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Hello, I’m a fairly new scenic and was asked about the flamex paint additive as a method to fire proof drops. Now I’ve never had to fireproof a drop before – all of the drops I’ve worked on were being painted over old drops so they had already been fireproofed.
Have any of you used the flamex paint additive for your drops before? Does it cause any discoloration of the paint? Have you had an experience of paints molding more quickly that had the additive mixed in?
Do you have a preferred method of fire proofing drops?
Thanks so much!
Short answer – yes you can, BUT it might not pass a flame test if used alone. It will definitely help, but you might still need to do an all over treatment at the end.
Long Answer-
To properly use Flamex PA you need to add one bottle for every gallon of paint you mix — ie after you have mixed the colors and added water to proper thinness for your needs.
So for example let’s say you mixed up 4 1/2 gallons of different shades of blue for a cloud drop and then you thinned each one out to make 2gallons each cause you don’t want a thick crunchy drop. You would then need to use 8 bottles of the PA. (2 each per color). And the kicker is the thickness of the dried paint might not be thick enough for the Flamex to work and pass a flame test. If that happens the next step would be applying another Flame Retardent to the entire drop after you are finished- a common product to try would be Flamex NF.If you want the super long answer – there are 3 articles on our Scenic Route Blog all about the use of Flame Retardants and tips for painting flame retardant drops — 7 ways to Screw Up Your Flame Retarding, Paint Off: NFR vs FR, and Playing with Fire.
I’d love to hear what methods you went with- so let us know how your project worked!!
In response to a preferred method of flame retarding, after trial and error Cobalt landed on a product called Inspecta-shield. After we have painted a drop, it gets flipped over and stapled back down to be sprayed with this product (we use hudsons). We also have a certifier in Albany and rarely do our “in house” burn samples fail, but if they do we just put another coat on the drop. It doesn’t add noticeable weight. However, it does smell like salty sweaty sneakers, but the smell is manageable (we use animal glue size, so Inspecta-shield is nothing comparatively) and if we do it before we leave for the day, it mostly dissipates overnight.
@cobaltgosa can you tell me why you landed on Inspecta-Shield after much trial and error? What did you find superior about the product?
Inspecta shield Plus (I just double checked the actual name) does not leave any oiliness behind or shift the color that we’ve noticed. I find it to be less complicated to apply than a paint additive. While it has an odor, it’s not a noxious odor or chemically smell. It’s definitely present for a half day or so, but to my knowledge has not affected any of our people in a physical manner like headaches or nausea. A big plus is that our supplier also certifies for a very reasonable price and they are incredibly nice people who we have built a nice partnership with. They are only 2 hours away so if we need something certified last minute, we can drive the sample if needed. It works consistently and is readily available in our area for an affordable amount. It is the only thing we use on our drops. And after a while, the smell can be kind of comforting… like “ah, another job done.”
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