Very convincing videos. Thanks! 8-)
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Very convincing videos. Thanks! 8-)
http://pac.iupac.org/publications/pa.../5811x1535.pdf Data indicates it very difficult to remove H2O from acetone, other than evaporation.
All you want or need to know about water & acetone. The acetone evaporates quickly but the water doesn't and it has to pass through the coating to evaporate. One could probably speed up the drying by vacuum drying to remove the water after the acetone is gone. No, I don't have a vacuum pump and bell jar. Anyway, the H2O in the coating and between the coating and lead turns to steam when heated and causes acne on the boolits; poor bond to lead. The thicker the first coat, the poorer the bond to the lead. Can't say for sure but I suspect the bonding between coats is easier to achieve than the bonding between coating and lead. It would also suggest that an acetone wash would need to really dry well before applying the coating. I didn't do that on my first trials and got bad results.
Lee loadmaster press:
Seating hi-tek 9mm
Subject: no shaving of coated lead bullets when seating in step'ed brass. lssue learned from examining dillon die.
Stations: 9mm
1) old model (never used) RCBS sizer/decapper die, given to me by RCBS. Old'est rat in the barn taught me sompin one day on the phone.
2) lee expander die w/my custom machined inner plug (step instead of bell).
3) lee powder hopper, expander nipple machined off. Drops powder only.
4) dillon seat die, ( no shaving) just seats
5) dillon crimp die
l also use all of the mods from: mikesreloadingbench.com
"I woke up one morning, and all of my stuff had been stolen and replaced by exact duplicates."
steven wright
I do not pre-wash my bullets. I just use thin coats for the first and second coats. Like gun oil stated.....it is a stain, not a paint.
Popper,
Thanks for input. Most accurate information.
Using Acetone for the coatings was because the resin system "liked to dissolve in it".
Also, dries very quickly which is a bonus.
Tests conducted some time ago, we deliberately added water 10% to coating/solvent mixture, and stored it for one year, to see what happens.
After a year, coating worked just fine, but we realised, that at first, a thin coat was best way to apply this wet coating, as both water and acetone dried quickly that way, and coating with this thin first coat was enough to work, despite having large amounts of moisture in mixture.
You are correct with your statement about bonding and moisture. The first coat that are not dried enough, will not bond well, and display those fine bubbles after heat cure.
I cannot see the need for washing projectiles with Acetone, as it is really not needed, unless there is some sort of contamination ocuring during casting.
You are also correct, that once first coat is bonded/heat cured well, all subsequent coatings should stick well to that first coat.
I am glad that you are getting good results with your process.
When all considered, it becomes a matter of "dont rush with things", and when you get good results, ensure that you take note of what you did, and then repeat it over and over.
HI-TEK
The videos of the smashing was at the end of the day. I had coated 2000 45, 1000 44 and 1000 38 pills yesterday. The oven was running non-stop all day. each tray baked had 1 wiped and 1 smashed. even though I knew that they were fine, I still wipe and smash. Quality control...
I work in a sawmill that produces hardwood timber floor boards. I run the QA for the drying and machining processes, so QA is my bag. I carry this over to my casting/coating and all is good.
Send me some more goo, Joe. I need a Jacaranda purple and a nipple pink.
I tried a version of the paver stones in the oven by placing crushed granite about 1 1/2" in my ovens on the bottom. The 2 convection ovens it worked very good in but in the toaster oven it caused hot spots on either side of the element where the stones were. Bad enough to melt the boolits above the rocks.
My digital convection oven has a dehydrate mode so on cold damp days I place the tray in the oven and run it on dehydrate for 5 minutes to ensure the coating is dry then proceed to baking. Seems to work very well with the dehydrate temps being from 120 degrees to 140 degrees, about the same as in the sun in the summer.r
I found the gold gives a more even coating of color than the Red Copper and is easier to size also. I am continuing to use the Red Copper on rifle boolits.
I have some badly zinc contaminated lead that I am going to cast some boolits with just to see how the hardness holds up after baking. They test about 30 to 34 BHN after cast and aged. With selected molds it casts well enough.
HiTek - learned the hard way about water adsorption. Years ago I glued (eastman 910) an optical reticle to the end of a motor shaft and ran it for 3 days before the $500 disk flew off & shattered. The physicist I was working for just said 'we learned something today didn't we'. He meant both of us. Just cause you got a doctorate doesn't mean you know everything.
When you talk about thin coats/stain do you do this by adding a higher percentage of acetone (5:1:10 for first coat and 5:1:7 for second)?
Or, by using the same percentages of materials as usual, but less quantity of them? (a thin coat might be 1/8 tsp per 100 whereas a thick coat would be 1/4 tsp per 100)
TES,
Have you verified the temp of your oven? I ask because its been a couple weeks since I baked a batch. Went to cure some today but I didn't check the temp setting on my oven. I did have a couple of thermometers in there as I bought a new one and was using the old to check the accuracy of the new. After about 8 minutes in I noticed that the bullets were waaaay darker than they should have been and that the temp was reading 425. I looked at the dial on the oven and saw that it had been moved from my previous settings....probably by one of the kids. Anyway...I immediately turned the oven off and let the bullets cool. Smash test showed some flaking, but when I rubbed just my finger across the bullet the coating all flaked away with ease...no scraping needed. That got me to thinking that maybe that the problem you were having....cooking at too high a temp.
Hi, I have started reading this thread and after the first 15 pages, I had enough for tonight.
I will try reading the whole thing later, but for now I have a few questions
1- why is this better than powdercoating? less mess? less equipment required?
1.5 - what is the best color? (physical properties). Is black as good as the others? what about gold? is it "jacketed like in color?)
2- is there a retailer in canada?
3- will bayou sell to canada?
4- do you keep the bullets the same size as with 45-45-10? lets say my 9 takes 358, do I still go 358 or reduce because I dont need 1 thou over anymore?
This doesnt look more complicated than doing 2 coats of 45-45-10....
Thanks
Prickett. 5-1-7 is what I call thin. The commercial blokes use 5-1-5. 7mls per 250 9mm bullets work fine for me.
Gateway. Not sure. Ask Joe. You got a spare Auto caster kicking around you want to sell?? Keep your ear to the ground for me?
Kryogen. Hitek is designed for coating bullets. powder coat is designed for garden furniture.
All the colours work. the metallics (gold, red/copper) seem to give better performance at higher velocities.
size the same as if you were lube-sizing.
Load data is the same as for uncoated/lubed bullets.
Ask HI-TEK about shipping to our Canadian cousins.
Because we get it first, Happy new year from down here to up there... have a great day and take care..
G'Day All
Hope to hear from Hi Tek in the new year as I want some of this coating BAD! I reckon it'll be awesome to use and it will hopefully help with my HP rifle boolits.
Juddy
Tried coating NOE 60 grn GC in .224 tonight and ran into something new for me. I tried pre crimping the check and just seating prior to coating. Did three coats of gold with extreme 2 catalyst. When I sized them on a lee push through the seated only checks didn't work at all. Extruded checks bad. On the pre crimped they sized nicely, but the coating does not stick to the aluminum gas check. Smashed several and got no cracking or pealing on the lead. Is it normal to crack and peal on the GC?
G'Day HI-TEK
Don't know what happened there but I sent it as a email this time. I can see all the pros for your coating but can't see a reason why someone wouldn't use it. I'm looking forward to having a go. I can also get a Canberra address for delivery.
Juddy
Well I finally coated and baked my first batch today. Everything was easy peasy. There was a little problem with the baking. If I would have put the whole oven together It would have gone much better. The crumb tray was supposed to be installed below the door from the outside. I figured that out during my second batch of cooking.
Both batches came out Ok. The first had a good color, The second was over done slightly and had a slightly copperish color. But both batches passed the smash/ wipe test.
We were at -15 when I was cooking in my unheated building. In the time that it took to open the door and put the trey in the oven and close it again the oven lost 30 deg. and it took 2.5 min. to get back to the 390 deg. cook temp. I suppose the large swing in temp must not be a large factor in a good cooking.
On my second batch I tried to over compensate for the heat loss by increasing the oven temp. by 30 deg until my separate thermometer read close to the desired 390. Then I decreased my set temp. on the oven to the desired 390. But in doing so I slightly over cooked my bullets.
After I tested my bullets I coated for the second cooking. Tomorrow I will bake them again.
I used the 5-1-7 % for my coating. For the first coat I used 7 ML and there was no excess left in the bottom of the swirling can. On the second coating 7 ML was a little heave and left some liquid on the bottom of the can.
I could not hear a difference in the sound as I tumbled the bullets. So I tumbled them till they looked well coated. Kevin
I've used HI-TEK before with good results. Last night I tumbled a batch of 9mms in HI-TEK gold and when I dumped them from their tumbling container, I noticed they looked and felt grainy. I let them dry overnight and they still were grainy. I baked and they still are grainy.
What is the cause of the graininess?