Help! can't get one color to stick, others work fine

[Ozz]

Having trouble getting a color to stick. Now I've gone through the usual troubleshooting steps and everything is fine. I can even get other colors to stick. It's just this one black powder I have that won't stick. I actually tried 2 batches from one mfr and now have another from a 2nd mfr which also won't stick. At first I thought it was the mfr but it doesn't seem so now. On the other hand, I have 2 different batches of a chrome color from 2 different mfr's, and both stick just fine...even when I fail shooting black, clean the gun, and then shoot chrome. It's like black is a completely different substance the way this is working. It's really aggrevating.

I could understand if one batch didn't stick, or if NOTHING was sticking. But it's anything that's black.

Can anybody suggest any tricks I could try? I tried heating the parts up to 250* and spraying, no luck. I tried heating them to 150* and still no luck. Figured maybe some heat would help adhesion, but it makes no difference. With the chrome, both batches stick perfectly to cold parts or hot parts. With black, it won't stick to either no matter what I do.

I'm out of ideas and really would like to get this going. Thanks to anyone who can help

[magna750]

may i ask which manufacturers? some companies sell the same powder under different names. There are a lot of companies that dont manufacture powder but buy in bulk and just sell small quantities for a big profit. Its possibel you bought the same powder from two different places

[Ozz]

Eastwood and then Caswell. From what I understand Caswell sells Tiger Drylac and Eastwood sells their own...but at either rate, how crazy is this problem? I've got a friend who's a pro in the business and even he's baffled for me. It's driving me nuts since, of course, I took on a gloss black job that's got to be put on hold until I figure this out

edit: I'd also like to point out that I did indeed spend some serious time searching on this one. Not a single related subject to be found anywhere here or on Eastwood's forums. I even branched out to other PC help sites and nothing really touches on this. If such threads or pages are out there, the search terms aren't the same as what I'm using and I'm using everything obvious. Ugh!

[baz]

if you tried from 2 different mfr , then this should rule out the powder being the problem . is there anything you do different when you do black ?
can you give more detail on how you proceed , kv s , how far from the part ,
air pressure, and what type of gun , what about your ground?

what i don t understand is if you spray with the part at 250 degrees it is almost imposible that it does not stick because it should melt on contact with the hot part , unless you are spraying with really too much air pressure and the powder just blows by the part

[Ozz]

I'm using the Eastwood hobby gun, so whatever the KV is from that thing is what I'm using. Air pressure is down at 5psi. Oddly enough I've got a Nordson Surecoat here as well but the hopper setup is being another type of PITA. I've been using this to keep me going until I have time to really play w/the Nordson.

I brought the parts up to 250 but took a minute maybe to spray them. They likely cooled off a bit. I do nothing different in regards to my process with different powders.

What about my ground? If it's good for one powder, shouldn't it be good for another? For what it's worth I get the arc at the same distance I usually do w/this gun. It's not quite an inch, but it's the same as when the powder I'm using sticks well. It doesn't appear to me that the gun is acting any differently with a different powder in it.

For this dilemma I've tried spraying anywhere from ~16" away to 2" off the part. Both produce the same problem. I get some powder on the part thanks to gravity but since I'm doing springs that's really not the way I want to do this.

Now again, the real weird part is how selective it is. It really makes it seem like it's a powder problem. I'm not saying it is, just saying how crazy the situation is. I've sprayed a chrome batch tonight, put it all in the oven, cleaned the gun, and then attempted my black batch. Had trouble sticking the powder as described here, then decided to see how far this problem went. I immediately cleaned the gun and shot chrome onto the same part. It stuck perfectly. The only thing I did was grab the air hose, clean out the gun, then put the cup w/the chrome powder on the gun and plug the box back in. That was it. So right after that, I cleaned it again, put the black cup back on, and tried to make it work. I failed again. I've tried using the grounding clip on my hanger bar, on my actual hanger, and on the part itself. Neither is making any difference and I always get the arc to respond at the same distance it always does.

One last thing, this new batch of black I'm working with just arrived today so it's brand spankin' new. I've never had any trouble with new powder batches, but would shaking it up or anything help it? I can't imagine why it would work but at this point who knows.

[SCOTTRODS]

Eastwood and then Caswell. From what I understand Caswell sells Tiger Drylac and Eastwood sells their own...but at either rate, how crazy is this problem? I've got a friend who's a pro in the business and even he's baffled for me. It's driving me nuts since, of course, I took on a gloss black job that's got to be put on hold until I figure this out

edit: I'd also like to point out that I did indeed spend some serious time searching on this one. Not a single related subject to be found anywhere here or on Eastwood's forums. I even branched out to other PC help sites and nothing really touches on this. If such threads or pages are out there, the search terms aren't the same as what I'm using and I'm using everything obvious. Ugh!

My Tiger rep, told me Eastwood sells mostly Tiger dryalc powders.... that could explain the problem right there.....

[Ozz]

My Tiger rep, told me Eastwood sells mostly Tiger dryalc powders.... that could explain the problem right there.....

What could be so wrong w/the Tiger black then? I have Tiger chrome and it's just fine. What causes powder to be absolutely worthless? How likely is that, especially that I'd get 3 separate batches that are (apparently) bad? The stuff I just got from Caswell is the same type of dead weight powder.

[CarWiz]

Where are you located? What's the humidity? The metallics will dang near create their own static charge. The solids will die if it's humid. Maybe your air isn't dry either. On humid days down here, I gotta pretty near let the powder fall on the part like rain.

[Ozz]

Where are you located? What's the humidity? The metallics will dang near create their own static charge. The solids will die if it's humid. Maybe your air isn't dry either. On humid days down here, I gotta pretty near let the powder fall on the part like rain.

Hmm, maybe that's it. I'm in MI and it's not really humid here at all. It's pretty raw and cold as of late. Not sure about the powder when in transit though - who knows what happened to it.

I'm not noticing any wetness in the lines but that at least makes sense as to what's going on. I've got a dessicant dryer in line about 10 feet before the gun and one of those water separators they give ya w/the gun kit at the gun handle. Of course I have a filter/water separator earlier in line as well. Whenever I release the pressure at the gun's air outlet on the wall I don't get any mist, would such little possible water totally kill the powder?

Is there any way I can be absolute sure there's no water getting in there aside from what I already can see (that there's nothing released under pressure at the air outlet)? Anything else I could add to the air lines? I've got a coalescing filter yet to be hooked up but I don't think my problem would be solved by that.

[baz]

after cleaning the gun when you put the deflector back on ,how much of the electrode is sticking out in front of the deflector . if the electrode does not stick out enough or if for some reason the black powder sticks to it and covers the electrode end then the powder coming out of the gun will not be charged enough to stick to the part