Reel Repair by Alan Tani

The air knob on the gun is a barrel valve .  I use a flow regulator and a short 4 foot 1/4 hose to the gun .  Shooting in the neighborhood of 10 -13 pounds .

Back ionization seems to be the problem , and a few people suggested to wash and reheat the part to shed the ionization .  Or just hot flock it .  Sometimes I think that I maybe stepping on the peddle too soon and creating a ioni field ,or too long after releasing the trigger .    I will be more mind full the next time I shoot .  The ground rod is sunk , so I will try that also next time and see if that helps .    I do use a I R temp gun to check heat , My oven runs hot by 70 degrees .

      I made a few mods to my blast cabinet today ,one being to fasten down the pick up tube to the bottom of the cabinet ,so it would not float to the top .    I also removed that little air filter in the cabinet that would clog every 3 minutes and you could not see what you are doing inside .    I have bubble bucket now to clean and catch the cloud .  What a game changer .
  This sucks so well that the gloves are fully open in the cabinet , that your hands slide right in .

 Ground rod helped a little , felt like I got more wrap around when shooting parts .
Also this pvc pipe fitting help for the tight places .

 My next thing I want to try is a Corona ring on the gun and see what that may do to help .

    Shot 3 more reels 330 Candy green metallic Candy blue metallic and a gloss red .

     I finally dawned on me that I can flip the toaster on it`s side for the body castings with on banging up the part   

Quote from: oldmanjoe on November 23, 2025, 09:56:42 PMGround rod helped a little , felt like I got more wrap around when shooting parts .
Also this pvc pipe fitting help for the tight places .

 My next thing I want to try is a Corona ring on the gun and see what that may do to help .

    Shot 3 more reels 330 Candy green metallic Candy blue metallic and a gloss red .

     I finally dawned on me that I can flip the toaster on it`s side for the body castings with on banging up the part   

Parts keep looking better and better!

Interesting that a dedicated ground helped a little.  Wraparound should be mostly a function of getting a nice light misty cloud or powder coming out of the gun.  If I am not blowing too much powder at too high of a pressure, I always get a good wrap.

Talking off the corona ring should be the last resort- it is trickier to get a good cloud without overspray.  Also that metal tip needs to be kept clean. 

IMHO, as long as you are getting anything more than a dusting of leftover in your spray booth, there is something that needs to be fixed.

As to putting the oven on its side- some folk do that, but there is an issue. On almost all toaster ovens, the thermostat is built into the temperature control dial, and is controlling the oven cavity temperature by responding to the temperature in the pocket behind the controls.  Something like if the temperature in the pocket is 150F then the oven is 350F (I'm making up the numbers, but you get the idea).  Putting the oven on the side changes this ratio, especially if there are vents on the side that are now facing down, or blocked by the table top.

Safety wise, I have no idea if it is a good idea or not, but it will probably cause the cavity temp to be off and drift more.

-J

I want to add a Corona ring to try .    I was shooting low pressure and had better coverage with less blow by .  Did notice these funny looking stars in the spray booth box on the walls .Static?

     Had one rotor casting with saltwater pitting that I wanted to fill with JB weld .  I could not squeeze any more out of the tubes .  SO I tried some  Harbor Freight knock off that I had laying to try . It doesn't specify any heat range on the package . After filling and 12 hours later ,I did sand it out ,and it was too easy sanding not as hard as J B . " Picture is before sanding "  So I tried it with powder coat and no it was not in the range of full cure of 24 hours  . It looks like it out gassed and rosed a little .    The spool is one that I spun and was just starting to get a little pity looking .

Sweet!

From what I was taught, most paste epoxy high temp fillers like JB Weld don't work too well for powder coating.  They don't hold the electric charge, often outgas, and can shrink from heating.  It is sort of like trying to powder-coat a part that is partly plastic.

I have read that you might get away with JB Weld to fill smaller pits id you give the filler a very long time to dry, but I haven't tried this. 

A compatible filler that is mentioned often is Alvin Lab-Metal.  I think it has some metal powder in it so it will take a charge.  It also has a lot of MEK and toluene in it, so it is pretty nasty stuff.  Plus it cost  around $50 for the smallest can.  I never tried this stuff either. I just didn't try to coat anything that I couldn't blast down to a uniform surface.

-J

Joe,I have to ask how many DQ reels do you have they are abundant!

 Somewhere around 125 -145 .

Quote from: oldmanjoe on November 24, 2025, 02:26:29 PMSomewhere around 125 -145 .

Careful Joe, El Dorado is listening.

Quote from: JasonGotaProblem on November 24, 2025, 03:30:18 PM

Quote from: oldmanjoe on November 24, 2025, 02:26:29 PMSomewhere around 125 -145 .

Careful Joe, El Dorado is listening.

Once He learns how to shop ,the question will be were did all come from ?

 Today was spool day .  Had 3 raw spools that started pitting ,so sand blasted them and some 270 spools and miscellaneous parts .

Quote from: jurelometer on November 24, 2025, 06:02:39 AMA compatible filler that is mentioned often is Alvin Lab-Metal.  I think it has some metal powder in it so it will take a charge.

"Back in the Day" one of my mentors had a young me filing down nails and then mixing the powder into JB Weld to in his words "Make a stronger, workable repair."  Did it?  Beat's me - Scientific Method did not exist in my mind back then.  But I can see how it might be useful in this instance - in my case it was a cracked partially broken bolt boss on an engine intake manifold (worked, BTW and for all I know lasted the life of the vehicle) but with reels being relatively low stress you are not really worried about strength, but it may introduce enough metal to allow for powdercoating to become more effective on such a repair.  There was an automotive body filler marketed years ago as an alternative to Bondo that was also a two-part mix but also incorporated a metal powder to add to the mix, but I never used it (too pricey for the junk I was working on) and don't know if it still exists here 45 years later.
This powder coating thread is fascinating and I love seeing all the true talent in the members.  It also has me realizing that this is probably NOT a rabbit hole I should go down, and just rely on folks waaaay smarter than me if I ever am in need. - john

   Yes it is a rabbit hole , and one I tried to avoid for years . It was to easy to pick up a rattle can and be done .   I was think about the iron filings  that were piled up under the brake lathes to mix in with epoxy to conduct powder coating .   Now I have all the time in the world to play with ideas ,what will work and what does not or plan B .   

Quote from: Brewcrafter on November 24, 2025, 10:15:16 PM

Quote from: jurelometer on November 24, 2025, 06:02:39 AMA compatible filler that is mentioned often is Alvin Lab-Metal.  I think it has some metal powder in it so it will take a charge.

"Back in the Day" one of my mentors had a young me filing down nails and then mixing the powder into JB Weld to in his words "Make a stronger, workable repair."  Did it?  Beat's me - Scientific Method did not exist in my mind back then.  But I can see how it might be useful in this instance - in my case it was a cracked partially broken bolt boss on an engine intake manifold (worked, BTW and for all I know lasted the life of the vehicle) but with reels being relatively low stress you are not really worried about strength, but it may introduce enough metal to allow for powdercoating to become more effective on such a repair.  There was an automotive body filler marketed years ago as an alternative to Bondo that was also a two-part mix but also incorporated a metal powder to add to the mix, but I never used it (too pricey for the junk I was working on) and don't know if it still exists here 45 years later.
This powder coating thread is fascinating and I love seeing all the true talent in the members.  It also has me realizing that this is probably NOT a rabbit hole I should go down, and just rely on folks waaaay smarter than me if I ever am in need. - john

Uhhh... he was not using the aspects of steel that make it strong. Embedding another material into plastic will change the properties, but you have to know what you are doing.  You can mix  elastomers in to make it more flexible, or add strands of stiff fibers to make it stiffer.  Both of these are very common.  But I don't see how grinding down nails is going to do anything useful structurally.  They sell plastics with metal powder imbedded, but this is for cosmetic  effect - the end product sorta looks like metal, and something like  iron powder filler will actually rust and make a patina. Used for decorative parts, because it is not very strong.

In our case, we have to worry about different coefficients of thermal expansion between the paste epoxy and the metal filings.  It probably has a greater chance of structurally failing (e.g., cracking) when you bake it at 400F.

Plus, none of this addresses outgassing and shrinking of the JB Weld from the oven.  But Lab-Metal and the solvent you need to keep it usable are a bit toxic to work with and expensive.  It will be interesting  to see if Joe comes up with a JB weld hack that works well enough for smaller amounts of pitting.

-J

I've always wondered how adding graphite powder to epoxy resin can increase tensile strength and rigidity.  Since there are no reinforcing fibers it seems like the graphite/epoxy mix can only be as strong as the epoxy holding the graphite particles together.  But, boat builders swear by it.