Okay so now we have to decide what brand. All paints are not created equal, that is a certainty.
Since the goal of this forum is to keep things simple yet provide outstanding performance, the paint brands that are going to be mentioned are very easy for anyone to find, at least in the US. For those that live outside the US and do not have any of these paints available, contact me and we can see what's available in your area and check the color balance information. That's a great place to start.
So keeping things in line with the KISS principle, here are my favorite recommendations, in no specific order:
- True Value
- Home Depot (Behr)
- Sherwin Williams
- Dutch Boys- (Sold through Walmart too)
That sounds like a short list, and it actually is, but those stores can be found most anywhere. Sometimes I am amazed when a person says they cannot find a particular brand, and the store locator on the company's website shows multiple stores in their area. Make sure to check out the store locator's and don't discount any of the mentioned companies because you may have never been to one of their stores.
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| | The list is not only one of convenience, but more important these companies have some of the best balanced paints I have seen and tested... and remember what I keep saying and the mantra you keep hearing repeatedly throughout the DIY forum... Balance... Daniel-san needed it in the Karate Kid, and we need it even more with our screen! | |
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Behr has the best off the shelf white around. Ultra Pure White is just that, a very bright well balanced white paint. Behr uses UPW for most of their colors and it is an excellent base. It is also an excellent base for a white screen too. I am not very impressed with the rest of Behr's standard colors. For decorating and painting your walls, sure, but there are some problems with a lot of their grays- mainly that they are not really gray.
Tiddler has developed some custom tints for Behr based on UPW that are very nice and the people that have used his EasyFlex are very pleased and the performance is very good. These tints are easy for anyone to obtain, and should be considered when looking for a screen paint. They are also better balanced than anything you are going to get off the shelf from Behr, but these are not complex mixes where you have to measure and pray, you take a BAC code into the store, and they make it just like any of the other paint colors you would get there... very simple, very KISSable.
Sherwin Williams has a very very interesting paint. It is their Duration brand in the matte finish. In their stores they have a display with the Duration matte finish next to a painted panel of the Duration flat finish. At the display are markers, a spray bottle, and a rag. Unless the display is a brand new one, you can already see what is going to happen, but you really have to try it and see what happens for yourself. Take the marker and draw all over the two panels. Go wild... pretend you are two years old again and just found mommy or daddy's marker or pen and you want to draw them something special (now try to imagine this happening to your screen- although I wouldn't know how a two year old would get up that high...) When you are done, spray it down with the water bottle. Incredibly, the marker drawing on the Duration matte side actually starts to run off with the water! A wipe with the rag and it's gone. The flat finish... well, you probably already saw what to expect with the previous marker prints that didn't wipe off. It also rolls on smooth and covers extremely well.
Dutch Boys- This is one I don't have any color values on yet, but I am interesting in it for two reasons. One it is sold at Walmart, and I think Walmart's goal is to have one store for every person on the planet, so if you can't find a Walmart near you, check your map, you might live in Tibet. (Although I wouldn't be surprised if there is a Walmart there too) the second reason... it's the same manufacturer that makes Sherwin Williams. I was disappointed to see that Dutch Boys doesn't have a matte finish though, so flat would be the recommended finish, and we'll fix that up later with a few tricks. Unfortunately I don't have the BAC to cross Sherwin Williams with Dutch Boys, but I will. Then anyone should be able to find an excellent gray.
True Value- never gave them much thought about anything as a hardware store. I always went to Lowes or Home Depot... that is until I got some information on some of their paint. They have a couple of colors that are the most neutral of anything I have seen, either in DIY or the commercial screen paint companies. There is a company called GTI that sells an ISO standard gray in N8 and N7 shades of gray. Because they meet ISO standards, I thought this would be the Holy Grail of grays and be dead on neutral. It was close, but still fell outside the D65 circle. True Value amazingly has two paint colors, one in an N8 shade, the other an N9 shade that are
inside the D65 neutral reference point circle. And at $7-$9 a quart, it is far cheaper than the $80 a gallon for GTI's N8.
These brands should get most people going no matter where they live in the US. As I mentioned, outside the US they may not be available so PM and we'll see what we can come up with.
next... What Color?