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Graphite Paint Mix


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Hey! I was wondering if you who mix graphite in with paint, could share your recipes. Is it a formula or a dab al do ya?

Also have any of you used a hvlp spray setup to apply it?

I have read that some of you rub it down to reveal the graphite. Any favorite type of cloth for that?

Do you clear coat after painting to "lock" in the graphite?

Really appreciate any tips!
Thanks
Matt

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The way I was taught and the one job I used it for went like this: First off it wasn't mixed in the paint. You sandblast or clean your metal to remove all scale and oils, Apply primer. Paint black or gray, it doesn't matter the color. Let dry well, whatever the product tells you to do. Then apply second coat. While still tacky, so you don't want a quick drying paint, apply the graphite. I bought an empty ketchup bottle container at the grocery store and filled it with graphite. Then you can simply squeeze a powder mist of graphite onto the tacky paint. Thoroughly coat it. Once the paint is dry you can use some old clean rags to buff it up. You must have a good protective finish under the grahite. If you put a clear coat on the grahite you might as well have just painted the item and not used the graphite. It totally destroys the look. Keep in mind that a graphite finish is not good for an item that is in the reach of someones hands as it will rub off onto ones hands. I used it on a number of awnings and it looked like raw steel.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I use a lot of graphite tinted coloring. The process is to prime the bare metal with a solvent based primer. Here in the NW it's a Rodda primer called Barrier III. It's considered a "hot" primer in that it is thinned with synthetic thinner and dries to touch in about 10 mins. I normally let the solvents dry overnight. Then I use a water based acrylic purchased from an art supply store called "graphite gray". This is either lightly brushed on, or sponged on depending the desired look. It can also be tinted with carbon black, burnt umber, raw umber etc depending the look you want. After that is dry, I buff the paint with a soft rag which smoothes out the graphite, or just leave the brush/sponge marks. Then I clearcoat with solvent based lacquer which is sprayed on. I have found that the lacquer penetrates the acrylic and bonds to the primer creating a very tough and durable finish. My spraying finishes are done in a spray booth using adequate respirator protections.
Recently, I've begun to expolre water based clear coats, but am having a hard wrapping my brain around water based primers on metal. Maybe I'm just old fashioned.
Hope this helps.

JE

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  • 1 month later...
On 1/19/2012 at 11:38 PM, harrismetalsmith said:
Hey! I was wondering if you who mix graphite in with paint, could share your recipes. Is it a formula or a dab al do ya?

 


I have used it quite a lot. Differently though from the earlier posters.

I use flake graphite and add it into the spray gun pot around a couple of tablespoons per pot, do a test and add a bit more if necessary. I take the little in-pot filter out because that always blocks. I spray it through a Devilbiss HVLP gravity gun but also used to use a Devilbiss JGA suction pot and the same gun with a pressure pot, all work fine.

I mix it with a synthetic enamel semi matt / eggshell paint and use that for the top/graphite coat. Depending on the protection required for the project, it could be galvanised or zinc flame metalised etch primed undercoated and gloss coated and then graphited or just blasted, primed and graphited.

Just as the paint is going off I burnish with either a shoe brush (which gives a very soft black) or a bit of hardish cloth, Levis denim works well, and really brings up the highlights leaving the hollows sooty black.

The great thing is that any forged surfaces magically reappear when you burnish the graphite even after they have apparently been obliterated by the protective layers, but you know that I guess which is why you are asking about the process!

+1 on the warning about customer contact with the product...not so good on handrails and door handles!

An interesting development I have done with the process is to use it with eggshell red and eggshell blue. The red makes it look like the piece is still hot and the blue looks very sophisticated and cool but unfortunately the blue fades if outside.

The largest project I have used it on required 8 assistants all rubbing like crazy before the paint went off!

I bought a 20kg sack of graphite after I had identified the correct mesh grade (200 mesh). Before committing to 20kg try a sample!

If you have access to an engineering supplies place that stocks Rocol products get a can of Foliac flake graphite 2A though you will pay a lot per kilo that way. I paid 15 pounds for the 20kg in 1995 at the same time a 750g foliac can was 14 pounds (I have just looked out my finishing file for you, my memory is not that good!) I have to say that I still have more than half of my 20 kg. sack left though!

Have fun.

p.s. I have just looked at the Rocol web site and they do not appear to list the flake graphite 2A anymore, may be just a web site designer typo?

 

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When I was young I worked in the shop on steam locomotives. We would paint the non-jacketed hot surfaces with aluminum paint, then mix flake graphite in hydraulic oil to make paint. We would put it over the aluminum paint and when she was fired up the graphite baked on hard. It worked really well.

Ken

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Ooh! that sounds interesting I will have a play with that system, thank you. Really brilliant for hot surface protection.

I did have to mix graphite with aluminium paint to try and reproduce the original shot blast, rotary wirebrush burnished lacquered and waxed finish I had done on a series of balustrades I had made. The building contractor managed to strip off the lacquer with some chemical poultice fumes when he was taking out water stains from the marble floor.

 

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  • 3 months later...

hi all i have used graphite mixed in with boiled linseed oil thined with turps to good effect it probably takes alot longer to dry and be polishable than the modern mixes mentioned in earlier posts but smells good and seems to last well .

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hotset,
Folks on your side of the pond may have a better feel for the beauty of linseed oil/turpentine/graphite. I love it, but my clients don't. If the project is interior, the smell is a big turnoff for most, and as for waiting, forget it. They want it all now. As an exterior finish, it won't hold up in a wet climate.
So, I will powdercoat, then faux finish the powdercoated surface.
John

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No, I did not, but umbrella stands on the beach at the One & only in Dubai are still "ok" after a couple of years!!

I'd love to come across and visit it's only money you know!!!!! I need a reason to bring my wife to show her your wonderfull state and to have her meet you & your wonderfull wife and Ken and his Familly also to have her see Washington state and to meet the great folks up there!

I have already visited the UK this year But maybe I should do another trip! Sarah, my wife has been invited to the interior design show in London in September so maybe we should do a combo trip?

My 1926 De Moor Hammer no restored(Due to envy after having experienced Miss De Moor) should be running later this week.
And my new shop should be completed later this month. so Why not?

Regards Ian

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  • 7 years later...
On 1/19/2012 at 11:38 PM, harrismetalsmith said:

Hey! I was wondering if you who mix graphite in with paint, could share your recipes. 

Many ways to use plumbago, Randy does it the way I do.

Apply the powder with a rag on tacky paint. If you use red oxide colored paint, and then rub the plumbago on it, yet leave a few streaks here and there of red paint showing, it will look like the piece is slightly rusted. Looks good on chandeliers, chairs, tables and the like. Or you can paint black and rub lots of plumbago on it. Once the paint is dry, you can rub off the excess and it will not stain the hands.  

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EMF? Which one? I'm afraid you need to get your terminology right and ask more specific questions or we can't do much. Did you just copy EMF off a blog or youtube comment page? It doesn't mean what I believe you think it means. 

Oh I don't know Steve there are some freqs absorbed by metal that are reflected by carbon though it's usually visa versa. Hopefully our newcomer will rethink his question and stick around. 

Frosty The Lucky.

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It seems that EMR shielding is taken more seriously than tin foil hats by the paint manufacturer and yes, they use graphite powder among other things. 

The data appears to be very professional however ... who can tell? 

If you google shielding EMR you get the wackiest link :)

 


 

Quote

 

Screening attenuation

Single layer 43 dB | Double layer 53 dB | Three layer 63 dB

Underground

Excellent adhesion on almost all substrates interior and exterior.

Top coating

Preferably covered with plastic bonded water-based emulsion paints, dispersion silicate paints, facade paints or silicon resin paints.

Grounding

Must be grounded! We recommend interior the grounding strap EB2 plus grounding plate GW, exterior the fiber additive AF3 plus the grounding plate GE.

Optional: Fiber additive AF3

For crack bridging and a better grounding we advise our fiber additive AF3 with long conductive carbon fibers.

Frost resistance

This product is frost resistant (proved for 5 frost-/thaw cycles) and can be shipped throughout the year by air cargo or ship.

Ingredients

Water, natural graphite, pure acrylics dispersion, carbon black, additives, preservative (BIT, INN, MIT).

Technical data

Please find detailled data in the table overview and the technical data sheet.

Ready for 5G

As we keep on developing our paints, they now have an almost linear shielding attenuation for a very large frequency range. This frequency range has already been including both 5G frequency spectrums for quite some time: FR1 (600 MHz - 6 GHz) and FR2 (24 GHz - 40 GHz).

Safety up to 40 GHz

We have a professional EMC-laboratory according to various standards up to 40 GHz on site, which is operated by long-time experienced staff. You’ll receive measuring curves and reports from 40/600 MHz - 40 GHz with all our shielding products.

No nanotechnology

Our shielding paints are developed in accordance with strict ecological criteria. We use, for example, the carbon black with the lowest emission possible on the market and untreated natural graphite. We consciously do not use graphene, a nanomaterial where the hazard potential is still completely unknown.
 

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0990/3264/files/YSHIELD-HSF54-DB.pdf?16995858882853081657

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0990/3264/files/YSHIELD-Paints-TDS.pdf?4557786840285961883

 

 

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