[ARC5] Antenna Current Meter Needed - wrinkle paint

[Mike Hanz]

On 5/5/2014 1:19 PM, J. Forster wrote:
> On the paint, there are scores of solutions, none of them really work well
> IMO.

They have gotten worse over the years, John.  When I first started 
painting with it back in the late 1980s, I used a General Cement product 
that produced beautiful results as long as you could maintain the film 
thickness roughly consistent with each coat. Sadly, the remainder of two 
boxes of a dozen cans each eventually stopped wrinkling in a 
satisfactory way.  I've tried all the replacements mentioned here on the 
list since then and have been unsatisfied with the reflective condition 
- under a microscope none of them had the same gloss finish that existed 
with the GC stuff or in the original WWII finishes.  That tell-tale 
"glisten" only exists for a short time after painting, typically a few 
minutes.  A check with the microscope on samples shows it turning into a 
semigloss finish within an hour of putting the second or third coat on.  
Okay, I'm extremely picky, but I'd like to get what I got with the GC 
paint.  I know that the formulation has changed over the last twenty 
years, probably due to EPA regulations, but I have an aversion to having 
to run over a newly painted surface a month later with a terrycloth 
towel and glass black to get that glisten.  Recently, though, I tried a 
new black wrinkle from Rustoleum (251576).  I had learned not to be too 
optimistic in each of these tests, and so when it wrinkled nicely, I 
just waited for the inevitable loss of glisten.  To my surprise, it 
didn't happen.  I used the paint on a new FT-154 tray that I made for a 
friend who found a top without a bottom tray, and after six months here 
is how it still looked: http://aafradio.org/garajmahal/FT-154_base.JPG 
(I also had to make new snap slide posts due to corrosion of the 
originals).  Under the microscope it retains that gloss surface that is 
so essential to creating "the look".

Unfortunately, I have not had good luck with small areas either, even 
with the old GC product loaded in an air brush...the result was not the 
same as a complete panel spray because of the film thickness problem at 
the edge of the spot being repainted.  However, the latest products 
mentioned in this thread all do wrinkle to a degree with a single coat 
now, so perhaps the air brush approach might be workable with those.  
I'll have to try it when we have some days over 80°F again.

            73,
  - Mike  KC4TOS