Painting Urethane Rubber... YES It can be done

I received a email from WWW.Smooth-On.com
with instructions on how to paint urethane rubber.
it gives me an idea or two, Hope it helps some of your projects
TK648

Full story here http://www.smooth-on.com/gallery.php?galleryid=421


Using Brush-On 40 To Paint Urethane Rubber
Urethane rubber is an excellent choice for casting props or costume pieces which require high abrasion resistance and durability. The challenge is finding a paint which will adhere to the surface of the urethane casting.

Some of our customers have found that our Brush-On 40 urethane rubber has excellent adhesion properties and can be used as a paint for urethane rubbers when combined with So-Strong pigments and thinned with mineral spirits.

The pigments must be added to the rubber before the solvent is added, and for this reason, small batches of rubber should be mixed.

In the following example, Brush-On 40 is thinned with mineral spirits, brushed and airbrushed onto the surface of a Reoflex 30 casting.

The frog was cast into a Smooth-Sil 910 mold, making release agent unnecessary. If a release agent were used, it would need to be thoroughly removed from the piece using an appropriate solvent before a casting could be painted.

Good to know! Thanks for posting this information and the link.I'll be making good use of this info shortly.

Unfortunately, the So Strong line doesn't have any metallics.

I've had great success with a light dusting of plain ol' Krylon, though.

We used Veri-prime to paint all our urethane elastomers and then you can use krylon or any auto paints on it. Veri-prime is expensive if it's still available from auto paint dealers.

PPG has a Plastic Adhesion program that works great. At their tech school they used it on a shower curtain and painted it. They passed it around the room and wou could bend it up and the paint stayed. The system is called one-choice. I use this system on all the plastic Don Post and Rubies helmets and armor that I have painted. I have had no peeling of any kind. I use the prep sponge, wipe and aerosol adhesion spray.


http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:...lnk&cd=1&gl=us

BlindSquirrel said:

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Unfortunately, the So Strong line doesn't have any metallics.

I've had great success with a light dusting of plain ol' Krylon, though.

I do have an idea to possibly change that.

If we all send smooth-on a email suggesting a metallic line
of so-strong color tints. who knows they may develop one

TK648

Just out of curiosity. I know one trick with urethanes is to prepaint the mold and the urethane will bond to the paint, done it a few times when I was out of mold release and just spray primed the mold, let dry and poured the resin... Has anyone tried something similar with the Brush-On 40? Paint a little on, let it tack slightly, then go over it with an lacquer or enamel paint (brush or spraycan), or even tried to see if it would work as a gold/silver leaf adhesive?