On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 16:43:14 -0500, Matt wrote:

Anyone have any experience with this stuff:
http://ceramicadditive.com/index.html

Does it work? If so how well? What kind of R value do you get out of it?

~ Matt

I used some of their stuff, for two different applications.
1) They sell a rust sealer primer, a liquid grey paint with
some of their spheres mixed in.

2) A bag of spheres, shipped dry, and added to the paint on
site.

The application was some metal security bars and a stair rail
on the outside of a house. I was motivated to find a better
way to work around the rust/old paint problem because it took
me about three weekends to scrape, de-rust, black oxide, prime,
and top coat one bar set and I didn't want/have time for that
for every bar set (and I couldn't remove the stair rail).

I took two security bar sets to a pro to have them sandblasted,
hot-melt primered and hot-melt finish coated. (hot-melt == powder-
coat)

The stair rail I treated as if the product was really going to
work, so I did very minimal prep, no black oxide treatment.
I slapped on their primer (containing spheres), (one coat only,
but they recommend two) followed by one top coat which I mixed
with some dry spheres.

Then we had the January and February rains, which brought us
to the third wettest season on record.

The bars I hand-treated with all the prep, prime, and coat
faired okay. There is some rust showing up on them again
(and since I used rust treatment *and* primer gray I don't
see how it could!).

The pro-treated bars finish looked the best, but plenty
of rust is showing through the surface now. I'm disappointed.

The stair rail is holding back the rust the best. I think
I can see a little brown-like coloring happening to the
otherwise white topcoat, but I can't see the obvious rust
coming up yet.
The finish is the least-professional of the three, as the
spheres look like I dumped some beach sand into the paint.
I don't care too much. I'm saying to myself, "Well, in
an emergency my hand will grip well to that handrail."


So, to recap: Their paint-onto-rust primer seems to work
well, provided you can tolerate a sand-like finish.
It may look expensive at first, but the labor it saves
more than pays for itself. I give it a thumbs-up.

I never believed that a thin layer of paint could ever
provide a high R-value, so I didn't buy the product for
that purpose.

The dry spheres are easy to ship but kind of pointless
to buy if you're looking for their special primer.
I guess I give them a Miss Cleo rating. Use them if
it makes you feel good.

Regards, Scott