PDA

View Full Version : Extruded Acrylic Signs



Dave Russell Smith
08-18-2009, 8:45 PM
Does anyone have any tips on stopping the Acrylic from stress cracking before spraying, I have been using Fusion paints with some degree of success but still getting the cracks in other pieces of work nothing is consistent :(. This is getting frustrating

Doug Griffith
08-18-2009, 8:54 PM
Here's an SMC thread on the subject:
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=51176

It might be worth looking into annealing:
http://www.plasticsmag.com/ta.asp?aid=2514

Cheers,
Doug

Bill Cunningham
08-18-2009, 10:24 PM
Fusion paint is a solvent based paint, and solvents are a no-no on edge stressed acrylic.. You might have better luck with krylons H20 paint..

Scott Shepherd
08-19-2009, 8:28 AM
Same problem I've had with Fusion. Some swear by it, but I can't get it to work without the cracks either.

H20 is a sweet product, but they are rapidly discontinuing it. I have some signs I've made for years now using H20 and I went to get some from the usual place and it was gone from the shelf. I went to every store in the area listed as selling Krylon and it was gone from every single shelf. I went to the Krylon website and couldn't find it either. I think I did a search on their site and it came up, but it's looking like that's a product that will not be around for the long haul, so be careful making repeat jobs from it.

Darryl Hazen
08-19-2009, 10:39 AM
Krylon's Fusion Paint is formulated to "bite" into plastic. The attached MSDS sheet from their website shows acetone comprises 33% of the formula. Acetone causes crazing.

http://www.paintdocs.com/webmsds/webPDF.jsp?SITEID=DBS&prodno=724504024248&doctype=MSDS&lang=E

Larry Bratton
08-19-2009, 6:52 PM
Hey guys..I have been having some good success with painting acrylic with Sherwin Williams Super Paint in the plastics formula. You can spray it, brush it or roll it on. I roll it on with a foam brush and it works well. Usually takes two coats to get it so that it is opaque. They mix all kinds of colors, it cleans up with water and contains no solvents like spray paint.

Dave Russell Smith
08-20-2009, 8:06 PM
Same problem I've had with Fusion. Some swear by it, but I can't get it to work without the cracks either.

H20 is a sweet product, but they are rapidly discontinuing it. I have some signs I've made for years now using H20 and I went to get some from the usual place and it was gone from the shelf. I went to every store in the area listed as selling Krylon and it was gone from every single shelf. I went to the Krylon website and couldn't find it either. I think I did a search on their site and it came up, but it's looking like that's a product that will not be around for the long haul, so be careful making repeat jobs from it.

Got this email back from Krylon:-

Thank you for contacting the Krylon website.

If there are any plans to discontinue the H2O line, I have heard nothing of it. Many of the colors can be ordered online here if you haven't been able to find them locally: http://www.acehotline.com/p-1563-h2o-latex.aspx

Thanks again for your inquiry.

Scott Shepherd
08-20-2009, 8:17 PM
Thanks Dave, it's a little more complicated than that statement. You'd have to have seen what they have done. In the states, Krylon was carried by the 2 largest DIY stores in the country. That was for decades. Then, all of the sudden, they disappeared from one of the chains shelves and were replaced. Next thing you know, gone from the other one. Look on their website at that time and they listed small hardware stores and mainly craft stores carrying their products. So there was a serious shift in who carried their products.

Now, KMart and Sears carry it, but neither have much, where as before, they were fully stocked. Go to the craft stores and it's vanishing from those shelves as well. The product is getting very hard to find. It's owned by Sherwinn Williams. Go into a Sherwinn Williams paint store and even they don't have much of it.

So all of their products are getting harder to locate.

That's where my comments came from. Just watching what's been happening with their products over the last few years.

Mark Ross
08-21-2009, 4:28 PM
Back in the day when I was working at a Fortune 500 company, we had required reading of a book called something like (exact title escapes me at this point) "dealing with the big orange monster" because it helped everyone involved understand what made the big orange monster happy and what made the big orange monster sad.

One story goes like this (some names have been changed because I don't want to get sued).

A light bulb company that was part of a big conglomerate, we'll call them GEEEEE, supplied lightbulbs to the big orange monster. The big orange monster came calling at the end of the year looking for their rebate check. GEEEEE tells them, no the rebate was if you hit your quota of sales and you missed it by a little. SO the big orange monster left. The big orange monster called a lightbulb company over in the Netherlands and lets say they talked to a guy named "Phillip". They offered phil half of their light bulb shelf space which up to this point was exclusive to GEEEEE. They then went back to GEEEEE and said listen up mofo's, you just lost half your shelf space and if you don't want to lose all of your shelf space, next year when I show up, have my rebate check ready...

The big orange monster is scary, but then again the big blue behemoth is just as frightening (and this time, since this is more well known than the first story, I can do a cut and paste...)


Rubbermaid’s economic problems date from 1994, when the cost of resin (a key ingredient in its plastic containers) rose suddenly by 80 percent, costing the company an additional $250 million. In response, Rubbermaid sought to raise the price of some of their products to compensate for the loss, and pleaded with Wal-Mart headquarters (which was then the largest retail outlet for Rubbermaid) to allow them to do so. Wal-Mart steadfastly refused, and responded by pulling Rubbermaid products off their shelves, and replacing them with those of Sterlite.

Rubbermaid saw its yearly earnings drop by 30 percent, before finally succumbing to Wal-Mart’s demands. However, it never financially recovered. Nearly in bankruptcy, Rubbermaid was absorbed by its rival, Newell, Inc., in 1999 ― a mere three years after Fortune magazine named Rubbermaid its “most admired company.” Since then, Newell Rubbermaid has been shedding plants and jobs to keep afloat. Since 2001, Newell Rubbermaid has shut down 69 of its 400 facilities, and fired over 11,000 of its employees.

I am pretty sure someone somewhere at Krylon made the monsters unhappy. Its too bad but it seems anymore like that is the way it is.