Painting EPP foam

[Wayne]

Ran across this just now. Anyone try it?

When painting EPP, do not use water-soluble acrylic paint with water, but rather dilute it with denatured alcohol.
For light colors like yellow: 20% paint, 80% denatured alcohol. For darker colors like red, blue, etc.: 30% paint, 70% denatured alcohol.
Simply saturate the parts with a thick brush, roller, sponge, or similar tool.
I mean really saturate them, not just apply a thin coat. Immersion is also a good option.
Store them overnight in a warm room; this will allow all the denatured alcohol to evaporate, and, for example, a complete 80cm model will only weigh 3-5 grams more.

 

[thenated0g]

can confirm that water based acrylic does add a ton of weight. I have also tried lightly spraying rattle cans. Sounds like we need to try a test on some 1x1 epp to see what it actually does.

 

[Wayne]

Yeah, I saw some pictures from the same source with colored epp planes, but do not know if that was the painting method used. They looked a lot better than spray paint om EPP, but would not call it great.

We used to sell the FSST and family of wings in colors, those he was using a modified inkjet printer, but the effect was similar to spray paint with washed out colors. Darker colors like Blue Green and Black worked Ok, but lighter colors didn't work.