Quote:
Originally Posted by tlawler
It is a bit tedious, I’ll admit. It will probably grow old pretty quick, but since I put the effort into the construction, I may as well stick with it for a while. The only thing I’ve bought (other than the powder gun, powder, and oven) is the nails and flashing. I had everything else on hand. I did buy some black HF powder. It’s cheap and I’ll use it for other things.
Today I mixed some black and white together to see if I could get a “haze grey and underway” color and to try out my spray enclosure. Coverage was good and even. The vertical surfaces were well covered. It’s hard to tell in the pictures because of the lack of contrast between lead and grey color. I realized early on that poor conduction equals poor adhesion, so I used a dremel wire wheel to get a couple of areas on the exposed flashing clean and installed wire connectors with machine screws to the flashing. That way I could run the wires down and out of the enclosure and not have it interfere with the way the enclosure sits around the matrix. I ended up with a nice even “fuzzy” coating of powder which baked down into a good looking coating.
One thing I don’t really like about using the gun method is there is still quite a bit of waste. I probably lost at least twice as much powder as what adhered to the bullets. I’ll try a lower pressure setting next time. I had quite a bit of powder stuck to the inside of the plexiglass, but it washed right off.
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Yesterday and today I cast some bullets and tried shake and bake again, as well as spray gun PC to compare. Even though the shake and bake is clearly faster, I just don't like the results. The powder coat is uneven, and I can't seem to figure out a way to get smooth even coverage with that method. With spraying, it's automatic. The shake and bake when run through the sizer leaves flakes of powder coat all over. The sprayed ones hardly any. The ultimate test will be shooting the two batches to see if there is any difference other than cosmetic. If not, shake and bake is the way to go no matter what they look like.
Waste is not a big issue for me with spraying because I lay down a large paper target inside a box. When I'm done, fold it up sweep it back into the powder bag.
Today I tried something new and that is setting the bullets on tin foil to spray, eliminating the nail jig. It worked great. After the powder coat is applied, I transfer to a parchment paper covered tray for baking with a small surgical clamp. Powder stays put, no gaps, no clumps and I can do twice as many at a time. They really turned out nice. I can almost double the output compared to the nail jig method, and still come out with a great result.
Anyway, keep us posted on your PC journey.