First time Powder Coating with Harbor Freight powders. Decent results.

I am new to casting, and coating. I cast about 400 9mm and .45acp bullets last week (my first casting session). I have been doing a lot of research mainly here before going down this road. Thank you guys for all your help!
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With that said. Here we go. I always planned on powder coating as I shoot indoor range for practice, and don't want to deal with the smoke. Since I am new to the hobby I have been trying to save money. That is how I convinced myself to start casting, is to save money. I read many posts about dry tumble, and piglet methods of powder coating. I stopped in at Harbor Freight and picked one lb of yellow, and one of red. It was all that they had. I started with yellow. I tumbled in a cool whip container with 50 .45acp and 1 tea spoon of powder. Cooked them at 400 degrees for 20 minutes like the directions say. Was not satisfied with the coat so I did it again. Still not satisfied, I researched more and found that yellow does not work that well for dry tumble. The bullets are covered well. They sized to .452 from .457 just fine. I am sure they are worthy of loading up and shooting, just a little ugly. I can live with that.
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The next day I figured I would give the red a go around. I did the exact same procedure with the red Harbor Freight powder. The results were really good. Complete coverage, no light areas where you can see lead through the paint. I was really impressed. I understand an ES gun is the preferred method, but I am just testing the waters, and I really like the results from the red powder with the dry tumble. They hammer tested ok, and I am really confident in loading them and shooting them.
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So today, the family and I were out shopping and I made a stop at a different Harbor Freight. They had the black and white powders in stock and on sale for $4 a lb. I picked up one of each. After hearing that black was really picky with both dry tumble, and piglet methods, I was hesitant to buy. I noticed they had a little air brush style paint gun on sale for 9.99, and it came with an adapter for an air compressor. I have a large air compressor in my garage. I picked up the little gun, and a regulator to get it to the 25-50psi the gun is rated for. I had no intention of buying the gun when I went there. I was going to try to piglet method the black, and the white, or combinations of the 4 colors.

So tonight I ventured on a new journey, with no prior reading or advice on how to do it. I assemble the air gun, and made a plan. I mixed the powder with acetone at a ratio of 3:1 in a glass pickle jar with a .45 in the base as a stir. Hindsight is 20/20 and I do not recommend this as it actually broke and ruined an old pair of sweat pants I was wearing. Really no loss, and chalk it up to experience. But I did get a good amount mixed, HF black. And I sprayed 10 bullets as a small test batch the solution. I would say I used about 2x the amount of powder with this method than dry tumbling, but the results were shocking to me. The best looking bullets I have made yet. So figuring its too good to be true I did a hammer test. Passed with flying colors. So I guess being too hesitant to buy the ES gun, which they didn't have in stock today anyways, I stumbled on something that appears to work.

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Though there are some draw backs to this method, and I may have to rethink the spray gun, or the containers I use to mix, or the chemical I use to dilute the powder to liquid. The cheap little gun is made mostly of plastic. Acetone is hard on plastic as the paint reservoirs that come with the gun(5 of them) get soft after 1 use. The entire device is made of plastic. The powder is hard to mix with acetone, hence why I was using a bullet to stir it, much like paint can. I ran into a issue I am sure ES guys found at first is you have to stagger them a bit to get full coverage. My next test was to try to do 50 at a time, and they were positioned too close and I did not get full coverage. It does have one thing going for it, the whole air/gun mechanism does not come in contact with the solution, only the reservoir, so I wont ruin the actual gun. If that even matters, as it was only 10 bucks.
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Good job wait till you get the es gun you'll love it just stand spray bake perfect every time

Good job for the first time out. Tumbling works and tumbling shoots great. It's all you really need.

I can't lie about the ES gun though, as mentioned above... it's perfect every time and you'll really love it.:-D
Remember the 20%-off coupon when you get ready to buy.

That's a great result you have there Nick. As Beagle says though, ES is consistent and repeatable, time after time.

How much dust does the ES gun make? I was really impressed with the lack of mess and easy cleanup from the air brush. I may try again tonight with a different solvent that is easier on plastic than acetone.

I spray mine outside, on a plywood tabletop. (because I don't have a garage and I do all of my casting and spraying/baking out there). But I would think that if you worked on a 3'x3' piece of poly, you could very easily cover anything you wanted to keep clean. It doesn't just fog the area, it's a fairly small airstream, low pressure, and I don't believe you would mess up a shop or a garage, but I wouldn't try it in the kitchen. :wink:

https://www.powderbuythepound.com/LI...OWDER_-1_PINT/
I was searching/researching PC tools, supplies and came across this; liquid powder coating. It is used with an airbrush and I think I'm gonna try this...

I have at last 5 air brushes, from that cheeeeep little thing HF sells to 3 pro version double action all metal ones I use for antique detailing and refinishing. Liquid app of the powder may work, but the mess it makes and the cleanup of the air brush far out weights the ~$50 cost of the ES gun! I just hate cleaning paint spray equipment and every time there is always that little bit left in there that makes the brush not work the next time you use it.

Glad you went down that road and posted the results. The ES gun is still the go-to method for perfect boolits. I do use the DT method certain times (like at night!) when the lighting outside is not good.

The dust from the ES gun is minimal.....IF.....IF you are doing it right and have the gun and air adjusted right. It just takes time and experience to get the optimum performance. After spraying 400 boolits, I estimate I wasted about 1/3 tablespoon of powder in lost dust. Totally acceptable. I do not concern myself with small costs like that. I ES spray outside.

Thanks for the info! And keep up the good work.

banger

Not much of a mess easy to blow off your work area

Here's some I put in a Ricotta Cheese plastic tub and swirled around a bit. First was just White PC, then I tossed them back in the Ricotta tub and added a half tsp of Red PC. After the trip in the oven here's how they turned out. Not bad if I say so myself.
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Sparky

They look like skittles with sugar stuck to them!!

Those do look pretty neat, Sparky! I "piglet'ed" some in a dark blue and the 1st coat didn't take that well, so I tumbled em in HF red next and they got a great coat, but did look all "wild"! :-D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nikolaus

They look like skittles with sugar stuck to them!!

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If you try the Piglet method again, use lacquer thinner rather than acetone. It both works better and leaves you WITHOUT the splitting headache acetone seems to require you end up with.

I've decided to get the HF ES gun. Too much hassle with airbrush.

good choice. Don't think air brush could adapted to pc (but I've been wrong before :-)