Hello To All Of You Accomplished Powder Coaters,
I decided a while back that I was going to start powder coating my cast projectiles. I gathered up all of the necessary equipment and bought a new toaster oven and traded it to my wife for her old oven and was ready to get started. My knowledge of powder coating is limited. Okay here are the results, I couldn't get any powder to stick to the bullets at all. I would like to know how much powder to put in the butter bowl for how many bullets and how many plastic BB'S. I swished and swished this way and that way and even put it all in a somewhat smaller container and set it down in my vibratory case cleaner, still no powder on the bullets. The bullets that I was trying to coat were .17 caliber pills and if you have every cast .17 cal bullets you will roll them and around in your fingers a lot looking for small defects before you accept or reject them. I thought they may have a lot of gooey finger prints on them so I got out some new bullets and washed them in lacquer clean and let them dry and then went through all of the processes again. NO BETTER LUCK.
The first mix of powder, bb's and bullets seemed to have too much static electricity. The bullets, powder and bb's would lump up into big lumps and wouldn't agitate. The later mixture that I tried lumped up but near as bad as the beginning attempt. I dug through all of the old posts on the forum this evening and found some interesting info: guess what. One contributor said that Harbor Freight flat black pain would not adhere unless you used some kind of static gun. Since I was just getting started and not wanting to spend any more money than necessary on paint, until I learned what I was doing, guess what I bought. That's right-Harbor Freight Flat Black.
Before I order new paint I would like to know what kind of paint works best and I would appreciate all of the helpful info that you experienced powder coaters can give me. Guess what I learned how to make Harbor Freight flat black stick but it goes on too thick. Take a bullet in your tweezers and dip it into lacquer thinner and give it a good shaking to sling all of the lacquer thinner off. Sift a little paint powder on a smooth flat surface and lay the bullet down and roll it through the powder. I used my finger and would mash the angled point down to make it go down to the paint. It puts a coating on immediately but it is a way too thick. Kind of resembles a minature wooly worm.
Thanks,
Mashburn
David a. Cogburn