First time with shake & bake

[LenH]

Alright ladies & gents, I final took the plumge and tried my hand at powder coating. Using Smoke's powder & bbs. Trying
to coat a 20 gr round nose. I thought I followed Smoke's instructions. The first batch have small bare spots and an uneven coat.
Oven between 350 & 400 cooked for 15 minutes. Not sure what I'm doing wrong but I'm thinking a 2nd coat is in order. Shaker
was a Ziplock 3 cup container only about 20 bullets on first run.

Help PLEASE!
Len H.

[jcren]

Bb's? Also, a 20 second HARD up and down shake after the swirl makes all the difference.

[LenH]

162788Second batch a bit better. The green boolits are from a Lyman 452374 225 gr round nose for .45 ACP. the red
boolits are from a H&G S242 452 - 160gr SWC with my alloy the boolits weigh about 168 gr. I just pulled these from the oven
waiting for them to cool.

[bangerjim]

Swirl 20 seconds. HARD up & down for 10-12 seconds. 400F - verify with a good oven thermometer - mark 400F on your oven dial. That's all it takes.

No 2nd coat ever needed.

Use ASBB's - black is the best due to alloy of hard plastic they are made of - to prevent collision dings and spread the teeny static charge out.

keep up the good work.

banger

[LenH]

Banger,

I got the airsoft bbs from Smoke. The first batch I probably didn't shake long enough, the second batch did better. I only did about 20 of the 225's at a time.
The oven thermometer is a Wally World special, not real sure of the quality. I thought about running the oven with a digital controller. I just decided to dip my
toe in the water.

I had a thousand BBs from Smoke and divided them into two cups. the boolits were buried under the BBs at the end of the shake. I have about 150 of the 160's
I need to get coated. I want to test them in a bullseye match in a couple of weeks.

[LenH]

Ok guys, I found a digital controller I got when I bought a ProMelt off S&S. It is an Aubers single readout, I set it to 400 and the Wally World oven thermometer
was reading over 450. Not too surprising but the first two batches were not baked at a high enough temp.

Is that going to be a problem?

[bangerjim]

Banger,

I got the airsoft bbs from Smoke. The first batch I probably didn't shake long enough, the second batch did better. I only did about 20 of the 225's at a time.
The oven thermometer is a Wally World special, not real sure of the quality. I thought about running the oven with a digital controller. I just decided to dip my
toe in the water.

I had a thousand BBs from Smoke and divided them into two cups. the boolits were buried under the BBs at the end of the shake. I have about 150 of the 160's
I need to get coated. I want to test them in a bullseye match in a couple of weeks.

You will see in the several threads if you read them that you only want 2 to 3 layers of BB's in whatever container you use. The boolits should not get "LOST" in the BB's! A thousand BB's would be enough to do several dozen containers. Thin the heard!

banger

[bangerjim]

Ok guys, I found a digital controller I got when I bought a ProMelt off S&S. It is an Aubers single readout, I set it to 400 and the Wally World oven thermometer
was reading over 450. Not too surprising but the first two batches were not baked at a high enough temp.

Is that going to be a problem?

Do they pass the standard hammer test?

[LenH]

Banger, yes they did pass the hammer test.

[rockshooter]

I just use my casting thermometer- stick it in the oven with the glass facing where I can read it.
Loren

[Rich22]

I just use my casting thermometer- stick it in the oven with the glass facing where I can read it.
Loren
Had a tru-tel glass break on me one time when I did that. I was told the dial cannot handle very high heat like the element can

[Dickieray]

Use a white plastic container like Cool Whip or similar.

[berksglh]

The first batch have small bare spots and an uneven coat.


Any #5 recyclable container, coolwhip bowl, or get a nice lock top durable Tupperware like. Whatever you like, as long as its #5 plastic. Play with amount of BB's, but some of my 9mm end up barried, and still works. So there is a lot of wiggle room there. Also amount of rnds, if you shake it properly, I can under or overload and they still coat fine.

Biggest thing I have found that causes what you are seeing, is from skipping the up and down shake at the end. I figured it would knock it all back off so I just swirled.

I believe the swirl builds static, but the fine dust like particles settle and get knocked off in the swirl a bit. The up and down shake causes the entire contents of powder to go airborne and blast all over the place and engulf the rnds giving a heavy coat to the already statically charged rnds.

If i skip the vigorous shake as the last agitation, i don't get as good of coverage.

As for temp and time, if you have minor spots before baking, I haven't found that baking causes the powder to wet over spots much if any. So get the shake and coating down, then the oven just melts it as is.

Shake baby shake!

[LenH]

I did what Banger told me and thinned the herd on the bbs and it started working better. I took a bunch of H&G #50 wadcutters and soaked them in paint thinner to remove the
funky grease from the groves. I got them all cleaned and dry and decided to test these boolits with PC. There was a storm front coming through last night and the humidity was about
65%, It didn't seem to matter all the boolits had great coverage and was able to use all 4 colors I got from Smoke.

I have run out of boolits to coat and besides it is supposed to rain the rest of the week.

[bdicki]

Now you need to mix the colors.
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t182/bdicki/IMG_0765_zpskvqi8jgj.jpg

[Smoke4320]

almost all the issues with my powders come down to 3 things

#1 people afraid to shake hard enough . (I was guilty of this myself and understandable thinking you don't want to damage the lead bullets)
#2 Wrong oven Temps .. Must and I stress again MUST know for sure what your Actual oven temp is .. do not trust the dial or oven readout
#3 Wrong containers or BBs .. #5 containers and 25 Gram BLACK BB's work ..

usually I tell people it will take 3, 4 or 5 batches before you develop a good feel/routine for this and begin to make great looking bullets
Kind of like beginning casting ..it takes a few tries to get everything ironed out

hang in there you will be churning out fine bullets in no time

[fingers284]

I don't use Smoke's or HF powder, being from north of the border it is far easier to buy a pound or two from a commercial coating company than deal with Border Customs.

After reading and trying shake & bake methods advised by the most excellent advise given freely on this forum, I have found that I can manipulate the thickness of coating thickness to suit different bullet dia. and alloys. I routinely use PC to bump up undersized bullets to fit a specific rifle bore, the most extreme example of that has been 200 grain .452 swc to .459 and use them in both 45-70 and 45-90 with results that astounded me (1" groups, as good as I have ever been able to shoot with "copper jacketed to size" bullets). I laughingly call my 1895 Cowboy my "varmint rifle" now.

I have found that a simple swirl with good powder will give an adequate covering (.0015 or so). A swirl with ASBB will give a slightly thicker coating (up to .0025) and adding a bounce of different durations to that can significantly add coating thickness. I have taken the aforementioned .452 dia. up to .460 with two coats of a powder we have up here called Phantom Glass Black.

[Smoke4320]

welcome .. glad you are getting good results
Pics or it did not happen :) :)

[LenH]

I am beginning to understand the ins & outs of the process. It is more like Shake Rattle & Roll. I might be giving away my age with that one.

I am using a digital controller for the temp on the oven. The boolits pass the hammer test.
Speaking of ovens, my wife got a brand new larger toaster convection oven. Both of us are happy.

[LenH]

[QUOTE=bdicki;3572659]Now you need to mix the colors.
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t182/bdicki/IMG_0765_zpskvqi8jgj.jpgI'll get to that sooner or later, I'm just getting started.

[jimb16]

As far as oven temp goes, I solved the problem my own way. I drilled a small hole through the top just big enough for the stem of my lead thermometer to poke through. I leave it in the hole while baking the PC. That way I can monitor the temp at all times. I don't start my timing until the temp returns to proper baking temp. BTW my oven has settings/markings of low, med and high with a rehystatic type control.

[Slingshot]

I have a question:

I have everything set to start doing my 1st batch this weekend. .25G bb's, PC powder that I use on my fishing jigs, "Thumblers tumbler" and a #5 peanut butter jar that is a good size to fit on the tumbler wheels. Will tumbling the boolits in a rotary tumbler help or hinder the process?

Thanks,
Jeff / Slingshot

[Walter Laich]

try the rotary tumbler but I think you will be spending a lot of time using it.

As before, swirl them around by hand

flip them over by hand

that does it in no time at all.

it's not hard to do just a bit of technique to develop

[kokomokid]

Will soft (20-1) bullets come out of the swirl and shake without damage to nose and base? How many BBs are you using?
I was going to try and dip bullets hot out of the mould in a PC air bed. Just going to dip up to the ogive but my mould core is 280* so bullet would 300* or less by the time I could dip it.

[bdicki]

Will soft (20-1) bullets come out of the swirl and shake without damage to nose and base? How many BBs are you using?
I was going to try and dip bullets hot out of the mould in a PC air bed. Just going to dip up to the ogive but my mould core is 280* so bullet would 300* or less by the time I could dip it.
These are 20/1.
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t182/bdicki/IMG_0889_zps1qh3lktj.jpg

[Handloader109]

If you are trying to hot dip, you will not get good, consistent results, just swirl. I don't use bbs and get good results. I fretted to much initially trying to get a great solid coat. Not necessary and a heavy coat can be detrimental to the fit to your gun. All of my 9mm handguns hate a thick coat on the nose. I can size to lit rifleing, but that does not help nose. Keep thin and consistent. Btw, soft bullets work great with pc

[OS OK]

I found that my oven was a lier and was under temp by 125 degrees. The first batch made at under temp. conditions got shot the other day.
They left long grey smears on the lands and grooves…looked like the antimonial smear people describe.
It was a SOB to clean out of the barrel…it helped to shoot a dozen FMJ's through but it was still a bear to clean.
Yeah…they too passed the hammer test…when they are not 'cured' properly…you are in for trouble.