[Prof.]

MississippiMan wrote:

Silver not dampened at all will be too reflective. Ditto Aluminum. I cannot see how this is missed your reasoning.

It hasn't...In my reasoning, the major part of the "dampening" will be done by the top coat..The aluminium base coat would be left unadulterated as much as possible, to give as much reflectivity initially, as possible..

I bet you don't recall a horrid Screen Paint (Top Coat) called "OptiCoat". Cloned off the "Anti-Camera" Licencse Plate Spray Paint concept, at it's "best' what it did is almost exactly what your idea will do. And that ain't gonna be good.

I recall the name "Opticoat" but I'm not familiar with the principles involved..

First surface reflectivity is too intense to deal with without some degree of muting. Call it whatever else you care to....if your mixing Aluminum or Silver in ANY Clear or matte, you WILL be dampening the reflectivity to some degree. Some coatings more than others, but to date, not even a "Clear" has been shown to dry "perfectly clear". That's just not disputable. And even this Thread's Authors have repeatedly said how introducing a Clear to Aluminum destroyed the effect they wanted to keep.

So to all intents and purposes, the reflectivity of the aluminum will have some muting in the clear base to begin with..

Prof, I'd like to think that is what your after, but your description of same, how you plan to go about it, and why you think it should work quite frankly does not measure up to what I've come to know as your level of well reasoned out thinking

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MMan..I think you may have misinterpreted the principle of my design..
As you are aware, if you put a coat of white paint on a clear piece of acrylic, and then shine a bright light at it, you will see some light transmission through the back..
If you then place a mirror behind that panel, some of that light will be reflected back..or as in your case, painting directly onto the mirror..
I'm just basically replacing that mirror with an aluminium one..The top coat will be just plain white.. .

A Ultra Fine Grain SM base with an extremely translucent, whitened Top Coat should do exactly what you want.

As I've just stated above.. That's exactly what I'm doing..

It is your time and effort spent, Prof. No natter what, I wish you nothing but good results. By all means, find a "New Way" to change the Laws of Physics. Unfortunately, with paints, I'm fairly certain we are pushing the limits now that most of the individual ingredients are being qualified and quantified so throughly. I'm not so much trying to force an opinion on you as trying to head off wasted effort by virtue of having "Been there, Done that." myself in pursuit of the same goal.

I thank you for your concern and best wishes..
I don't profess to be an expert in screen design, so I appreciate your constructive input..
Actually I am one who likes to try and break the laws of physics from time to time..