17 May
2003
17 May
'03
7:05 a.m.
At 10:01 PM 5/16/03 -0500, you wrote:
I've never seen any of that stuff close up. What's the liguid mitrogen for?
Joe
I guess you could say these have a pebble finish. The texture is pretty
fine and you don't notice it right away. I have a bead blasting cabinet,
but the metal underneath the paint is smooth. I guess the texture is only
part of the paint.
Correct. They call it splatter paint or something like that. It has lumps
in it and you spray it on that way. I guess the size of the lumps control
the size of the bumps in the finish. I used to work in a paint and body
shop and we used the stuff to re-pain the insides of trunks of 60s and 70s
cars that had that finish. The stuff they used left a greyish finish with
large spots and streaks of very dark color.
You can sandblast or bead plastic the base material (metal or plastic)
and then paint over it and get a rough finish but it will have holes and
dips in it instead of bumps (pebbles) so it's not the same.
I see on TV that they now have lasers that can
burn off dark spots like
freckles and tatoos without burning the lighter color skin around them.
I wonder if something like that could be used to burn off dark marker
stains without damaging the lighter surrounding area. Yeah I know that
kind of equipment is expensive but I wonder if it would work. If so
there are some of us that could build their own lasers or modify
existing ones. Just an idea.
Thats an idea. That type of equipment turns up at local auctions every
year or two too. The last time that kind of gear turned up, one guy picked
up all 3 laser units for a total of $5.00 simply because no one else
wanted to haul them off. They do tend to be kind of bulky. He later told
me they worked fine, though one needs a supply of liquid helium or liquid
nitrogen to operate. Oh, and they use *lots* of electricity...
-Toth