I’m pleased that my technique for applying textured silicone to vellum is working for the people who have tried it.
Cheers!

In the interest of making this even easier, I’ve improved on the technique to apply the silicone.

I now thin it with Zylol at a 1:1 ratio, mix well, and pour it onto the vellum. Here’s the cool part that makes it easy-peasy.
I roll it out over the surface with a foam rubber paint roller like the ones they have at hardware stores.
The texture produced is micro-bumps on the surface. I applied two coats, and now the silicone layer is about half the thickness of the squeegie/fabric technique!

It produces blobs with a light touch, but it still needs a few more coats to be as sensative as the squeegie style sheet.  With this technique of application, it’s even easier to get a good, even coat of silicone onto the vellum so building it up in several layers is not so hard to do. It just takes a little wait time between coats. I waited an hour on the first one. It felt like it was cured up pretty well after 30 minutes, but I gave it another 30 minutes to be sure it wouldn’t lift.

I think I’ll make more and do about 5 or 6 coats.

Here’s a how-to video I made:

You can clean the roller pretty easily with the zylol and a rag. Just get the roller wetted out with the zylol, then roll out the excess onto the rag. Dispose of the rag in a fireproof container or hang it to dry. NEVER put solvent soaked rags in the trash. They can self ignite.

Have fun rollin the silicone!

Great work , love to see the results and see how it compares to your other technique.

Taha

Great work =)

Awaiting results video Do you see any issues doing this and not applying it to vellum, but some other projection surface?

You’re right Tinkerman, it IS a beautiful thing!

I too am interested with the results of this technique. Keep up the great work!

cerupcat - 06 July 2008 09:04 PM

Great work =)

Awaiting results video Do you see any issues doing this and not applying it to vellum, but some other projection surface?

I actually rolled some onto a scrap of acrylic. It goes on really thin and cures with a micro-bumpy texture.
I think you could roll this mixture onto just about anything you want to, including Rosco.

I’m going to add two more layers of this mixture to the sheet I’m making now. Four layers total and I might have a .010” thick layer of silicone when I’m done.
Each layer is only about .003” thick after it cures.
Funny thing about this mix, 50% of it will simply evaporate. When it goes on it will look like it’s a lot, but after it cures it’s really thin, but very, very even.

I should have a results video up by tomorrow sometime.

Nice simply application using a roller, Im getting a roll of double matt drafting film, so il test it on a small piece just incase the solvent melts it!!!

very good job, I see the video as seen with FTIR,
to see if they give us a “how to” pdf to do, you are not sure materials

muy buen trabajo

After I get some of these techniques tested and finalized, I will then put some how-to PDFs on my website for download.

A “how to” PDF sounds like an amazing idea to me

Im trying the Roller approach at the moment. ive ended up having to buy some “cellulose thinner” from an autopaint shop as Xylol/Toluene doesnt seem too easy to get in the UK. Hopefully itll all work out OK

Keep up the good work everyone

Al

Excellent Work Tinkerman! This method looks a lot easier than the sliding bar silicone rubber approach, but how good are the results?

Also, have you tried it in slightly different proportions? It might be interesting to weigh each part separately and to see how different ratio’s compare. This method certainly looks promising, I can’t wait to see more

Well then… wait no more

Here’s a few pics:

First, here’s an extreme closeup of the rolled on texture -

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This is a 1:1 ratio mix poured onto acrylic and smoothed out with a straight edge a la sorta kinda 40
It measures about .010"/.254mm thick…

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This is a piece of the silicone I peeled from the mixing container. It’s about .010"/.254 mm thick and pretty tough stuff.
It still smells of xylol so it’s still curing a bit. I poured it only 8 hours prior to this photo.

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HERE’S AN IDEA!

If you coated a sheet of glass with some type of release agent (PVA, wax, cooking spray...) you could set it up level,
pour an extra thin batch of this stuff out on the glass and let it spread out and self level! No tools or scrapers required.
Once it cures, you then peel off your sheet of silicone!

I’m still working on my test sheet. I want to get one more coat on it before I remove it from “the rack”.
I’ll post a video of the results later.

Right now, I’m going to set things up to test this piece of silicone coated acrylic and post a video.
I should have results posted in a few hours.

~~~

Hey,

I tried the Roll on method yesterday, when i came back today to see if my sheets had dried they were still sticky.  Are they meant to be sticky?

Anyway stuck them (no pun intended ) on my acrylic but didnt get any blobs at all! :-(

If the sheets are not meant to be sticky I guess I may have used a bad mix or my amount may have been out. Looking the videos and stuff the sheets look dry so maybe I need to put a thinner layer on or something?

Cheers,

Al

I’m also finding it very hard to get Xylol/Toluene around here, so I found a liquid silicone product that is used in construction to seal exposed bricks from water. The problem is it comes in a big and rather expensive bucket that should be enough for a few hundred screens. But it could work with the roll on technique.

Has anyone else seen that?

My test sheet is working as expected… it’s making great big blobs with a light touch.
This test piece is 4 layers thick. It has a nice even micro-bumpy texture.

I had a bit of fun with this video. It demos more than just the blobs in IR camera mode.
I ran the table through some paces to see how stable the blobs are in actual use.

... and yes, the “D” battery gets some screentime as a test object on the surface.

Lookin’ good, Tinkerman. Apart from this method being easier to replicate, how would you say the roll on and squeegee methods compare as far as blobs produced go?

Hello everybody.

Here in Germany, I found a Company selling 6 Liter Xylol for about 40€. I think thats a good Price. If anybody wants to buy it from me, perhaps I can fill it in a smaller package to save chipping coast. I only need about 1 Liter.

Greets