The Letterville BullBoard: Alternative Paints...Better Start Getting Used To Them

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Posted by Ken Henry (Member # 598) on :

I was into Home Depot this past Saturday to buy a gallon of High Gloss Exterior Enamel, and was informed by the supervisor of their paint department that within 2 years, Home Depot will no longer be stocking or selling ANY oil or alkyd based paints. Apparently, they will be switching over to Acrylic Latex type finishes, and only water-based paints exclusively.

If a large National Chain such as Home Depot are contemplating such a move, can other stores be far behind? They too have noticed the problems of chalking & fading in the oil & alkyd based paints, and have chosen to dump these products, rather than contend with the complaints associated with same. It may be that such finishes will be unavailable, or difficult to find, in the very near future.

I think it may be time to start getting used to using the water-based products, and familiarizing yourself with their properties and limitations, as they apply to painted backgrounds, panels etc. Apparently some of these paints will accept vinyl letters, while others will not.

I do not know if any of this is driven by so-called "environmental considerations", but I suspect that they may possibly be having some influence on decision makers at the retail level. In any event, the times, they are a-changing...but not necessarily for the better, in my opinion.

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Ken Henry
Henry & Henry Signs
London, Ontario Canada
(519) 439-1881
e-mail kjmlhenry@home.

Some days you get to be the dog....other days, you get to be the fire hydrant.

Posted by David Wright (Member # 111) on :

I have been told by other major retailers the same thing. I think we all knew this was coming, but what will happen when they do this with One-Shot?
I have the Deka sign paints and have limited success using red sable brushes with them.

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Wright Signs
Wyandotte, Michigan
Since 1978
http://www.wrightsigns.bigstep.com

Posted by Joey Madden (Member # 1192) on :

Good post Ken totally misleading, but for the average person I don't think this will lead to chaos....

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HotLines Joey Madden
Pinstriper and designer of the Inflite'
See it go to work http://www.killerkoncepts.com
learning capabilities http://www.members.tripod.com/Inflite

Posted by Ken Henry (Member # 598) on :

How do you find this misleading Joey? I posted exactly what I'd been told, and admittedly I did speculate a bit regarding future availability of oil/alkyd based finishes. If the larger retailers will not stock or sell these types of paints, that will drastically reduce the manufacturers' options for distribution and sales. When that happens, they'll probably sell through very specialized outlets, or discontinue the manufacture of that line of product. This sort of thing happens all the time in the manufacturing environment. Remember the "Valiant" line of cars made by Chrysler, or Oldsmobiles for that matter. History.

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Ken Henry
Henry & Henry Signs
London, Ontario Canada
(519) 439-1881
e-mail kjmlhenry@home.

Some days you get to be the dog....other days, you get to be the fire hydrant.

Posted by Mikes Mischeif (Member # 1744) on :

Products are market driven. If we buy one shot, they will make one shot. You can't get one shot at home depot.

Last home depot employee I talked to could not even tell me where the furnace filters where located....

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Mike Duncan
Lettercraft Signs
Alexandria VA

I have never let schooling interfere with my education - Mark Twain

Posted by Jerry Mathel (Member # 526) on :

Hi Ken,

I've been saying this very thing the last couple of years. I come from the old school where all we would consider using was alkyd oil primer and background finish.

Alkyd oil paint seems to be getting worse all the time (particularly primer) and acrylic/latex still isn't quite up to speed, but it's getting better all the time. The particular downside is that it just plain doesn't cover very well, particularly the darker colors, and they still haven't been able to quite get the really vibrant colors that they could with oil.

Epoxy and urethane seems to be an excellent replacement, but it is expensive and hard to use. For quality work, I have gone to automotive urethane as a background material, but you are looking at an expensive product both in material cost and application equipment.

Like it or not, the the bottom line is that short oil alkyds are getting harder to find. It is hard to say if they will dissapear entirely, but it behooves all of us, who plan to stay in this line of work, to at least become somewhat familiar with the new materials on the market in case that day should finally come whem they are all that are avilable.

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Jerry Mathel
Jerry Mathel Signs
Grants Pass, Oregon
signs@grantspass.com

Posted by Kent Smith (Member # 251) on :

As I have stated many times in the past, there is a big difference between those products made for professional use only and those made to be sold to the general public. Retail paint stores in southern Calif. and NY as well as a few other specific areas have not been able to sell more than 32 ounces at a time of any oil based product. They also have been limited in quantities of related solvents and aditives. This is one reason many of the traditional companies such as Sherwin Williams have moved away from professional coatings as they moved into the do-it-yourself market. There should always be a market for the descriminating professional to acquire the appropriate products.

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Kent Smith
Smith Sign Studio
Greeley, Colorado, USA
kent@smithsignstudio.com

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