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Question On Making Your Own Fluid Beds

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This past weekend I made my own fluid beds with 3" PVC, Silicone and Coffee Filters for my bottom. Everything seems good except it seems my powder is leaking out the bottom. When I finish a Paint job and take that Container out, there is always Powder in the bottom of my Base.

 

Anyone else have or had this problem when they made thier own Fluid Beds?

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I, personally, had ZERO luck using coffee filters. That being said, I know a lot if guys on here swear by them. What I would assume you're dealing with is just powder making it's way through the filter. I'm not sure on the exact filter measurement for coffee filters, but I can tell you your average powder paint granule is around 3 microns. If you think about it, you can see through a filter with very little effort. That tells me they are very porous and inconsistent across the entire surface. Therefore, certain parts of the filter successfully hold the powder within the cup and other parts do not due to less or thinner material in that particular area. I personally use nothing but paper bags as filters. Even with the bags I deal with inconsistencies within the paper. I have even determined certain bags work better for certain paints and colors. Some I can use regular paper grocery bags and others I have to use your thinner cheaper lunch sacks and still others I have had to use the medium sized paper bags to get my desired effect. It all depends on your paint and color. Certain colors, white for example, will make you pull your hair out trying to get them to fluidized an others will do it, seemingly, just by looking at them. Experiment, experiment, experiment and when you think you're done and have it figured out, experiment some more. With all the different powders out there I can tell you without a doubt there is no right answer except the one that works for you and the products you use. Hope this helps. Good luck.

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Or try a different filter material. I can tell you the paper bags do not release powder into my bottom chamber. Where inconsistencies come into play for me is how well the paint fluidizes. Some paints are heavier than others, thus requiring filtering tweaks. As I said, white will be a problem. I haven't seen anybody on here who has come up with an iron clad solution for fluidizing white powder. Every other color I have dealt with, besides white, I have had success with paper bags AFTER much experimentation. Virtually every person on here has their own way because of the difference in products, it's just your job to take the ideas many of the guys on here will provide you and make them work for your situation. I have success with paper bags. Others swear by and use nothing but coffee filters. Still others yet buy nothing but fluidizing cups from TJ's. it all comes down to what works best for you and the products you're using. I promise, with experimentation and a willingness to do so, you'll find a solution whatever it may be to this problem but for someone to try and tell you "doing THIS will work" it doesn't happen. Trust me, I've lived and died by some of the advice on here from many different guys on many different subjects (some from lurking and some from posts) and not everything I've been told has worked for me but through experimenting and research I've been able to get a pretty good thing going. There are some key guys on here that will give you the best ideas (cadman, smalljaw, atjigs just to name a few) but even their ideas are all based off their personal experience with the products they use. The only right answer is what works for you.

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Pay attention to what haxx is saying, every medium has it's disadvanatges but overall, brown kraft paper is best depending on your air source (psi output).  Most folks use the Elite 8 or 900 series air pumps and by doing so you may be limiting yourself as to what level of volumn you can raise, albeit too much is not good either.  What are you making in the 4" cups?  If you're doing jigs I've found it a whole lot easier just to set up a three (or more) station bed set based on 2" cups.  I use several but the primary one's are setup with black, brown and green pumpkin, I also have an additional three pot set which has basic flake color mixes black/blue-g, brown/org-g, etc. that way you just leave the powder sealed when finished.  Use 2" test caps to seal up your unused powder until you're ready to use it the next time.  Do a search and you'll see one of my triple beds.

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The only thing I could add as far as any help, is trial and error. Like haxx said everyone here finds the ultimate solution on what works for them. I do not use any pro-tec powder, mine is all industrial powder. So my findings might be different than yours. I currently found that I like the Tyvek envelopes you can pick up at the Post Office. My white powder works extremely well with that. But this may not work in your case. Humidity also plays a major role in powder paint and a fluid bed. If your powder is like corn starch and packs well than, you are going to have fluid bed problems. Also I do recommend that you not leave your powder in the fluid bed cups, as this invites moisture from the air. However like gonfishn stated, that he does that and has no problems. So that just goes to show you different guys different locations lead to different problems or solutions. Finally I glue all my media to the bottom of my cups, to me this keeps a nice seal from the powder and the base unit.

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I hold any paper media up to a strong light and look through it to see if there are thin spots or pin holes which could cause leaks or volcanos.  Coffee filters, and even vacuum cleaner bags have a surprising number of small holes them.  I haven't tested this to see if this is helpful or makes no difference, but it seems logical.

 

Dan

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This past weekend I made my own fluid beds with 3" PVC, Silicone and Coffee Filters for my bottom. Everything seems good except it seems my powder is leaking out the bottom. When I finish a Paint job and take that Container out, there is always Powder in the bottom of my Base.

 

Anyone else have or had this problem when they made thier own Fluid Beds?

 

 

I finished my FLUID BED this weekend and I encountered the same problem with coffee filters. I doubled up and noticed a little difference but still had some leakage.  I went to 3 and didn't have any leakage ands still had good lift and fluid action.  I also tried a couple other media but didn't get the "lift" that I got with the coffee filters.  I also tried a vacuum bag and it worked well with only a few specs leaking thru the bottom after about 10 minutes. I am gonna try the vacuum bag media for a few turns and see how that goes.  I can see what guys mean by TRIAL AND ERROR.  I made several different cups for seperate colors but I intend on using the same base that the cups will screw in to.  If i have enough leakage then I can't see the benefit of having to fluid bed to save paint. I just wasn't expecting the leakage issue.      

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