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PAINTING ON PLASTIC

Q. I WOULD LIKE TO STENCIL DESIGN'S ON PLASTIC BUCKETS. WHEN I DO IT SCRAPES OFF EASILY. WHAT DO I NEED TO DO TO STOP THIS?

NANCY BIDDLE
- WASHINGTON, NC, U.S.A.
2001

A. Nancy,

You didn't spec the bucket material which one assumes was ordinary Polyethylene ... and ah, you are out of luck as nothing really sticks to PE.

There is one thing you might try. If you used a WAXED marker pencil or crayon (Pe being a short chain Paraffin type polymer) and THEN heated it up ... i.e., by passing a flame over it ... that should work pretty well and you should then achieve an indelible marking! Give it a try, OK.

Cheers embed itself into the material.

Freeman Newton [deceased]
(It is our sad duty to advise that Freeman passed away
April 21, 2012. R.I.P. old friend).
2001

A. There are epoxy based primers that will adhere to polyolefins which your pail is probably made from. These however require a bake of 250 °F to activate after application. If you could find a safe method of doing this you could then paint over this with a variety of other coatings.

Ron Zeeman
Continuous Colour Coat - Brampton, Ontario, Canada
2002

Q. Hmmm, this feels rather odd but here goes nothing! I have a plastic Paintball mask that I continually paint a design onto with white paint. The paint easily comes off simply by rubbing it, but what then happens is if I get a little careless and get shot in the head a lot of the design is removed. How would I go about doing this? Would the wax pencil help? And how much of a design can you get with it, I have one design of a bird on the middle of it all and then I have white lines and the such going outward. I have looked around but I am unsure of what plastic it exactly is made of but it feels like most regular plastics even though some of it is rubber, only a section of it is rubber but the plastic part is the part thats been giving me grief. Anyone able to help me out?

Eric Nette
- Germantown, Maryland, USA
2003

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