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astrodav
03-29-2010, 04:31 PM
Odd question. But I'm definitely no painter & have been seeing something which is just plain strange. Maybe there's a painter in here that can tell me what's going on.

I enjoy camo'ing caches. I usually do 3 at a time of the same type container. One of them I'll use RealTree duct tape on, another I'll make a dark-green/black based painting sceme on, and the 3d will get a brown/light-green (olive) pattern. That last one is where the strange problem is occuring.

The paints I use are identical, other than colors. They are all Krylon Indoor/Outdoor Satin. The container is always prepped by scrubbing any oils & such off with alcohol & allowed to dry thoroughly. Almost always, I am fixing the 2 painted containers at the same time, so the circumstances are practically identical for both.

The dark-green/dark-bronze (pretty much black)/olive-green cache ALWAYS works perfectly. However, on the light-brown/light-green/dark-bronze one, every time I hit the light-brown with one of the other colors .... or vice-versa .... that area bubbles up like crazy. It often does it so bad that the top coat runs off, letting some of the bottom coat show through. I usually let it dry & hit it with a couple more coats of the top color, on the bubble part, which fills in any holes.

Best I can describe it, this bubbling appears like if you touched a propane torch to the opposite side of the container that isn't painted .... or if you squirted a bit of acid onto the paint. I don't think it's really a bad thing, other than looking a bit unprofessional. (I don't care ... like I said, I'm no painter. So it shouldn't look professional.) The bubbly surface may even HELP with camo, having no flat and/or slick surface for light to gleam off of.

BUT ..... Those bubbles have air trapped under them. After drying, you can push the bubbles around & hear popping, which is the paint/container surface bond being broken. This might be a weakness which wll soon either allow water under the paint, or just allow friction from handling to start flaking the paint off.

I know, it's just a cache container. And yeah, I know, I could just buy a different shade of brown & see if that fixes the problem, since the light-brown is the only one which causes the bubbling.

But this just has me curious what is going on, most especially since it's the same identical paint & the other colors cohabitate with one another just fine. So, do any painters here know if the "base" in the light-brown might actually be a different chemical than the others, which won't work well with whatever's in the other 4? Anyone ever heard of anything like that? It's just strange.

P.S. Yeah, they are all well-shaken & allowed plenty of drying time before hitting it with another coat. I even allowed one of the light-brown containers to dry all last night. Around noon, I shook up the dark-bronze one for a full 5 minutes. Hit the light-brown cache with a couple streaks of the other paint .... presto, instant bubbling.

I've already ordered 2 cans of a completely different type paint in the shade of brown I need, hoping at least 1 of them will work with the other colors. But whatever is causing this has me bumfuzzled. And since I'm no painter, all I can think of is someone dumped some hydrochloric acid into the light-brown paint. :lol: :roll:

pshelto
04-03-2010, 10:52 AM
Have you tried the same shade with just a different can? It could be a defect in the paint itself. Otherwise, I'd have to look at the ingredients. I really don't see much difference due to the colors, except the pigment choices.

Interesting effect. I bet it's cool to watch.