August 29, 2020

Fluidized Power Paint Bed

This is a simple fluid bed for powder coat painting jig heads.  There are How To’s all over the internet on how to make thse this is just as simple and as cheap as I could do one.

It only required a few parts… basically a few PCV fittings/Pipe and a Bolt.

For an air supply most people use a fish tank air pump but I just plan on using my air compressor with the hose and fitting from my airbrush.

The fitting to my airbrush fits a 3/8-24″ bolt so I will turn this bolt into the air input fitting.

I started by drilling a 3/8″ hole in the piece of 2″x 2 1/2″ PVC pipe and forcing the bolt into the hole to tap it.  Once that was done I removed it and cut the head off the bold and drilled a hole through it. (not shown)

Then it was just a matter of wrapping the bolt in a piece of aluminum can (to protect the threads) and screwing it back into the PVC pipe.

Here you can see the bolt with the hole drilled through it.

Next I just super glued a 2″ test cap to the bottom of the pipe to seal it off.

After that I cut a piece of coffee filler and sandwiched it in between the pipe and other PVC fitting.

Once the coffee filter is trimmed off it acts as a porous floor so the air can pass through it but not the powder.

For the powder paint I am just using cheap harbor Freight stuff.

I made two different baths for the two colors I bought.

When not is use the cap can be screwed on to keep the powder in the cup.

When ready to use the compressor is connected and the air adjusted to get the powder fluid.  I might combine this with my vibration table in the future to really get the powder flowing but for now it seems to work pretty well.

Then its just a matter of heating up the jig heads with a heat gun for a few seconds.

Dip them in the bath and knock off the excess.

Not perfect but not bad for a first try.

You have to make sure to clean out the eyes if need be.

This was just a quick rack I made from a piece of wire.

The final step is to bake them in a toaster over at 350° for about 25 minutes.

Some of the finished Jigs after baking.

The white powder coating makes a good base coat for painting the jigs too. These were painted with motorcycle touch up paint so they should still have a durable top coat…. but time will tell.

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