Cold Metal Spraying - REAL metal coating, anyone?

[wkbx]

Has anyone managed to DIY this?

If you don’t know, this is a proper metal coating (not paint) made with 95% metal powder + a binder*, referred to as “sprayable liquid metal”, and “cold-spray composite decorative metal coating”. It can make any boring material look and feel like solid metal - iron, bronze, copper, brass, aluminium, gold, whatever. It’s cold to the touch, waterproof, really tough, and even rusts/oxidises and polishes like metal. Kinda like “cold casting”, but sprayed with an HVLP gun instead.

Game changer, right? Except I never see anyone doing it. Apart from interior designers and architects, and big prop shops like Weta Workshop. But what about us? We need this!

It's offered by various different companies as a coating service, who often also sell training courses to allow you to become an authorised applicator, but they’re all suspiciously vague about what the secret “binder” actually is. One big supplier offers three types: “solvent-based binder”, “water-based binder” and “flexible water-based binder.” I suspect one of the options is epoxy resin, but I’d really like to avoid spraying that. The most interesting option I've seen is the flexible binder as it would be perfect for the kind of things we do. A few of the companies I found referred to a polymer binder and a catalyst, if that gives any clues?

*Does anyone know what that magic ingredient might be?

I am joining the conversation late, but am highly interested in learning more about this idea. I have researched the liquid metal coatings suppliers and agree they all seem to offer nearly the same thing and very vague about the "secret" binder. I am interested in more of a paste/paint consistency in order to create decorative metal finishes as a small-time furniture maker.

Any success with trials or recipes??

 

[joberg]

As a ex-furniture maker, wkbx, I found a funeral home, specializing in tombstones and other decorative metal pieces, to be very helpful with those little details. Handles, for example or other small designed plates of metal. I built Art-Deco furniture and those were always adorned with metal pieces.

 

[sandman008]

I have bought the course @tazzyman the binder you are missing is simply an acrylic binder, it's in the two smaller bottles on the right-hand sign in the trailer. in the course these seem to be the hardest of the binders and his preferred choice.

My issue is that I am using it to coat furniture pieces and keep getting sand through on any corners or edges when trying to polish them up. Anyone got any tips for me ?