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Plastidip - a tool for techies

Mon, 25 Aug 2008, 08:09 pm
Na8 posts in thread
I thought I would post a little bit of a review on this product for techies. What's Plastidip? It's a special spray-on or dipping liquid rubber. It's used to cover the handles of tools, but can be used on a range of other items. You can remove the rubber easily - it's like the stuff that comes on plastic-covered coathangers. Three to four coats is recommended as a minimum to get a good rubber cover; but the spray is quite thin and I'd bet about 10 coats would be good. It should be noted: Plastidip has to be used outside or in an extremely well-ventilated area. The fumes are very strong, and there are a number of health and safety concerns using this product. If you buy it, read the safety documents before using it. I bought myself an aerosol can from the Aussie retailer (this is an American product) on ebay. I am using it to coat shadow puppet rods. Initially, I 'hung' the rod from some small lengths of cotton thread, inside a box where I could control the spraying. This didn't work so well, making it difficult to get even coatings. I then tried simply placing the rod on top of some paper cups, and coating each side. This works better, but still requires coating one side of the rod at a time. It is suggested that I now try inserting the rod into an old screwdriver and spraying as the rod rotates. The Plastidip is quite a good product, but it has issues in terms of applications, safety, etc. I wish I'd gotten the dipping can instead of the spray. (More info below the pics) Here's the info on where to get Plastidip: http://myworld.ebay.com.au/plastidip/ They send from QLD, so shipping was about $30 to Melbourne (sadly). I got the Performix Plastidip in spray can form.

other applications

Sat, 30 Aug 2008, 08:31 am

Na, could you tell me if this spray has insulation properties? (electrical, not thermal) That is, would it be useful to coat/cover a connected wire instead of using heat shrink plastic or temco (self-adhesive butyll) tape?

BTW... covering your shadow puppet rods could be done with heat shrink tubing.... comes in a range of diameters from 4mm up to 40mm and each shrinks to approx 1/3 it's diameter when heated by either a hair dryer (on high!!) or a "heat gun". this would also give a non reflective, slip resistant covering.

"Be nice to your Tech's - or they'll turn out the lights and go home!"

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