Thread: Powder Paint (still) too thick...

Originally Posted by Micropterus salmoides

Put a thermometer in your toaster oven. I like my paint thick and almost always double coat them


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I have a thermometer in the oven. I run it at 350° for 15 minutes.

But I am curious how you double coat them. Heat - dip - heat again - dip again???

I have my gun on high and never have my oven this hot to bake my jigs.

Originally Posted by DrNip

I have my gun on high and never have my oven this hot to bake my jigs.

How hot do you run the oven?

I don't know about Nip but I set mine at 325 for 30 minutes. I run my gun on high, jig about 3-4 inches from end. 1/16 count of 5 and 1/8 to a count of 7. I do it in my garage so it sometimes depends on ambient temp I'm starting out at. Maybe a little longer or a little shorter. Most of the time cones or points are caused by cooking temps being to hot causing paint to go past melting point and starting to run.
You say you are cooking at 350 but have you used a oven thermometer to check actual temperature. Most toaster ovens are no where close to their thermostats setting.

The next batch I do I will increase the heat gun time just a bit and lower the temperature in the oven.

I bake mine at 220 for 20 minutes. I do it this low because I'm usually baking a fiberguard head or head with eyes and I don't want to melt them. Seems to do the trick.

Clint,

The main reason you are getting paint nipples..... The heat to which you are curing your jigs and the time to which you are doing it!!!!

Contrary to popular belief, the optimum tempurature and time to cure powder paint varies by color. CS solutions has a chart out there that extually explains the bake times per color. I own and operate a jig business and this is my busy season for walleye jigs. I paint and bake between 3000 to 5000 jigs per week right now. Vary rarely do I get a paint nipple on the jigs.

First, I DON'T use a gun to heat my jigs. Takes to much time away from production. I use my oven. I set my oven at 400 degrees. This IS too hot but the reason I do this is because I am opening and closing the door every 5 to 10 seconds. The actual operating tempurature is 360 degrees.

The common colors that paint nipple are: Chartreuse, pearl, purple, black, and bright green. Reason is that they are all made with the same primary pigment. Another reason for caked or excessive paint is where you get the paint. My previous supplier was very innacurate when it came to paint. The above colors would sometimes come with the viscosity of flour when it should be more like powdered sugar. You do NOT see paint nipples with colors such as pink, blaze orange, green chartreuse (to name a few). That paint is more granular in viscosity and less prone to caking.

I have never utilized any sort of cutting or clear with my paint. Some guys (even jig companies) utilize verticle holders to eliminate paint nipples. I take it because they just don't have a process in place that eliminates the issues at hand.

Are you using a fluid bed? If not, you may want to mix your cups more between dipping of the paint.

Because I am not necessarily baking all of one color at a time, I have found that the best overall tempurature to cure jigs (of all colors) is 300 degrees for 15 minutes. IF you get a paint nipple at this tempurature and time frame it will be because you are in fact getting too much paint on the jig.

Try changing your baking tempurature and cure time. I'll bet it will solve most of your issues.

I spent the morning with IFish and watched how he PPs. My difficulties were partially equipment and mostly technique. A couple of cups with better filter material for my fluid beds is in order to get a better fluidization of my PP. My time over the heat gun was OK, but my time in the fluid bed is now much shorter.

And in the same vein - how deep are most fluid bed cups? When I built mine I made them about 1-1/2" deep. I tried to figure out how deep the ones from TJ Tackle & Simply Crappie are and from the pictures they appear to be about 4" tall. If they are that tall, do they take the whole jar of PP?