Hot or Not? New Spray Paint Products For Plastic
By Eric Dykstra
If you’ve ever painted plastic, you know what a choir the prep work is. And rattle-canning plastic has always been a shaky proposition. Now Krylon — as well as companies like Rust-Oleum and Plasti-Kote — offer specialty products that claim to handle plastic surfaces with ease.
As you can imagine, we’re skeptical. Have you tried any of these specialty paints? And if so, do they work as advertised? Let us know your experiences — or anything you’ve heard about ‘em — in comments.
Krylon Fusion [Official Site]
Rust-Oleum Paint for Plastics [Official Site]
Plasti-Kote Plastic Bond Enamel [Official Site]
Street Price [Google Products]
December 6th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
Rustoleum worked for me. Needed to paint a plastic cable organizer to match my wall. Made three lights coats, looked great, flexed with the plastic. One year later, its still great. I have to point out the cable organizer to my friends when they ask how I ran wires to my projector.
December 6th, 2007 at 3:35 pm
Hot… So far.
I’ve got some out in the weather(geocaches) painted on lock n lock containers and it has held up well for about 9 months now.
December 6th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Krylon Fusion worked fine for me on plastic — but the real fun is their “Fusion Mystic Shimmer” paint. Spray on black, spray on a couple of coats of that stuff and voila; sparkly holographic colour with zero skill required.
(okay, fun rather than useful, but it gives astonishingly flashy results for the amount of effort required).
December 6th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
Drat, typo. It’s “Fusion Mystic Prism”. See here:
http://www2.krylon.com/main/product_template.cfm?levelid=5&sub_levelid=10&productid=1858&content=product_details
December 6th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
Hot,
Worked for me when my wife wanted the front door trim a different color.
December 6th, 2007 at 4:34 pm
Actually, I just used a can of this. Great stuff, definitely HOT.
But not as hot as the idea of getting the choir to do the chore of prep work. Thanks for the tip, I’ll put those angelic voiced little buggers to work sanding & taping right away!
December 6th, 2007 at 8:12 pm
Hot from me too.
Painted the huge ugly cable box from a very light green that matched nothing in the yard to a very dark green that made the box disapear.
I have a dozen colors in my shop and, like Tim Tayor, use them to color match all sorts of things.
December 6th, 2007 at 8:50 pm
Not hot.
I bought a Garmin GPS for my marine brother-in-law to take to Iraq. I thought the bright yellow “don’t-lose-me” color looked too much like a “do-target-me” color, so I tried painting it with this stuff in a tan-ish color. Almost any bump knocked some paint off.
Of course, it could be the particular plastic that Garmin uses. I wound up scuff-sanding it and it stuck better, but still not perfect.
December 6th, 2007 at 9:45 pm
s/chore/choir
December 6th, 2007 at 9:54 pm
Warm.
I used four cans of Krylon Fusion. The nozzles of the first three got irreparably clogged up by the quick drying paint. I tried washing them/blowing them out with a compressor, but no luck. I was ready to give up when I got the fourth can working. But, I have to admit, once it was spraying right, the stuff really held fast and worked great.
December 7th, 2007 at 8:54 am
Used Krylon Fusion on 2 Plastic armrests for a plane. I love the fact that it is has some texture to it. Been several months and still looks great.
Didn’t have any problem with the spray can either.
December 7th, 2007 at 11:54 am
I painted my GLOCK pistol frame with Krylon Fusion with good results: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wmode/sets/72157601680165976/
December 7th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
I use the Plastic primer first then use any color you want over top, works like a charm. Reference: http://www.instructables.com/id/Pine-Needle-Camoflage-Paint-Jobs./
December 7th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
So far HOT. Fusion has worked great for me when I’ve had to paint plastic, as long as I prepped properly.
December 8th, 2007 at 3:30 pm
I’ve had the same nozzle clogging problem as Bud…Well not personally…I bought a few cans of gold and a few cans of black to spray some batting helmets. When I sprayed them I had no problems (and they came out gorgeous). Someone else did some of the spraying and kept coming in and saying that the nozzles were getting messed. Not sure if it was user error or not. The nozzles are nice though, fan tips and not the regular circular ones.
February 9th, 2008 at 9:59 am
The fusion works ok, but I found there was a clogging problem. Try the 5 ball pait available at http://www.jdindustrialsupply.com/kr5inpa.html