Plastikote Paints Issue

Frequent question about boxes and accessories: painting, etching, clearcoating, lettering, glueing, and so on.
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CGP
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Post by CGP »

Has anyone got any experience using this brand I have painted my first properly finished enclosure with their 'Gloss Super' Range and am finding the paint is not really hardening up at all. I used a primer, did several light coats as directed on the can and used a clear acrylic coat to finish (again plastikote). The box has also spent several hours under a lamp while drying. It has been a couple of days now and although the finish looks nice any remotely hard contact with the surface i.e. a fingernail pressed into it will leave an indentation, thinking that when it is actually getting trodden on this isn't going to stand up to much punishment. Is this the paint or have I done something wrong/need to wait longer?? :?
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Post by JudgeMingus »

If you did the coats in fairly quick succession, you will find that the base coats will still be rubbery/soft after the top coats have dried.
Thus any hard pressure/impact will cause the base coats to 'give' underneath the top coats.

You may simply need to give it more time for the base coats to expel their volatile/water components (which will be slow as they have to escape through the top coats).

If it isn't hard after a week I would think that there is either a problem with the paint or the enclosure.

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Post by skylark44 »

Cool website...I like your mods (I've done most of the same ones :wink: ). :mrgreen:

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Post by CGP »

I re-coated after an hour or so 3-4 times and the paint was totally touch dry at this point, then left it a day before doing the clear coat is that too quick? Its a bit annoying as I am very impatient with wanting to assemble the pedal once the paint is on! The enclosure itself is a hammond aluminium case that was sanded before painting so shouldn't be a problem there? I guess I will leave it til the weekend and see how it is then...will report back

p.s Thanks skylark, its a work in progress but great to get some positive feedback
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Post by CGP »

Ok so with the 3 enclosures I have done so far using this brand of paint (plastikote super gloss and a metallic paint) I have found all 3 to be a bit fragile and not achieving a hard enough finish for this type of project. The paint itself chips very easily and will mark with any significant pressure (after 2 weeks dry time). Also the clear coat seems to flake off quite easily. The finish looks OK but not confident it will be durable enough to last a decent amount of time. Think I will be trying enamels next time....
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Post by grrrunge »

Have you tried baking it? I'm just asking out of curiosity, as I'm about to try the exact same brand of paint on my next project...
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CGP
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Post by CGP »

Don't have facility for baking but dried under lamp for several hours. Did read on this post though that baking is unlikely to help apart from drying out faster. Anyway let me know if you do try it this way and it works out for you
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Post by Vinchenzio »

Hi, I use car spray paint with far better results than plastikote. Also buy a cheap electric oven ( £30) and bake them for about 10 mins in between coats. I only do two coats and they dry rock solid.. Primer - bake - spray - bake - spray - bake DONE ;-) I can't stress enough about baking them, makes so much difference.

Good luck :)

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Post by Vinchenzio »

Forgot to mention, let it dry for about an hour before each oven bake :)

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