A trip to the paint department of my local hardware store discovered:
Performix PlastiDip - spray on rubber coating "insulates vibration, heat, and deadens sound"


I am in the process of modding a Sonata case with AcoustiPack acoustic dampening material, but I am thinking about all the areas that can not be covered, i.e. the large area behind the motherboard. So I plan to spray this interesting looking rubber paint there, in the case corners, on the side of my drive bays, and anywhere else I can find that makes sense.

Bluefront found a similar product that he used in a more limited application. Has anyone else used a similar product, or see any potential problems with my plan?

Thanks for feedback - this group continues to amaze me with the broad experience and willingness to share it.[/b]

hmmm sounds like a good idea. my main concerns would be:

1) does it smell?
2) is it flammable?
3) is it easy to clean off?
4) what colour is it?
5) will it degrade over time? (which leads to point 3)

apart from that, sounds good.

smell: nothing terrible when applied, although it comes with the standard "use adequate ventilation" warning.

flammable: certainly is in the liquid state because it contains solvents. Doesn't seem to be any reason to think it will be flammable after it cures since they recommend it for battery trays and such.

easy to clean off: includes suggestions to mask anything you don't want overspray on, but also claims it can be removed from most surfaces with a list of solvents (naphtha, xylene, or tolune).

color: comes in black, yellow, clear, blue, and white.

degrade over time: no idea on this one. Seems I can't keep a computer more than 14 months anyway

Is this approved for indoor use? I'd be a bit worried if the material releases fibres (remember asbestos). Check to see if you can find out what chemicals it contains, and then http://www.msdsonline.com. Usually Im all for this stuff, just in a paranoid mood tonight.

This will definitely help that.

I am going to make one before I go out of the house today.

I always wear one, with a wig on top of it so "they" can't even tell I'm wearing it. Hahahahahahaha!!

Ralf and JimK may find this humorous, however, something weird is definintely going on,

1. Bush sends a space ship to Mars.

2. I went to the grocery store last night and there was a shortage of aluminum foil.

3. Ralf posts the link to the AFDB, thinking that we'll be fooled into thinking that it's just a hoax!

Coincidence? I think not!

Rather than looking up what chemicals are in the stuff, and then tracking down a bunch of different MSDS sheets, it might be easier to contact the vendor and get an MSDS on the product itself. These days just about any product that might be used in a business connection (IOW, all products) are going to be required to have MSDS sheets.

This is probably a better approach since some of the hazard (if any) may come from the combination of chemicals, or something that's scary by itself may be used in such small quantity as not to be a problem, but you can't tell that from an ingredient list.

(BTW, I would expect the stuff to be relatively inert once it's dried, though you probably wouldn't want to use it on food prep areas.... (I remember asbestos, and have done a bit of research into it, turns out that it's only a major hazard in a very few limited cases, which the media blew way out of proportion))

Gooserider

Following your advice Gooserider I wrote the company and they politely emailed me the MSDS sheets. My take on it is that yes when liquid it's pretty nasty stuff, but when cured should not be volatile at all.

So before I put the dampening sheets in my new Sonata, I'm going to spray a few key areas with rubber paint. I'll let you know how it goes.

http://www.plastidip.com/uselisting.pdf

it offers a long list of possible applications but also posts a disclaimer that the company is not liable for any damages it causes. I don't trust it. Maybe if they offered a temperature range and estimated lifespan, then I'd be happy.

Or wait, would that be covered in the MSDS thing y'all were speaking of?

gooserider, i've never heard that asbestos was blown out of proportion. I wouldn't be suprised if it was, but I had never heard that. Do you have any good articles/books on the subject?

Aren't aluminum hats supposed to act as Faraday shields? So if you want them to protect you from more than sunburn, you'll need to ground them. Perhaps you could run a multi-strand wire down your back and fan the conductors out across the ground. Ralf, you'll need a wig with a wicked-long ponytail.

nah you'd only need one of those wireless grounding wristbands - just paste one of those up there.

OK, so I rigged this up. There's tinsel woven into each of my dreadlocks. Do you think this'll do the trick?

LOL!! Ralf Nutter!

George Clinton is the man!

You know, I'd always thought you were Scandinavian, not Jamaican.

I'm Northern European, I just get a lot of sun here in SoCal.

Application complete. I think I like this stuff. Is it wonder material? No. But does it add a tool to the quiet case/dampening effort? Does for me.

The interior of my Sonata is now finished. I used that wide blue painters tape to cover off all my openings before spraying so there would be no overspray on the outside of the case. This product acts, smells, and goes on just like spray paint. But when it dries it feels like those rubber handles on your pliers or crescent wrench. Because it's bonded to the metal, you can feel a definite dulling of the sound when you thump the case. It's not revolutionary, but it's subdued.

I sprayed it on all the interior corners where there would be connections between the AcoustiPack foam that I was going to put on next, any small areas where no foam could be placed, and behind the motherboard. I also sprayed all of removable door since that seemed like a place that could transmit sound, with special care to coat lips and edges where the door rests against the case. That metal to metal connection is now lined with a film of rubber.

The thin metal insert that holds your motherboard ports was also heavily sprayed. That piece has always seemed the most tinny part of any case to me. I slid my motherboard in place after everything dried and the feeling of those now rubber coated tabs gripping the metal on the ports felt far more quiet and isolated.

There is no way I know to scientifically determine if this treatment actually dampened anything, but I know when I slide that door into place it feels a lot better to (not) hear rubber than it did to hear metal locking into metal.

One can is enough to put 2 coats on most all of the inside. For the few dollars and little time this took, I suspect I'll do it again the next time I build a new system.

No pointers off the top of my head, but I can give the short form story... There are two forms of asbestos commonly used for insulation, grey and red.

Grey is what is used for 95+% of all applications. It is relatively inert, doesn't shed fibers that are a particular health hazard, (it comes apart in large chunks that don't make dust and don't float in the air...) and especially when not disturbed is essentially harmless. The problem is that it's very vulnerable to damage from salt water, which makes it useless in marine applications (like ship boilers)

Red asbestos is the nasty stuff, it's very fragile, sheds fibers, and makes dust that causes long term cumulative damage. However it's highly resistant to salt water damage, so it got used in a great many WWII vintage Navy and Merchant vessels, and other applications where salt water resistance was needed. Of course since it was a cumulative damage type thing, most people don't have a huge need to worry about this, only folks who had heavy duty exposure, like asbestos workers, ship builders, etc. It was about the time that the whole environmental scene started heating up that people noticed that the NY asbestos workers union had one of the richest retirment plans in the country, basically because none of it's members (who had heavy red asbestos exposure) lived long enough to retire... The publicity people, the media, and the litigation lawyers all jumped on the 'asbestos is bad' bandwagon without bothering to sort out the red / grey difference (after all, it people got more alarmed if ALL asbestos was blamed for a fairly small problem)

BTW, I have also seen claims that 9/11 wouldn't have been so bad if it werent for the asbestos scare! The original plans for the building called for (grey) asbestos coating on all the steel, but because of the uproar, only the lower floors of the buildings were coated, the floors where the planes hit were not. At least some engineering studies suggest that the steel would have held up long enough to get the fires out and evacuate the structures if it had been coated per the original specs....

Gooserider

whoa, good stuff. It seems like they would either coat the entire building or not coat it at all... I guess cold air comes in the bottom or something?

There are a few good environmental causes I suppose - most seem to be well intended but half-baked though. Thanks for the info., I had never heard of the red/grey variations and remember having asbestos removed from my elementary school. At the time I didn't think I'd live to be fifty and even though my "exposure" was only a few years, I'm relieved to read your post because we were no where near salt water.

Douglas Bailey, did you coat where the PSU touches the case in the back? I wouldn't coat the bottome b/c it may cause the PSU not to line up with the case's screw holes.

I sprayed into the corners around where the PSU mounts, so yes a thin overspray coat is covering most of the metal in that area. Film thickness isn't much of a concern with this stuff, especially since I mounted my PSU with a silicone gasket between the case. That is many times thicker than the rubber paint and it all worked fine.

I always have trouble lining the PSU holes up with the case holes when using a silicone gasket - is there some trick to installing one?

Trip, the reason the WTC steel was only coated part way up was tht the building was under construction at the time the early bans went into effect. first the raw steel was put up, then it was coated, and finally it was covered by additional structure. The lower floors of both towers were mostly complete when the ban started, so they left them alone and switched to a concrete coating on the upper floors. The planes hit above the transition point in each case, and the shock and flames broke the coating integrity. The flames were then able to soften the steel sufficiently that the buildings collapsed. The originally specified asbestos coating would not have allowed the flames to reach the steel, and the fires could have eventually been put out. Obviously, this wouldn't have helped those killed by the initial crash or fires, and they probably would have still condemed the towers afterwards, but we wouldn't have had the major losses from the collapse.

Gooserider

Just noticed you're in Seattle (I'm in Bellingham). Where did you get this stuff?

Found mine at a HomeDepot store. I suspect there are a number of hardare/paint places around that carry it.

Ralf, your tinsel rig... I mean... wig won't work. The site you linked has an FAQ-type section that warns against using tinsel, since "tinsel is made of plastic". Back to the drawing board!

NO! Tinsel is the ONLY thing that works.

So, Trip, you're saying that the official site Ralf linked to is part of a big conspiracy to dissuade us from using tinsel, the only truly effective counter-psychotronic material known to man?

That group has been infiltrated by the CIA since around the time of the 2'nd Korean War.