Looking for high light absorbent black paint

[LabRat]

Let's try this again (dumb fone), which housing???

Steve K

[Luis-F-S]

Are you touching up the inside of your enlarger dichroic head? If so, I'd just use a flat black matt enamel paint and be done with it. L

[Jac@stafford.net]

Are you touching up the inside of your enlarger dichroic head? If so, I'd just use a flat black matt enamel paint and be done with it. L

I second Luis' suggestion. In my long experience, Testor's Flat Black #1147-rm11471-0611 is more than adequate, easy to apply, and durable.

In my shop I have a Leitz enlarger cooling head device painted in the product. I an only 'see' it because it is the part of the scene I cannot 'see'.

[jim10219]

One thing to help is to keep the surface from being too smooth or shiny. A light dusting of some ultra fine powder to some wet paint, followed by more paint will often do it. I've used paprika for this. Though if it's a place where you don't want to be introducing dust, that may not be a good idea.

I've always wanted to try that Black 2.0 paint. It's cheap enough to be worth playing around with.

[Eric Woodbury]

I've found the flocking materials to be best outside of materials we use for satellite imagers. For black paint, I like the UFB (Ultra Flat Black) made by Krylon. The name may have changed.

Low reflectance is all about surface texture and baffling. You should check in with astronomers. They are very picky about their telescopes.

[Greg]

Let's try this again (dumb fone), which housing???

Steve K

Inside of the 4x5 reflex housing on a Nikon Multiphot.
Greg

[MMELVIS]

BBQ grill hi temp paint in the aerosol can or chalkboard paint.

[Nodda Duma]

I've found the flocking materials to be best outside of materials we use for satellite imagers. For black paint, I like the UFB (Ultra Flat Black) made by Krylon. The name may have changed.

Low reflectance is all about surface texture and baffling. You should check in with astronomers. They are very picky about their telescopes.

I can say the same for the imaging systems I’ve worked on.

Krylon Ultra Flat Black is still made, but unfortunately the binder was reformulated for low VOC and so it’s not quite the same really low broadband spectral reflectivity as it was, say, 15 years ago. I think it is probably still fine for use when it’s not appropriate to mix up chemglaze or pull out other really high priced optical blacks.

[Drew Wiley]

Gosh that Krylon is soft and crumbly over time, and just itches to get dust stuck to it (somewhat electrostatic). Wrong binder indeed. I can't even find a decent dull black wall paint for the darkroom anymore. Needs a bit of oil emulsion in it in order to resist static and scuffing. Or you can go straight to oil enamels for a new installation (wouldn't do it in a working darkroom where film and paper are already stored). But even those are getting scarce in terms of real quality. Last winter I simply retouched the walls with Black Cat ink - worked better than any water-based paint.

[Greg]

Was talking with a friend (who is a serious model RR hobbyist), and he told me that he has and will give me a small can of some of his really, really flat black paint. He found the paint at a tag/garage sale. Unfortunately at some point in the past the paper label on the can came off and was discarded, so we have no idea of the brand. Plans are to spray multiple coats onto the interior of the Muliphot's reflex housing with an air brush, after carefully masking the unit to prevent overspray. He told me it is actually noticeably a bit better than the current Krylon Ultra Flat Black.

Thanks to everyone for all the comments on this thread.