simple Hi-Tek coating

[TyMarkle]

Alright their coming out rough..... What will make cause them to be like that?

[Moonman]

TyMarkle,

Too much/heavy coating, insufficient mixing/waiting/mixing the solution,
or insufficient drying time (dry to the touch IS NOT DRY) water
under the coating can vaporize and bubble the surface coating.

[Avenger442]

I will take pics for you. I did it on my lee pot and oven with frozone PID.
Goin to cast and coat right now, I'll post pics at the end of the afternoon.

Thanks
Where did you buy the PID? What length probe?

[popper]

There is a thread on PIDs, lots of pics & instruction.I use the long high temp one, move from pot to oven as needed.

[HI-TEK]

Alright their coming out rough..... What will make cause them to be like that?

Possible causes for rough finish of first coat.
1. Adding too much coating mixture, tumbling/mix-coating for too long until coating became too sticky.
2. Using too much coating, and not drying adequately, or both before cooking.

Dont try to make up very small coating mixtures as then trying to reproduce results may be difficult.
If you start off using 20 grams of powder to 100 mls Acetone, this should give you a working mixture that will work.
Keep mixture in well sealed containers, suitable for Acetone, and keep it out of sunlight/heat.
Mixture will be usable for quite some time.
I sent you a PM, so I may be able to assist directly with data, and coating instructions.
Joe

[kryogen]

Ok, I have coated a few tonight and it seems much better. A few observations.

1- cooking 10 minutes after the oven is back to 200 isnt enough. Wiped off with acetone. I cook 12 minutes and I get VERY minimal bleed. (approx 14 min after I put boolits in, it takes approx 2 min to get back to 200).
2- I shaked a bit too long on 2nd coat. Boolits are warm before I coat, so I think that shaking 10 seconds is enough. 2nd coat I went for 20 seconds or so, and it felt like they started to clump just before I dropped, and the coating looked a bit rough. Cook 12 min, pass acetone and smash. Are they usable even though they are a bit rough looking ?
3- 10 minutes on top of the oven after coating already warm (not hot) boolits seems to completely dry as I didnt get any bubbling or anything. That means I could coat, and let one tray dry while I cook the other one, etc.

Also, some of my mistakes. I re-set every die checking everything with bullet pulling at every step. I though that my seating die wasnt crimping at all, but I was wrong, it was, and just the seating step was scraping coating to the lead.... fail. That's also what happened with my 45, I pulled boolits and they were all scraped... yes, fail, I know.
Ok, next my crimp die was set a bit too strong, I went minimal crimp with plunk test. Pulled, absolutely no scraping or over crimping of the boolit.

So I am going to try a few on monday or tuesday, cant wait. I went with a mild load also, going to see how it performs. 5 grains of power pistol, 1.050 with lee 120TC. I wish that it works well. I have over 1200 pounds of lead ingots so I would like to find a recipe that works so I can start using it :P

Here is a pic. Like I have said they look a bit rough because I shaked a bit too long before drying I think. I used 3ML for 2.5 pounds of 120ML to 20 grams mix. Should that be ok?

[kryogen]

Here are the pics of my PID setup.
Got PID from Frozone here. Good guy to deal with. He sells the probes, just buy an extra probe when you get his PID.
(um, looks like he got banned, no clue why, when, etc... sorry. no idea where you can get those now)


Here you can see the side of the oven. I have drilled a hole for an electrical box type "cable hold". PID and fan only plug go through this.
The oven controls don't work anymore. 4 elements are directly wired to the plug, which plugs into the PID. Fan is direct wired to another plug that plugs into wall.


You can see the probe at the back of the oven, approx center L-R and top to bottom.
You can see the 1/2 inch metal plate that I put in(with the two 308 hits, eh, eh) , and also I have 2 6 pound lead ingots at the bottom of the oven. That's all to grab heat and stabilize temps. Works MUCH better with all this vs stock. Temps would vary too much before I did that. (you cant see the ingots, they are below the plate between the 2 bottom elements)

Small bracket that I have installed on the lee pot that allows me to keep the probe 1 cm from side and bottom. Doesnt slip. More precise reading.

Just keep your P/I/D numbers after it learns your melting pot and oven, and just set them when switching appliances. That way you never have to have it learn again. Takes 1 minute to set while they warm up. No big deal. Better than waiting for the PID to learn, overshoot, overcool, overshoot.... etc etc.

Temps usually stay within +- 1-2 celcius while cooking or melting lead. Good enough for me.
Right now I cook at 200 and melt lead at 380. Seems to work fine.

Oh and I just became a contributor, this forum is well worth 10$ a year. Glad to be part of this.

[TyMarkle]

Thanks for all of the info fellas. I measured in tablespoons due to the instructions I was going off of. I think I shook to long and then maybe didn't dry long enough in between coats. I'll use my scales and convert my grains over to grams next time instead of using the tablespoon method. Joe has helped me through email a lot. Makes me want to get going with casting more. Again, thanks for all of your help.

[Ausglock]

Some of the Powdered HITEK does give a textured finish. Some give smooth.
They all work fine, Don't sweat it.
So long as they pass the wipe/smash test you are good to go.
Remember... sizing smooths out the bit of the bullet that touches the bore. The bit you see doesn't matter.

[kryogen]

They look perfectly fine unless I magnify it like on the picture. Cant wait to try. I loaded just 20 in case they lead or something.

Last time I shot 358 ammo in my glock, it was MUCH more precise than the 355 plated bullets. Probably going to try on tuesday, not going to have a chance on monday I think

[h&g68]

Hi Guys

I am looking at coating my cast bullets with this HiTEK powder coat product what is the cost and who has it for sale in the US.

[Ausglock]

H&G68.
Contact Bayou Bullets or Gateway Bullets.

[Ausglock]

Tex. Contact Joe.
He may soon be selling coating Via a Well known online Dealer in Sydney.

[HI-TEK]

I've got a 454Casull up here in Townsville that's being, well, rather temperamental lately. Winter is fine on "normal" lubes, but summer is causing the lube to run.

Cheers,


TexnAss
I know exactly how you feel.
I used to make a very hard high melting point Wax type lube many many years ago, as you guys were having so much trouble with lubes melting and running into every bag, box and packaging. Very messy, and not satisfactory.
I would appreciate if you contacted me via PM or Email.

[Gremlin460]

Right, the original video I did on youtube on how *I* use Hitek was muted by youtube because of the 18 seconds of intro music!!

I received a email from Joe telling me about it, so I have just reloaded it with a different audio, lets see how that fares.

Link is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svu6oHcd7d0

Remember everyone does it slightly different, but this method WORKS and I have no leading or failures doing it this way.

Mike

[NYBushBro]

Mike - great video.

[Gremlin460]

Mike - great video.

Thank You , I think I fumbled it kinda, its hard videoing on a smart phone and doing things one handed, but if it gets the basics acorss then it has done its job.
I would like to make mention of this though, the power board in the video it NOT live, it is only switched on at night for the lighting in the shipping container that is my reloading room.
Joe raised my awareness to this, with volatile Acetone or MEK please make sure you are in a safe environment, using a fan close is not safe. Any electrical motor generates sparks. You will notice that every time I squirt the coating into the container I walk to the outside of the container and shake in the breeze outside.
Please be safe...

[popper]

I tried 1 teaspoon (dry gold 1035) for 4# of rifle boolits, first coat turned out too heavy. It worked and I got good color and adhesion but I'll try 1/2 next time - 2 light coats then a third heavy (1 teaspoon). I used the green (pistol) for first coat on some - worked fine - was left over from last summer. Yes, I shot those and target results were good - 300BO @ 1750 fps plain base. The green first coat was thinner than the gold.

[ioon44]

Thank You , I think I fumbled it kinda, its hard videoing on a smart phone and doing things one handed, but if it gets the basics acorss then it has done its job.
I would like to make mention of this though, the power board in the video it NOT live, it is only switched on at night for the lighting in the shipping container that is my reloading room.
Joe raised my awareness to this, with volatile Acetone or MEK please make sure you are in a safe environment, using a fan close is not safe. Any electrical motor generates sparks. You will notice that every time I squirt the coating into the container I walk to the outside of the container and shake in the breeze outside.
Please be safe...

Gremlin460 thanks for the awareness of volatile Acetone and electric motors.

Trying to work in 3 to 4deg C weather I have been building a drying / warming cabinet with a electric fan motor and heater blowing into the bottom and venting at the top , works great for warming boolits to 25deg C to 30deg C to be coated.

After coating I put the trays out side in the fresh air for 15 to 30 min, should this be enough time for the Acetone to flash off?

Does Acetone vapor rise or drop when drying?

My last coating I used Red Copper powder mixed to 150ml/20grams for the first coat baked 12min at 200deg C , totally passed the smash test, 2nd coat was 100ml/20grams baked 12 min at 200deg C totally passed the smash test.

Now when the snow gets off the pistol range I try to shoot some.

[farmerjim]

Acetone vapor is twice the density of air. MEK is about 2 1/2 times as dense as air.