Brett, have you recieved your paint yet? There's a guy in the CRT forum that needs your help with a 1292.
For those of you that have the paint and are using it now, you should use a thinning method of some sort with the product you have recieved. What you have is a incredibly complex base paint material that has not been truly executed for rolling or spraying. The paint that was sent out is more of a 'raw stock' than anything else. Properly diluted and thinned, it becomes a coating material that is up there with the BEST AVAILABLE as a screen surface material. You have in your posession, what is probably the most expensive, complex, and highest quality paint that has ever been made, outside of aerospace programs, or such. Possibly some of them have been outclassed there as well, but it is probably an apples to oranges situation in such a comparison.
Thin it with clean, distilled water, or, at the least filtered water bought in a grocery store or the like. Not tap water please. Use FLOTROL as a thinner if you wish, but it may cause problems. I used some on a friend's mix (gn2 on the forum) and the results MIGHT be OK, but the paint has yet to dry nd clarify. This is NOT your average household paint, and does not act as such. When you use the floetrol and water, be very, very careul on how much you use. put some in, and then stir for five minutes. IE, about 4 OZ of floetrol (for the full litre of paint), and then stir for five minutes.... SLOWLY... DO NOT BUBBLE THE MIXTUE BY USING TOO HIGH A MIXING SPEED. Due to the nature of the behaviour of the paint, it will not easiy release any buildup of bubbles. Make sure you get all of the corners of the container when you mix it up, leaving no spots unmixed. You will probably have to move it into a slightly larger container to do the job. Consider the price of the paint and what it does.. afford it the respect that it deserves. Handle it like the $135 bucks that it is. There is enough there to get it to cover about 30 square feet approximately. You cn stretch it further by using a high grade undercoat.
The reason you have to be careful with the addition of the thinners, is that the 'break point' where the paint begins to thin will happen very, very quickly, like cookie dough, or such. It will appear thick and un rollable, and then, after being stirred with an additional 1/2 oz of water, it will suddenly 'break' and be thin. BE VERY CAREFUL, as you don't have any extra to thicken it up with. You can do a 'half batch' to try a first layer, or if yu are confident, use it all, the first time around. It may be best for you to consider two different layers. You may have to wait at least 48 hours before putting on the second coat, as the one underdeath (the first screengoo layer) is of such a complex nature, that it may not be dry enough for re-painting as quickly as other paints. Remember, the paint takes 2.5 WEEKS, MINIMUM, to reach any sort of final level of clarity, where the optical characteristics are finalized and stop changing. A month is average. Speeding up the drying process beyond something like a dry enviroment, and a slightly higher ambient temp is not reccomended, as heat curing this stuff has yet to be tried.
The paint is not perfectly opaque, so, the surface beneath it should be a decent, clean, level white in the first place. Go out and buy a pint of flat white latex and lay that down first, at the very least. In this way, your color balance should not shift too much. We will be selling the perfect matte white for a primer surface for this stuff as well, it will be priced at $25 US per litre. It's the closest you'll ever get to a perfect matte white outside of a labratory.
Depending on your painting tecnique, and original surface you work with, you should experience a gain in the 1.4 to 1.6 area. There are alot of factors involved that control this outcome.
roll slowly, from the top to the bottom of your screen, and with plenty of solid support for the back of the screen so the paint roller goes flat on the surface. I have excellent results with a thin yellow foam stain roller (1/2 inch thick foam,or 5/8"), as the paint does not impregnate such to a high level, and thus the losses (in the roller) are lower. You want light,even pressure, with no stopping or twisting of the roller in the stroke, which should not leave the surface of the screen, and follow through the full height of the screen from top to bottom, or bottom to top, depending on the direction you are moving. No twisting of the stroke. All these things will show. Use a roller with a full broom sized handle. You can use pressure when spreading it around,like house paint, but the final straightenihg must e handled as best as possible.
Consider a minimum of two sources of light to work with, with a solid 60-100 watts for each. You have to be able to see the 'lay' of the surface PERFECTLY, ie be able to see it clearly. There will be a problem in attempting to see this, as it will be akin to searching for white sheep at night, in a blizzard. make sure about the lighting, as this will be what gives you confidence about the quality of the lay of the painting you have done. Do it before you begin, as the drying times might give you the fits and screw you over, as you seach for a light source instead of getting the painting done right.
These problems will not be there when the self leveling rollable mixture is complete. It will go down as easy as house paint. Still, more care (than when laying down house paint) will emphatically have to be taken for the best results.
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goosystems.com
Ken Hotte
[email protected]
[This message has been edited by KBK (edited 03-21-2001).]
