[NTLK] Colour my Newton

[Gordon Stuart]

I have been following the topic no the coating on the Newton becoming sticky
and members wanting different colours for their housings.

 

Most of the colour we see of our Newtons comes from the "Soft touch" that
has been applied to the outside of the housing.

 

It is a 2 part polyurethane paint that both provides both the colour  and
the soft to touch feel of Newton.

 

If you wanted to change the colour of the housing you could carefully clean
off the old paint and have it repainted with a new colour soft touch paint.
This would be more cost effective than having tooling made and mouldings new
housings.

 

Some of the difficulties in using the soft touch paint is that it needs to
be applied by an experienced painter with the required equipment and
ventilation booth - the paint has a short pot life and emits serious
volatiles during the application process.

 

Soft touch paint is a thick paint so the housings would need to be masked to
ensure the paint did not cover mating surfaces.

 

You would be limited to colour range of the paint manufacturers.

 

I have seen clear soft touch paint spray cans are available but I have no
idea of how good they are.  So it might be possible to repaint the housing
with your desired colour and apply the soft touch finish afterwards.

 

A few links of interest:

 

https://www.plasticsdecorating.com/stories/110416/soft-touch-painting-gainin
g-market-share.shtml

 

https://alsacorp.com/soft-touch-paint-urethane-paint/

 

https://www.coatings.covestro.com/en/Applications/Automotive-Transportation/
OEM-Plastic/Soft-touch

 

http://customcreationpaints.co.uk/soft-touch-spray%20cans

 

My 2 bob's worth

 

Gordon