finally got around to tying this. Couldn't find anyblack BBS so I bought green. Not the best choice had to coat twice.

[Beagle333]

Don't automatically assume it's the BB's. Sometimes I get black to work on the first try.... sometimes it takes twice as well. It depends on the humidity, and the moon phase... or something like that.
Smoke4320 does sell black BB's cheap though, if you wanna try some one day.

[Jr.]

I just figured it was the BBS because from the photos and descriptions I've seen the BBS get covered with powder coat as well and the stuff would not stick to these at all. They were all very clean after shaking

[bangerjim]

I just figured it was the BBS because from the photos and descriptions I've seen the BBS get covered with powder coat as well and the stuff would not stick to these at all. They were all very clean after shaking

I did a lot of "research & testing" (at least my wife bought that story!) on the various "colors" of ASBB's when this technique popped up early last year. I have them all because I have numerous airsoft guns.

The black hard plastic is a different alloy to get the hardness and weight and seems to coat best. My black ones do coat completely. Other weights/colors do not so much.

Looks like you are in PHX and we do not really have a humidity problem here now. Back in the monsoon period, BBDT did not work well for me either, so I just whip out my ESPC guns. You should be able to shake-n-bake with ease with our weather now.

But as Beagle said (and has experienced!) BBDT is sort of a voodoo black art process, where there are MANY variables for each individual doing it. You just have to find out what works for you at that exact moment in time. And be ready to vary time, temperature, speed, bowl size, bowl shape, quantity of boolits, tumbling/shaking technique, etc to get coatings that are acceptable to you. In other words........ya' just gotta hold your mouth right!

That is why ESPC is the industry accepted standard way of applying powder coats to objects........it works every time!

banger

[StromBusa]

I did a lot of "research & testing" (at least my wife bought that story!) on the various "colors" of ASBB's when this technique popped up early last year. I have them all because I have numerous airsoft guns.

The black hard plastic is a different alloy to get the hardness and weight and seems to coat best. My black ones do coat completely. Other weights/colors do not so much.

Looks like you are in PHX and we do not really have a humidity problem here now. Back in the monsoon period, BBDT did not work well for me either, so I just whip out my ESPC guns. You should be able to shake-n-bake with ease with our weather now.

But as Beagle said (and has experienced!) BBDT is sort of a voodoo black art process, where there are MANY variables for each individual doing it. You just have to find out what works for you at that exact moment in time. And be ready to vary time, temperature, speed, bowl size, bowl shape, quantity of boolits, tumbling/shaking technique, etc to get coatings that are acceptable to you. In other words........ya' just gotta hold your mouth right!

That is why ESPC is the industry accepted standard way of applying powder coats to objects........it works every time!

banger

I heard that puting on your wife's pantyhose followed by a rubber suit and a wool sweater, then rubbing balloons & feathers on yourself prior to grabbing the cool whip container in a wood stove heated room with carpeting is the sure fire way to go.....

[Jr.]

I did a lot of "research & testing" (at least my wife bought that story!) on the various "colors" of ASBB's when this technique popped up early last year. I have them all because I have numerous airsoft guns.

The black hard plastic is a different alloy to get the hardness and weight and seems to coat best. My black ones do coat completely. Other weights/colors do not so much.

Looks like you are in PHX and we do not really have a humidity problem here now. Back in the monsoon period, BBDT did not work well for me either, so I just whip out my ESPC guns. You should be able to shake-n-bake with ease with our weather now.

But as Beagle said (and has experienced!) BBDT is sort of a voodoo black art process, where there are MANY variables for each individual doing it. You just have to find out what works for you at that exact moment in time. And be ready to vary time, temperature, speed, bowl size, bowl shape, quantity of boolits, tumbling/shaking technique, etc to get coatings that are acceptable to you. In other words........ya' just gotta hold your mouth right!

That is why ESPC is the industry accepted standard way of applying powder coats to objects........it works every time!

banger

No not in PHX about 3 1/2 hours north. Humidity is probably what got me still have snow melting off from last weeks storm.

[Beagle333]

I can't even really say for sure that it is the humidity when it doesn't work. I got a bud just across the line in GA and it is as humid there as here and he tumbles in his open garage with complete success. He even stores his powders, tubs and BB's out there. He uses HF and Smoke's powders and his coating looks great.

I surrender the BB's..... it's HF gun for me.

[limpy]

got to try this myself,black bb here I come.

[cptkeybrd]

one coat of Mirror Red PTP 400 10 min, so it has less effect on bhn.
Coat is thicker, glossier, better coated than HFT. $7.50 for half pound shipped on ebay. might be the same as Smokes.

[mcr]

Has anyone done this process in a case tumbler? Not in tupperware inside the tumbler. Just boolits, powder, and bbs inside a tumbler. I have a Frankford Arsenal case tumbler but it doesn't say what number plastic is used. I've been ES coating, but don't like extra material at the base. Sometimes the boolit is crooked on the push through sizer and scrapes off the pc. If the case tumbler doesn't work, I'll just try the tupperware that you guys have verified works.

mcr

[wquiles]

Has anyone done this process in a case tumbler? Not in tupperware inside the tumbler. Just boolits, powder, and bbs inside a tumbler. I have a Frankford Arsenal case tumbler but it doesn't say what number plastic is used. I've been ES coating, but don't like extra material at the base. Sometimes the boolit is crooked on the push through sizer and scrapes off the pc. If the case tumbler doesn't work, I'll just try the tupperware that you guys have verified works.

mcr

Yes, a few of us have - I tried last week. Details here in my own thread:
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...and-bake/page2








Will

[bangerjim]

I tried my vibe unit a long time back when we 1st started messing around with the BBDT'ing and did not get results I wanted. Coats too thick and irregular and lumpy. Don't really know shy.

And too much time involved.

~30 seconds swirl in a coolwhip or screw-ZipLok container and then 10 seconds up and down does it for me every time. And my tumbler stays clean. Smooth and even and darned near 99% coverage. But do whatever gets you there.

[mcr]

Thank you for the replies and saving me some headaches.

[wquiles]

But do whatever gets you there.

+1

That is the key. To try a few things and see what works