1st PCing attempt….

[Caleb321]

1st attempt at powder coating some of my home cast slugs. Made a couple rookie mistakes(some are a bit splotchy/others I didn’t clean powder from the hollow point), that I learned from, but all in all ended up with some shootable sized slugs to feed the Taurus Bulldog when she arrives.
Wanted to use Easton powders, but they won’t deliver to P.O. Boxes. However, they have no problem sending a $15 bag to my door through UPS for $125.
So, after a bit of research, I made an order on eBay through The Powder Coat Store purchasing 1lb of RAL 5005 Signal Blue to experiment with and cut my teeth on.

Slugs were first sized to .357, then cleaned in acetone, recleaned in hot soapy water, towel/air dried, shaken to powder, baked standing on end at the required temp and time, air cooled for 2hrs, then ran back through the .357 sizer. To my surprise, rather than peeling away the coating, for the most part the pure soft lead actually compressed under the sizing pressure. Leaving a thin film of coating to hopefully help alleviate any potential leading problems.

 

[Greg_E]

If any peel when you size them after coating, something is wrong. You should be able to smash them with a hammer and not get peeling.

Also, no matter how clean, some powders are just blotchy. Get a lead thermometer and drill a hole in the side of your oven so you can monitor the temperature. And do not cook food in the oven after using powder coat, you probably know this, but worth repeating for others. Do not use the oven in your kitchen for this stuff

Did you try buying Eastwood from Amazon? That's where I've been getting them, a few dollars more, but the shipping from Eastwood direct often more than wipes out the savings.

 

[Caleb321]

Yes, Amazon was actually my first choice prior to heading to the Easton site itself. Easton powders have been unavailable. They normally carry them at the local reloading store as well—however, it was the same story there. So I opted to roll the dice in order to get my feet wet.

The oven that I’m using is a quality 2nd hand toaster oven that I picked up last weekend on Marketplace. And, I agree that your advice is worth reiterating. Sound indeed. I recently purchased the digital lead thermometer as well, and like the idea of drilling the hole and incorporating it into the oven. I did, on the other hand, pick up an oven thermometer and used it in this first bake to corroborate the set temp.

 

[Greg_E]

I think some rock wool inside the oven case will help too, one of the mods I still need to do to mine.



A PID controller is even nicer, eventually I may add one to my oven, but need to build one for my lead pot first. The control routines are very different between lead pot and oven because the oven has a very long cycle.