4-27-11
This thread will be maintained for those that already have a C&S screen and wish to discuss it, and for historical reasons. These formulae will not work with the current Craft Smart silver paint sold by Michael's. Those wishing to built a new C&S™ screen should read the thread on the mix that replaces C&S™, Cream&Sugar™ Ultra.
2-9-11
I must sadly report that Michael's has changed the formulation of their Craft Smart silver paint and it will no longer work well to make Cream&Sugar™ with. Expect a new C&S™ formula soon; until then continue using the old silver paint where available, see this post for details.
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Hi folks!
There seems to be a lot of interest in lighter reflective DIY screen paints. Even though I am really going in the opposite direction in search of a really good
dark reflective screen paint, I decided to see if the reflective ingredient I was using could also be used for a very light screen.
The data and photos below should be enough to give you a good idea of what the mix I call "Cream&Sugar" will do. They aren't appealing "screenies", but they tell the story, at least most of it.
I call this mix Cream&Sugar because it isn't white, but an off-white kind of like cream, and the sparkle in the mix is the sugar. As will be shown later, the mix is neutral, but just barely. :sweat:
Addendum: During the course of this thread I developed three different Cream&Sugar mixes and designated them C&S #1, C&S #2 and C&S #3. The formula given below is now called C&S #1.
All 3 mixes give essentially the same result, they just use different bases or paint colors to achieve the same result.
New addendum: I've added the formulae for C&S #2 and C&S #3 to this post so all mix ingredient info is in one place. To not leave holes in the flow of the thread I've left the original posts (along with their Spectral Reflectance Charts) in their original place in the thread.
C&S #1 (special note: As of October 2009 Sherwin-Williams is discontinuing Luminous White in many of there paints, if you are having trouble finding LW please try either C&S #2 or C&S #3)
[Another special note: as of December 2010 it seems that Luminous White is still available in some areas, but it might have to be special ordered from your store]
First, the ingredients; the "cream" is
Sherwin-Williams Luminous White flat interior latex and the "sugar" is
Craft Smart Metallic Silver. These are mixed in a 2:1 ratio; 2 parts LW (Luminous White) to 1 part CSMS (Craft Smart Metallic Silver). The LW is available from Sherwin-Williams stores and the CSMS is available from Michael's arts & crafts stores;
and only Michael's. In the post following this one I will describe how those not having access to the above ingredients can possibly substitute their own locally available materials.
The CSMS is a reflective ingredient that I am using to make an N7 mix that is showing great promise, but that's for another thread. :cunning: I should also add here that while I don't know what material is used to make the CSMS sparkle, it
doesn't show a prismatic effect like all of the mica-based silver paints I have tried do. No rainbows from CSMS, even when used full strength. In this regard, it acts a lot like aluminum flakes, but it isn't near as "darkening" when added to a mix.
CSMS is also inexpensive; it's $1 for 4 ounces, $2 for 8 ounces and $4 for 16 ounces. That puts it at $8 per quart, which is cheaper than most house paints. :T
The mix is:
One quart Sherwin-Williams Luminous White flat interior latex (this is a base color, not a tint). Not all SW paints are available in this base color.
One 16 oz. bottle Craft Smart Metallic Silver
It is my hope that others will continue with adaptations to this original mix using different white paints and seeing how they work out. I
strongly suggest not deviating from the use of the CSMS, unless absolutely necessary, since that could really throw off the color and reflectiveness of the mix.
The first photo is of a bottle of CSMS so you know what to look for at Michael's.
Now some microscope pics for those that care about such things. :bigsmile: As with most microscope shots, the color is not correct.
C&S at 60x
C&S at 200x (this pic displays an area about 1/32 inch wide)
A Spectral Chart of Cream&Sugar. Note that the fancy name isn't used in the chart. This mix has not been color-corrected to make it neutral, it is a simple two-part mix. Of special note is that the L* value in the top-left of the chart is 90.31, this equates to a Munsell Gray of N9; a pure white would be 100 or N10. The a* and b* values are under 1.0 (+ or - doesn't matter) so the mix is considered neutral.
Since C&S will be compared to a Kilz2 panel, I have included a Spectral Chart of my batch of Kliz2 as well. you can see that Kilz2 is brighter than C&S with a L* value of 92.29, the other values show my batch of Kilz2 wasn't neutral (but close enough for gov'ment work
).
Now some panel photos.
The panels are, from left to right, Kilz2, C&S, Black Widow BB/AAA 4:1 and BW WM/HE558 5:1. Only the left two panels are of true interest to us in this thead. I used the BW panels to hide most of the wall :heehee: which can still be seen in place of a 5th panel. I placed an "X" there with masking tape, kindly ignore this "panel". :whistling:
Panels under room light with camera auto-white-balancing.
Panels under projector light using a 100% white image, head on.
Color Bars, head on.
White image at 45 degrees.
Color Bars at 45 degrees.
Color Bars at about 170 degrees. Sorry, I was in a hurry and forgot to take a white image at this angle. :doh:
While I don't have the photos to prove it, the C&S panel had slightly deeper blacks than the Kilz2 panel. Of course, they were much lighter than the BW panels, but we're not counting those this time.
I didn't have the disk that contained the gray-scale photo I use, so I had to make do with what I had. :huh:
All-in-all, I think that C&S has similar whites to the Kilz2 panel while being a slightly darker panel. Also, the C&S was more neutral, which does make a difference if you can't adjust your PJ's R, G and B channels independently (I can't).
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Since people were not finding Sherwin-Williams Luminous White in quart sizes I decided to try to find C&S mixes that did to keep costs down. The following two mixes will also give good results and will be cheaper since you don't have to buy a $30+ gallon of white paint.
C&S#2
The first of the two is a more complicated mix than I wanted to use for C&S, but I'll list it since it is the most neutral mix I have tested so far and the paints, except the white paint, should be in the same area at Michael's since they are the same brand. It goes against my stated "3 paints or less" rule for C&S, but...
The down-side to this mix is it is a bit darker than N9 coming in at N8.8 for my sample chit. The up-side is it is the most neutral C&S mix yet.
You will need 4 different paints to make C&S#2.
One quart Behr UPW #1850 (acording to my spectro, Valspar Ultra Premium Enamel flat should work as well). Use the standard ultra-white base not a numbered base.
One 8 oz. bottle Craft Smart Metallic Silver
One 4 oz. bottle Craft Smart Metallic Gold
One 4 oz. bottle Craft Smart Metallic Bronze
The Gold and Bronze paints are needed to color-correct the mix. The neat thing is that ALL paints added to the white base are metallic so they all help make the mix reflective. The ratio of white paint to metallic paint is still 2:1 as in C&S #1.
The ratio of paint is:
UPW 8 parts
CSMS (silver) 2 parts
CSMG (gold) 1 part
CSMB (bronze) 1 part
Empty the paint into a large container and stir until blended. A squirrel-cage stirring attachment for a hand-drill is highly recommended as is washing the bottles of CSMS out with distilled water to get all the paint out - add the water to the mix.
I know this looks complicated, but it isn't. The key is that NO ingredient needs to be measured. It isn't hard to find the paints either since the white paint is simply a quart off the shelf that doesn't need to be tinted, and all 3 of the metallic paints should be close together at Michael's.
C&S#3
This mix is based on a custom-color paint from True Value hardware stores called "Refinement". The same ratio is used as in C&S #1, but the Luminous White is replaced with the "Refinement".
One quart True Value Trucolor "Refinement"
One 16 oz. bottle of Craft Smart Metallic Silver.
It turns out that some people don't have a True Value store near them (I'm not even sure they are in Canada at all) so I developed a matching paint that can be gotten at Lowe's. In time I will put another tint formula here for Behr #1850.
An alternate base paint to use to make C&S #3 is
Valspar Ultra Premium Enamel flat tinted with the following formula:
Using Base 1
107 0.5
116 0.5
113 24
Add 16 fl. oz. of Craft Smart metallic Silver to a quart of this paint.
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I finally had success matching the base for C&S #3 at Home Depot using Behr #1850.
The tint formula for the C&S #3 base at Home Depot is:
1 quart of Behr #1850 paint (ultra white base, which is what the 1850 means as well as the paint type)
Code:
[B]Tint oz. 384th oz.
C 0 4
F 0 1[/B]
Add 16 fl. oz. of Craft Smart metallic Silver to a quart of this paint.
