EXPERT ADVICE
Acetone
Paint
May
Turn
Green
www.callape.com
[36]
E
very once in a while, I get a call
asking why a customer’s white
paint turned a lovely shade of
minty green. I always know it’s the
acetone paint, and the answer to the
question is that it somehow reacts with
older asphalt. I’ve had no issues with lay-
outs on newer asphalt. I’ve also had no
issues with simple restripes. No matter
the cause, the fix is easy: Just stripe it
again. I bid two coats. The second coat
should cover it all. And, since stencils get
a second coat anyway, it’s an easy fix.
Safer AND Track-Free
In my native Ohio, oil-based traffic
marking paint has been outlawed be-
cause it contains volatile organic com-
pounds (VOC) that hurt the ozone.
Since 2005 acetone paint instantly be-
came our official cool weather paint.
Nothing dries more quickly, and I’ve
had no tracking issues. Tracking, to me,
occurs when paint may be dry, but not
thoroughly cured. Then, when a car
drives over your new stripes, stop bars
or cross walks, dirt is tracked and im-
bedded into the paint. You’ll have tire
marks. Bummer.
I’ll never forget two stop bar projects.
One was in summer, and the other was
in the fall. The summer job was a hos-
pital’s open parking lot. There were 25
stop bars that needed to be resprayed. I
placed two strips of masking tape along
the 24-inch dimension. I sprayed from
the tape toward the curb. I slightly over-
lapped five or six of the 12-foot stripes
and built it out to a width of 24 inch-
es. I pulled the tape and stood there for
less than a minute. I stepped on the dry
paint, saw no tracking and moved on to
the next. Sometimes I rode over the new
bar. Yes, it was summer -- but, again, ac-
etone dries quickly and I saw no track-
ing.
The fall job was similar but includ-
ed crosswalks. I remember leaving the
house following Thanksgiving dinner,
1.800.210.5923