[Hallicrafters] Hali Paint jobs

[Roger K8RI]

> Original Message
> From: "Roger K8RI"
>
> Everything is relative.  I have a gallon of "Imeron" (TM) two part out
> in
> the shop that easily cost more than any of my HT32s or SX101s and I
> think it
>
> Roger,
>
> Be careful with that stuff.  If the formulation is similar to what I

I was just remarking about the cost, but yes, you make a very good point.... 
It is a 2 part Cyanolic paint that *requires* a full hood with either tank 
air, or an external air supply.  Even a full face mask with activated 
charcoal canisters is not considered sufficient.  The stuff if deadly!

I have the full hood that is almost like a jacket.  It also has a belt to 
hold an air bottle very much like what scuba divers use. I can also use 
Oxygen set at a low flow, but prefer low pressure air fed through about an 
inch hose, very much like the hose that goes on a sump pump. Actually I've 
seen air supplies made up of a vacuum sweeper fan (clean) and one of these 
hoses.  You need the one where the exhaust air is not drawn through the 
motor as it would be picking up Ozone.

> recall from some experience friends had with it in the 70's, I recall
> it's a extremely durable epoxy type aircraft paint but the vapors can be

It's not an epoxy, but sorta works like it with a catalyst being required. 
For that reason is often mistaken as an epoxy.

> very dangerous.  I had a friend use it to gloss black paint the frame of
> a completely stripped down 70 Olds 442.  He demonstrated he could whack
> the resulting painted frame with a hammer without leaving a mark on the
> finish!
>
It's usually not *quite* that durable (grin), but it is tough.  It's used on 
airplanes and cars.
Imeron (TM), is only one of a group and virtually all manufacturers of auto 
and aircraft paints use something similar.  Another trade name is "Aluma 
Grip" (TM) (SP?)

A quick story about this stuff.
I have an *old* Beech Debonair.  It's serial # CD-2 and supposedly the first 
off the assembly line with #CD-1 having been hand assembled and then used to 
set up the assembly line. At any rate it has 32 hours of preproduction 
flight testing in the log.  The primary color is an off white called 
"graystone".  It looks white until you compare it to white.

I picked up an 8' Aluminum satellite dish that looked a bit scruffy and I 
had just done some paint touch up on the Deb. So, I proceeded to paint the 
dish with some of the left over paint.  Man, but it sure did look nice.

Iinstalled the feed horn and put up the dish. It worked great all Summer.

When I got home from work one day that Fall, something didn't look right, 
but I didn't think much about it until I turned on the TV.  No signal!   A 
quick check showed the feed horn to be in pretty bad shape with very piece 
of plastic on it, melted off.  Yup! It was that time of year when the sun 
travels through the beamwidth of the dishes pointed at geosync satellites. 
My great paint job had turned that satellite dish into one large solar 
cooker that could easily melt solder.  So, out came about 5 spray cans of 
flat black and a new feed horn.  After that the dish would get hot, but not 
the feed horn.

Another lesson learned. Don't put shiny finishes on parabolic reflectors 
that might get pointed at the sun.

Roger Halstead (K8RI and ARRL 40 year Life Member)
N833R - World's oldest Debonair CD-2
www.rogerhalstead.com
> 73! - Mark K9TR
>
>