House paint gone bad!

I am an adventurous fella and decided to try out some satin black house paint as I have read some of you guys do. Instead of a great, scuff free black, I got a very thin layer of orange peeley grey. No opacity and no thickness. What did I do wrong? I mixed it with some black I had lying around and it ended up going on really well.

I have a run of posters coming up that I have bought house paint for also and don't want them to go to waste. Have I read that I can mix house paint with Speedball Transparent Base (wallpaper pastey stuff) to give it some thickness? Or should I use the Extender Base (elmers gluey stuff)?

I know you say to add floetrol to help with the orange peeling, which I will gladly do on the color run. I was just surprised that the black was so thin.

I'm using 230-320 mesh and printing on non-coated stock (French) by the way.

We mix house paint with speedball black to ensure good opacity and make it less runny. Adding transparent base will do the opposite of what you're trying to achieve however, and make it more transparent... you need to add something to it with more pigment.

We just use mostly TW black now just because it's easier, nice solid black and no chalky texture.

I'm considering painting my house with TW ink.

But then again I don't actually have a house.

i recently tried this but used the Liquitex 'Liquithick' paint thickener that i had laying around. It turned out perfectly. I tried it with a semi-gloss red and a matte black. It doesn't effect the transparency at all, as far as i can tell, because of how little you use. It is surprising how little of that stuff you need to really gel up that house paint. I found it at my local Art supply store. I don't know how applicable it may be to your printing, but its another option.

Alot of 50's A/ E guys used house paint . Alot of their paintings are falling apart . The medium is not meant to last more then a few years

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Originally Posted by ricv64

Alot of 50's A/ E guys used house paint . Alot of their paintings are falling apart . The medium is not meant to last more then a few years

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Of course today's paint technology is not comparable to the 50s.

I was going to say the same thing.

that lead paint was awesome. Delicious, too.

In my experience black is the toughest to get right with paint. I have a better time with bright colors.

How many times are you coating your screen? Some housepaint is not very opaque - what kind are you using? If you've determined this particular black is too transparent, you can compensate by thickening up the stencil and/or hitting it twice (make sure screen doesn't move). Also, try using a "push" stroke instead of a pull (just don't mix push and pull on same run or registration will be off).

If price is a reason you are using paint, I'd say use paint for the colors but stick to a cheap screen printing black like Blick brand or Union Aerotex, both of which print very deep blacks through 280 mesh for me.

There's a plane in the sky. What does it mean?

Thanks so much for the thoughtful reply.

I will be starting the orange and green run soon. I coat 1:1 and usually do a couple passes with a push stroke to assure good coverage.

Price really isn't the reason--I just can't match this orange and green to be exactly what it needs to be. I'd be more than willing to pay someone to mix the inks for me but I'm afraid I'd get back something different than what I want!