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Cream&Sugar™ Ultra

72275 Views 178 Replies 26 Participants Last post by  Philnick, 
Harpmaker
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10-18-13 Addendum: The Valspar paints have changed (and some not for the better) so we are now suggesting that Valspar Signature be used instead of Valspar Ultra. The tint formula is the same. All mixing is the same.


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The change in physical makeup of the metallic silver paint used to make the previous Cream&Sugar™ mix means that particular mix (or series of 3 mixes actually) can no longer be recommended unless the old Craft Smart Metallic Silver is still available to you.

Introducing Cream&Sugar™ Ultra! Like the Cream&Sugar™ mix before it, Cream&Sugar™ Ultra is a binary mix (only two paints are used). Both paints are usually easily obtained locally throughout the U.S.; development is continuing in the use of a paint available from Home Depot as well which I'm sure will be glad news to our northern neighbors in Canada since there are precious few Lowe's stores there.

The base paint is Valspar Ultra Premium Interior Latex Flat Enamel Base 1 with the following tint and amount - 115-0.67 for a quart of paint.

Addendum:The Valspar Ultra Premium Flat Enamel paint has been renamed by Lowe's to Valspar Ultra Premium Super Flat Finish. The paint is the same, just a different name, so the existing tint formula will still work.

Note that the photo below is NOT the Base 1 paint, but rather the Ultra White base.



For those coming from looking at the original Cream&Sugar™ thread please note that the ratio of base paint to silver paint has changed for Cream&Sugar™ Ultra, it is now 50% base paint and 50% silver paint (a 1:1 ratio).


To make 32 fl. oz. of mix (before thinning for final application) buy the following items:
1 quart Valspar Ultra Premium Super Flat Finish Base 1 tinted 115-0.67 (available at Lowe's)
16 fl. oz. Liquitex BASICS 'Silver' acrylic paint (four 4 oz. tubes or two 8 oz. tubs). This paint is available at most arts and crafts stores such as Michael's and A.C. Moore. It is also available at great discount from many stores on the internet.

Now the tricky part. Since the mix is 1:1 that means only 16 oz. of the quart of Valspar paint is used, to which is mixed the 16 oz. of LBS (Liquitex BASICS 'Silver'). While you could just add 32 oz. of LBS to the quart of Valspar paint, LBS is a fairly expensive paint and it would make way more mix than most people would need. So yeah, the tricky part is measuring 16 fl. oz. out of a quart of paint. :D

Because the LBS is so thick the mix DOES NEED TO BE THINNED, even to roll. For those rolling I would recommend adding at least 25% distilled water; those spraying would have to dilute even more depending on their sprayer. Add the water and mix thoroughly, this mix is slow to accept the added water. Mixing thoroughly is VERY important!

For what I will assume would be the standard C&S™ Ultra mix of 16 oz. Valspar and 16 oz. LBS that means an additional 8 oz. of water should be added to thin for rolling. It would be a good idea to also use some of this water to wash out your containers of LBS to get all the paint out. If you are using the 8 oz. tubs of LBS simply pour the water into the tub, cover and shake. If using 4 oz. tubes of LBS I found it works best to inject the water into the almost empty tube with some kind of syringe, close the lid and shake WELL.

Cream&Sugar™ Ultra is a N9.2 screen mix which is brighter than the N9 of the previous Cream&Sugar™ mix. This means C&S™ Ultra will not perform quite as well in ambient light as C&S™, but it also means the mix will be even brighter than C&S™ in a home theater that has controlled lighting and dark walls.

Data and photos to follow.
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J
Sure I can, but I was under the impession that the Ultra was a good solution for me.

- What I have is a total light controlled room
- Epson tw3200, i think you call it 8350? with about 150 hours on the lamp
- walls and ceiling are a very dark grey, same goes for carpet, so ambient lighting should not be an issue
- 120" screen
- 15 feet from projector to Screen

Is the Ultra a bad solution?

Rg. and thanks?

//jesper
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Y
Nope! Cream and Sugar is a perfect choice for 3200 and your screen!! Although, 3200 is not a light cannon after calibration, i believe it can work out nicely with C&S on 120'':)
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J
Great, then back to the original question. I can get my hand on the Liquitex Basic Silver (expensive thoough :yikes:) And I can find an equivalent White paint here in DK, but to get in tinted in that, is it a bit magenta color ?, is hard when I do not know the code in a form that I can translate to anything Danish.

Any ideas?

Thanks.
//Jesper
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mechman
The 115 - 0.67 means .67 of 1/48th of an ounce of Magenta. I have no idea how it would translate over there but I'd bet you could figure it out with some help from the local paint store. :T
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J
mechman said:
The 115 - 0.67 means .67 of 1/48th of an ounce of Magenta. I have no idea how it would translate over there but I'd bet you could figure it out with some help from the local paint store. :T
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:blink: How does that work? I do not understand the math behind it, especially what the ratio to the base paint is???

Thanks.
//Jesper
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mechman
Go to your paint store. They may understand it even though it is a US method of tinting paint. I have no idea how they do it in Europe (Yiannis - maybe you can shed some light on this?).

When you order a gallon (or quart) of paint here in the US, the computer will tell the clerk a certain code that the machine will need in order to match the color correctly. Depending upon what store you go to the codes may vary. For C&S Ultra ™, the code applies to the base paint recommended which is Valspar available at Lowes here. And their tinting machines use that particular code for tinting their paint.

If you were to go to your local paint store and say that you needed a matte white base tinted with their magenta tint to approximately .67 of 1/64th of an ounce, they may be able to help you convert it to whatever their system uses. Then again, they may not. It would be wise to try and find a store with a knowledgeable person at the paint counter.
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mechman
.67 of 1/48th of an ounce would come out to somewhere between 1/71 and 1/72 of an ounce.
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J
29.5
mechman said:
.67 of 1/48th of an ounce would come out to somewhere between 1/71 and 1/72 of an ounce.
Click to expand...
Yes, if translated to european terms. One Fl. oz is 29.5 mililiter. This means that 0.67*(29.5/48)=0.41 Ml.

1 Gallon is 3785 ml. Adding 0.41 ml to that will not make any diffence:nerd: So the question is what amount of paint the 1/71 of an once should be added to. It cannot be a Gallon. Even a quart would not look diffent. Hmm what to do, what to do.... Maybe I should just skip the Magenta altogether....:doh:
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O
After the mix is done, the paint still looks white, the magenta is barely noticeable, but I agree, .41ml of magenta on a gallon (almost 4 liters) sounds like it would not do anything. I have not paid attention to the formula you used for the conversion of english to metric, but it sounds like might be incorrect.

So, I would say to have them add that amount anyway instead of skipping the magenta.
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Y
mechman said:
Go to your paint store. They may understand it even though it is a US method of tinting paint. I have no idea how they do it in Europe (Yiannis - maybe you can shed some light on this?).

When you order a gallon (or quart) of paint here in the US, the computer will tell the clerk a certain code that the machine will need in order to match the color correctly. Depending upon what store you go to the codes may vary. For C&S Ultra ™, the code applies to the base paint recommended which is Valspar available at Lowes here. And their tinting machines use that particular code for tinting their paint.

If you were to go to your local paint store and say that you needed a matte white base tinted with their magenta tint to approximately .67 of 1/64th of an ounce, they may be able to help you convert it to whatever their system uses. Then again, they may not. It would be wise to try and find a store with a knowledgeable person at the paint counter.
Click to expand...
The same procedure is followed in Europe too Mech. You go to the store and give the NCS or RAL code in order to have your mix. Since these codes are universal, there's no problem. The problem is when the base paint in use has different properties from the one that Don proposes. For example, it's different the base paint of B.M. to Caparol's. I believe the same thing happens with US paints. So, in order to create CS ultra, we have to know the properties of base paint aka Valspar and therefore trying to find a similar paint to start with.
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J
But does anybody know the NCS or RAL value of the tinted paint, then I'm good to go! If a such exists?

//Jesper
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mechman
I doubt there is an RAL or NCS code for it. The magenta is added in order to keep the mix neutral. As Yiannis stated, it would be difficult to match the base paint to a European version as we don't have data on everything needed.

And it is added to a quart of paint, not a gallon.
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J
Alright, thank you to everybody for the effort.
//Jesper
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Y
Jesper, if i may, you can check out this one if is easier to find:

http://www.hometheatershack.com/for...l-tint-codes-known-finishes-2.html#post612570
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J
Unfortunately I cannot find that either. But I will just need to understand one thing. Is the adding of magenta for the purpose of:

1) Adjusting the color of the white base to make it neutral?
or
2) Adjusting the color of the added silver paint.

If it is no. one, I can try to find a color neutral white flat paint here.

Thanks.
//Jesper
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mechman
The magenta's purpose is to tint the base paint so that when the silver is added, the resulting paint is neutral. That is our goal here and it should be everyone's goal when it comes to screens. A neutral screen reflects the image back accurately from a color standpoint.
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Philnick
Water- or oil-based Kilz?

A year on, I finally bought the 30 oz can of Valspar Signature Flat white paint with the 115-0.625 tint.

Went to the shelf to get primer, since my "original Cream&Sugar" screen has now been gouged again and patched with a filler that was actually light tan in color!

But I was stopped by the choice between water- and oil-based Kilz.

Which should I use? The surface is drywall.

Or should I just paint over the patch with a little of my Sherwin Williams Luminous White (assuming it's still usable), let it dry, and apply a coat of Cream&Sugar Ultra?

Phil
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mechman
I would never use oil based inside. Stick with the water based! :T
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Philnick
Thanks for responding! I had pretty much figured that out from searching through this thread and its predecessor, where I found a picture of the water-based Kilz.

That plus realizing that oil-based is much harder to clean up after and would probably have worse fumes - I guess it's intended for outdoor use, where being waterproof is at a much higher priority!

I was concerned by the notation somewhere in this thread that this screen is brighter than the original C&S, being a 9.2 rather than a 9.0 - until I figured out that's less than a 2.23% difference - visible only if you're looking for it - and certainly within the calibration range of a projector like my old Panny PT-AE2000.

During movie viewing, the only light sources other than the projector are the pilot lights on my equipment stack, which I keep dimmed since they face the screen.

The ceiling and walls are flat white (and the side walls are pretty far away and cluttered with dark furniture), so the reflected light has never degraded the image - just made it possible to see the snacks we're eating!

Since this is going over an existing C&S layer, would one coat each of primer and C&S Ultra be enough? I only did one coat of C&S for the original screen, and didn't even use primer that time, since the wall had already been painted with flat white latex.

I have a 64 oz plastic bucket with lid and an egg-beater style drill attachment. I'll punch a hole in the lid to run the drill attachment up through, to mix the 30 oz of Valspar and the Liquitex. I suppose I then could then put a second such bucket next to it, pour half of the mixture into it, and thin out each bucket's contents with 7.5 oz of distilled water. If I have any left over after covering my 9.5' by 5.25' screen, I could cover that with the unpunctured lid and put it aside for future use!
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Y
If you roll, i would say to go with 2 coats.
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