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I am thinking about buying a powder coat system from Eastwood. I currently use a vibratory tumbler with air soft bb's. I get fair results with the tumble method but still get bare spots when taking the bullets from the tumbler to the baking sheet. I am at a point in life where I do have time and some disposable income to play with the idea. I just wanted to hear from those who have used both methods and what their opinions are.
I bought a Harbor Freight gun that I've never taken out of the box in two years.
(Finally figured out the right AirSoft BB/Tupperware/Eastwood/Shake system) ;)
No brainer after that.
That said, I use THESE to pick the PC-covered bullets out of the BBs.... no bare spots at all....
And that way I also keep the bullet base PC'd as well
Sasquatch I did the shake and bake till just recently. Like you I got coverage but some spots with no color. I have gone to using my HF wet tumbler to coat my bullets now. I take a plastic sandwich baggie put my bullets / just a few BB's / maybe a 1/4 ts of powder, into the tumbler drum. And let it tumble for only a couple of minutes. And the bullets come out better coated than the shake and bake method.
I put 3-3.5 lbs of bullets in my midway 1292 tumbler and a bunch of PC. No BB's. I found that anything less than 20 minutes run time left some bare spots. I use a mesh tray to separate the the bullets from the loose powder. I use my gloved hands to place the PC bullets on the silicone lined bake sheets. After handling the PC coating isn't overly thick and the baked product looks like a glass coating. When the PC flows while curing in the oven, any small imperfections are covered. Maybe BB's in the mix would cut down on the coating time but like you I have plenty of time and maybe not as much dexterity to deal with the BB's.
I did the tumble lube for a while really thought I could do better
so I bought a pc gun and although a different method the results were night and day different
the boolits turned out so much better and coverage is total and what ever color you use
is full and complete no more splotchy, freckled looking boolits
try it once and you will never go back
I started with the HF gun yrs ago before S&B was talked about, HF powder also. All kinds of contraptions for coating - box, hanging, rotary, etc. Spray needs some sort of containment or you get powder floating onto everywhere. If you do base down, then turn them over to do the base? Too much work for me. Even tried some elec. wet coating. Haven't used it for couple yrs now when I got Smokes red powder -still have the red and (not used much) gloss black. S&B with the airsoft just works but takes you a while to figure out how YOU get it to work. I use a large tupperware type round container and mostly swirl it for long time in low humidity conditions. Open lid and if not coated to my liking, swirl some more. The size of my bowl likes about 100 max 150gr bullets and maybe half teaspoon powder. Practice, bake a few to see how they turn out and practice some more till they are what you want. Bad cooked ones back into the pot. Practice with no GC to save cost.
I have been using the Shake and Bake since the period when it 1st started being discussed on this site. Recently I have been thinking of a PC gun because of another thread on this site "Hybrid PC Coating" where the discussion was only Powder Coating the bases and driving bands for Nose riders in order to avoid sizing the noses.
I have played with that "Hybrid PC Coating" on several Nose riders using the Shake and Bake method. Then sizing the nose with a custom Lee .301 die. Being inquisitive; I have also been trying to do some "Hybrid PC Coating" of the driving bands by holding the nose of the boolit with forceps and swirling the base/bands in a #5 plastic tub. I have found inconsistent coverage ranging from incomplete band coverage to exceptionally heavy coating.
My thoughts currently are that it might be interesting to have a tray with .302/.303/.304/ or .305 holes drilled, boolits inserted nose down to where the driving bands or the broader part on nose taper keeps the boolit from falling through; then a PC Gun used to coat the boolit bands/bases. Looked at the Harbor Freight PC guns which are now at $80.00 before any discounts; and not sure I want to spend that money on an experiment. I know I am not satisfied with the Hybrid PC technique, and wondering what accuracy impacts from Nose sizing PC'd boolits. I know the baseline on sizing in a Lyman Lubrisizer and using Carnuba Red lube. Was thinking of building a table comparing accuracy with these different lube techniques - but I am going to wait and see given Reloading Component shortages and the HF PC Gun being "Full Price" at the moment.
My PC setup. Cook on the hot plate with the thermoplastic lid, set temp to high. Same H.P. I preheat the mould. Results in the tub. Works for me. PID controlled oven and PC gun are gathering dust on the shelf.
Attachment 296800
I'm still working on the "hybrid" process. A PC gun might be a better way to go. Anything that will speed up the powder coating process will be an improvement over coating the driving bands one boolit at a time. I've got a batch of "hybrid's" in the toaster oven as I'm writing this. I've had some pretty good results with this type of boolit: it's shrunk the groups to half the size of shake-n-bake PC boolits in my loads. Now the issue is finding a faster and easier way to coat the driving bands. After I do some more load development with the batches of boolits that I have on hand I'll try some different methods of applying the powder to see if I can speed up the process. I have found that there's no difference in accuracy between boolits that are tumble lubed in alox, 45-45-10, or liquid paste wax. The liquid paste wax never dries on it's own, (I have a boolit that was swirl lubed with Lundmark liquid paste wax over a year ago that's still wet to the touch), so I have to bake the paste wax boolits at 250 degrees for about 15 to 20 minutes to dry them. Even though that's some extra time and work the baked on wax boolits are completely dry to the touch and don't attract lint or dust. I've decided to go with the paste wax because it gets over 100 degrees here in the summer and that, along with a hot barrel, causes the alox based lubes to melt and get on the case & in the chamber. Everything's still a work in progress.
another thing about a gun you can use any color you want
and know it will work
I bought a gun. Works on other home projects like brake calipers
Couple of tricks I use for shake / bake method:
- warm the bullets - just a few minutes while the oven heats up … really helps coverage. Use an old cake pan for this.
- I use a little extra PC and shake for 3 or 4 min - sift them and I use neoprene gloved hands to pick them up after pinching and covering my fingers in powder. Any bullet with bare spots will get ‘rolled’ between fingers as I’m picking it up. Re-pinch more powder when needed
- I’ve tried silicon mats, parchment paper, etc. - best so far has been nonstick alum foil.
- use better powders as a base and mix with no so good powders. (Ford Lite / dark blue from East is best … mix with not so good powders for nice color mixes) - Architectural bronze, copper vein, and some others are not great by themselves but mix well with the good base powders.
- 400 degrees for 20 min for cooking.
I keep all leftover powder sitting in shaker with the bb’s - just add a little extra powder for next job.
These are the kind of responses I was looking for. The people who have tried both. I have tried wet coating using acetone and I have tried preheating the bullets (that was a total disaster). I am looking to find out those who have used both "Shake and Bake" and the gun and have either had success or believe they had total failure.
The only other question I would have about the "Shake and Bake" method is, has anyone tried hanging wool on the outside of their tumbler to increase the static charge?
Quote:
Originally Posted by white eagle
Quote:
Originally Posted by popper
Attachment 296837I made a pair of these from a used set of long nose needlenose pliers bought from a habitat store. Cheaper than a pc gun. They work great and don’t disturb my powder coating. When I pc I shake and bake.
Been there, done that, went back to 'Shake 'n Bake'. Started doing PC 5 or 6 years ago and liked the results so I bought an HF gun and built an enclosure to be hooked into my workshop exhaust system. And, used it exactly twice as I quickly realized that I don't do sufficiently large quantities of boolits (usually 300-500 at a time) to justify the time required for set-up and clean-up with a static gun...even with my working enclosure hooked directly into the exhaust fan ductwork, I still ended up with a fine coating of powder on everything in the shop. For me, any time saved in application of the powder was more than offset by the time required for set-up/clean-up and the finished product(s) didn't appear any better than I was getting with S & B. Anybody want to buy an HF static gun?
Bill
hanging wool Yup. Helped in summer when humidity is high. Trick with the bowl (#2) is it's static insulation capability (dielectric constant of the material). I used baking gloves and it cut swirl time in half. Even tried the stryo micro balls in with the powder. Don't see a difference.
I did an experiment when using the gun. Coated just the bands and base, completely coated, base not coated (30/30 PB and GC with appropriate loads) -- no real difference. I set bullets in 9mm and 40 cal cases, hung on a wire, drilled holes for the nose in steel plate, even used HiTek with the gun and a powder dust 'bath'. Basically everything I could do for a good fast (semi) production method. I do shake & bake now.
Thanks for the responses. It seems for the amount of bullets I am coating I'll save the $175.00 and put it towards something else.
This was the thread I was searching for. I dabbled with the HF powder coat gun but it only worked for a couple of times. Shake & Bake works fine for pistol boolits but wonder if sprayed rifle boolits would improve accuracy. Doesn't look like it's worth the trouble and hassle to go back to spraying again. I know Popper has done a lot experiments and offered suggestions, so if he says "been there, done that," it's good enough for me. S&B it is!
The Harbor Freight gun sucks eggs. You have to constantly shake the gun up and down to get the powder to flow and even then its hit and miss . The containers their powder comes in will NOT fit the gun. Threads are different (close but different enough) and WILL fall off the gun
the dual voltage Eastwood gun is hands down better. but double the price
I have both the HF gun sits in the corner and gathers dust. waiting for someone to give me an offer
Also, 1 lb plastic powder containers will fit the gunQuote:
Originally Posted by Smoke4320