MG Chemicals - 838AR-340G 838AR Total Ground Carbon Conductive Paint, 12 oz Aerosol Spray Can

One day, I go to turn on my Novation Circuit and it's freaking out! She was making her own chaotic dubstep madness without my permission! That said, dubstep is not where I am at in life right now!!! I was saddened by this and my feeling was hurt. I looked for similar instances of possessed Novation Circuits online and found that I was not alone in my pain. There was only one thing to do... take it apart! Pulling the sulicone(rubber) pad off the bottom was a pain but not impossible. I peeled the pad back carefully as to not stretch it or tear it. Screws ahoy the rest of the teardown was simple. When I got inside the box it was pretty filthy. Dust is said to be the culprit in this specific malfunction and jeezus holy merry was it a grandmother's old jewelry box stuffed in the back of the closet, inside the Circuit box! Surprisingly there was no dust between the plastic contact layer and the copper touch circuits. All I had at the time of autopsy was acetone so I cleaned the copper contacts and then started wiping down the plastic contact sheet with the printed black conductive paint. DONT USE ACETONE ON THIS STEP!!! Stupid me, I started wiping off the black conductive paint almost immediately! I repeat... DONT USE ACETONE TO CLEAN ELECTRIC CONTACT PAINT!!! I was further saddened and my feeling was nearly crushed at this point! Did I give up hope and call my fun little beat box a wash? HELL NO!!! This just meant I got a little work to get done! The internet was hopeless on information on fixing pressure pad contacts for synths. I had to get creative! So I took to Amazon for assistance of course!!! Searching for electric contact paint led me to this product. As I use MG Chemicals for other DIY electronic projects I knew I could put my faith in their products and potentially bring my Novation Circuit back to a jam worthy state. It wasn't cheap for a can of paint but it was up the bizniss of what I thought I needed to do the thing I gotta do. After receiving the can a few days after hitting purchase, it took weeks too fester the bullocks to get on it... I did today... I did a test spray to compare resistance between the factory paint and the MG Chemicals paint. The MG was nearly if not more than double the resistance between distances but this was all I got and by golly gee whiz I was gonna do it anyways!!! Plus if it didn't work I still have a whole can of acetone by my side! So I cleared the rest of the factory contact paint with intention this time using acetone to give me a clean slate. Carefully masking off the area around the square pockets I prepped for spray pretty darn well and was proud of my work. I sprayed 2 good coats and a light finish coat pretty evenly. Not having a "clean room" sucks because dust loves fresh spray paint... all was not lost tho! Zona (another great item on Amazon) makes really fine sanding cloth. After a sufficient dry time(10-15 minutes(I have no patience for drying paint)) I started with 1200 grit and sanded the 3 particles of dust right down smooth and it hopefully evened out the pads to an even whatever... 2000 grit felt like a good grit to stop at as that's where my patience gave in and satisfaction settled. I then peeled back my masking job only for my pride to get bent a little too now. I reached again for ol' trusty acetone and made the best of what I could with the overspray that went under my proud masking job. It was sufficient enough at some point and the advice of an old Asian gentleman I once knew came into my head and said, "No Touchy Too Muchy!" Again with a settled satisfaction I moved on... I vacuumed everything twice and assembled the Circuit slowly and carefully knowing that this is when it usually goes wrong. Once again I dreamed of a dust free filtered clean room but who the hell has one of those in their shop!?! You just gotta do the best you can sometimes! Everything reassembled nicely and I even used a double stick tape to re-adhere the silicone bottomous. The time for redemption had come... my feeling was no longer hurt but was now anxious. I found a fitting plug and nodded to the powers that be... BEHOLD!!! She powered up better than before! At least I feel she did! Little Circuit's demon was exorcised! Her days of dubstep were long gone and her beats started making sense! She was off the Crack and back playing a groovy house beat like the good ol' days! Thank you MG Chemicals!!! You really did a service today saving the life of a groovy little beat box! ...not the best beat box I own but now I have a really deep personal and intimate relationship with the little Circuit and will always carry with me the fond memory of the day I saved my Novation Circuit thanks to MG Chemicals and their availability of some pretty unique products! Needless to say the sadness I had dulled long before I began working on this which really helped. I was not in a rush and the anxiety of losing my Circuit diminished. This became a case of learning from mistakes and bringing a new tool into my potential repertoire. I am happy all has worked out thus far and I can carry forth into my days knowing 1, when and where to use acetone B, MG Chemicals has my back and 3, It's not impossible... there is always a way! As for my feeling... rest be assured, it is safe as it should be...

I've never worked with shielding/conductive paint before, but did a fair amount of research and asking questions before jumping in. After looking at a few other brands of shielding paint, I went with this because it didn't seem cheap, but it didn't seem overpriced either. I am not recommending this as a better alternative to any brand or method. Just how this worked for me. I can speak a little to the process, but do your own research and be sure to practice safety precautions. Trust but verify anything I say here. The two project guitars are different enough, I think it's worth mentioning. Both had a spray finish applied, the mahogany body with nitrocellulose (purple), the ash body with polyurethane (red). Both also had some sort of either grain/pore filler or base coat applied as well. Inevitably, some of this would get into the cavities, so I got to see how this paint interacted with the different types of wood and also the types of finishes. If you just pop this open and start applying it, you're going to have a bad time. Get a respirator or heavy duty paint mask at least, gloves, and a good bit of lighting (I used a headlamp). Get your guitar ready to apply the conductive paint by making sure ANYTHING you don't want to get this stuff on is covered. Have a clean lint free cloth on hand to clean up splash and spills. Do not use a cloth to apply this by hand. Get some paint brushes, dip them deep in the mixture and kind of stir it up a bit each time. Then brush the tip against the inner rim of the jar to get off any excess that might drip. Apply it evenly to your guitar cavity. You can use the brush in an upward angle on the edges and just let it ever so slightly slide over the rim of the cavity (1mm or less). Let it dry 3 hours. Do 3 coats. Let it dry at least overnight, if not a whole 24 hours. I won't go into making sure everything is grounded properly - that's more nuanced than I have time for, but I hope this helps. Like all conductive paint, it does splash easily, although I've seen a couple of other brands in action that looked more prone to splatter. If you do spill some, dab and DO NOT wipe if you can help it. Wiping could scratch your guitar. If it's not fully dry, you can also scrape it away with even just a nail (but use gloves). Worked great, did the job really well and looks great. It's a dull, dark metallic gray. Wear that paint mask for your safety but also because this stuff smells pretty rotten until it dries.

The manufacturer is sly about what it is and doesn't give much documentation on application and usage. It took a lot of research to find that you need acetone for clean up even. You could probably make some sheilding paint up as good or better, but in the time it took the high expense of this paint won out again my overall available time. It works for radio frequency sheilding in guitar cavities. It sticks well and cures quickly. there is a little bit more than necessary to do all the cavities front and back , including tremolo recess on a stratocaster with S S S routes including output jack cavity. Probably enough for multiple guitars with less area to cover. In so much as the other intended uses like painting pcb boards and what not, I couldn't say. My only experience is using it as RF sheilding for guitar switch, jack, pickup and tremolo cavities. For that it did the job.

I am heavily into DIY electronic projects, most of which involve high gain, high impedance amplifier circuits that will buzz just by having a 1" section of input lead exposed. SO, I really need shielding, like really really. I designed a small array of universal boxes for breadboards and my various projects, and I 3d print them as needed, using mainly ESun ABS+ but also the occasional straight ABS or PETG. This stuff sticks fine to all of my plastics, and the little 150ml can goes a surprisingly long way. One thing - I noticed halfway through the can that the bottom had a deep sludge in it, about 1/2" to 3/4" thick, that was coagulated material. Reading another review here, I saw that he had used acetone as a thinner, and I decided to go for it and add some to try to stretch the can out by getting that sludge back into service. It worked *perfectly*. Pleased with the results but thinking I could benefit from making the paint even more thin, I added more acetone until the paint was very water-like, but still strongly silvery. I *really* like it like this. It flows beautifully and it's much easier to coat a surface before it's sludging up from drying, and it still dries super fast because, of course, acetone. If a spot looks too thin, like I can make out the underlying material, I just dip the tip of my brush in and swipe the area. Before I thinned it like this, my work would come out looking smeary, a bit like stucco. Now it looks much more pro, much more even and smooth. Clipping a meter (BK Precision 2405A) lead to one side of the last project box I did (for small breadboards, box is about 6"L x 3"W x 2"H) and probing around with the other lead, I get an almost perfectly consistent 4.8 ohms, and that's with a single coat all the way around the inside. I can't say enough about this stuff. I used to get the aerosol spray version but had lots of problems with it clogging up on me. Got a can of this thinking I might hate it, but oh **** no. I love it, and I'll never go back. Properly thinned, it's a dream to use, wastes next to nothing but a single brush and maybe one spilled drop, and it isn't flying around in the air. I can do a dozen boxes (and lids for them) easily on one can. Yes, its expensive, but it works GREAT, even for superhigh gain, superhigh impedance circuits like my LMC6081 op-amp projects. Truly wonderful stuff and if they ever stop making it, I'll be really lost. Thanks MG Chemicals! :-) Rick NR417

I’ve got a first year of production MIJ 1997 ESP Viper, which I love dearly. We recently moved and when I got back around to setting up my home studio again, I was getting a horrendous amount of buzz from my guitar. I mean, it was so bad that it was interfering with notes as they sustained out. No amount of repositioning myself in relation to my desk, monitor, ANYTHING, helped. After double checking all of the guitar wiring and grounds, unplugging everything in the room one by one, unplugging my router, etc.; I still wanted to yank my hair out. Now, if you know ESP, then you know that they’re some fine craftsman. Again, this is an ESP handmade in the Japanese facility back in the 90s. It’s not an LTD. Not that there’s anything wrong with LTD. It’s just apples and oranges. But, there was zero shielding anywhere in the guitar, except for some foil tape on the backside of the control cavity cover. I ordered this out of desperation really. My Hail Mary. It’s a small 12ml bottle, but there was enough for me to do 3 thick coats in all 3 cavities = the 2 pickup cavities and the control cavity. When you mix it, use something like a popsicle stick. If there’s any clumps, smash them with the stick until they break up. Stir well. Wipe the areas that you’ll paint with some alcohol. I did scuff the cavities with some sandpaper as best as I could beforehand, then used some compressed air to blow them out. Then the alcohol. Then mixed the paint again. Paint color is like a charcoal silver. I thought that I would prefer black, but I actually like the charcoal color because it’s easier to see if you missed any spots IMHO. Everything cleans up easily with a wet rag. Dry time between coats is around 15 minutes or so, depending on how thick your coats are. I didn’t rush it. Over the course of a couple hours I took my time to paint coats until the bottle ran out. As mentioned, 3 thick coats in all cavities. Instructions state that it takes 24 hours to fully cure. After about 5-6 hours, everything was plenty dry for me to put my pickups and pots and wiring back in. Then restring and adjust everything. And of course I couldn’t wait. So… I was floored. 90% of the noise was gone. Not only that, but I could now actually reposition myself and get the electrical interference noise to go away 100%! But here’s the kicker. After the paint had fully cured after 24 hours or so? The guitar is now dead silent. No repositioning needed. It works!

I bought to copper plate 3D printed parts, and it simply does not work, I have tried multiple times in vastly different approaches all with the same result, only small spots of copper will be plated and the adhesion is only slightly better than using nothing at all. Enormous disappointment. I was able to plate aluminum with it, it worked so well I thought I had finally found the ideal conditions to make it work, tried PLA again, and the results were even worse than before. Don't bother with it if your going to electroplate 3D prints, it's a waste of money and worse, a gigantic waste of time and effort. Even using graphite lubricant for locks mixed with nail polish remover worked substantially better. Going to try actual graphite powder this was sadly a total bust.

Works well to replace or repair CRT Aquadag. I bought a used Vectrex that appears to have been exposed to severe moisture, and the DAG coating was flaking off the back of the CRT. I brushed off the old flaky coating (it pretty much just fell off), and painted it back using this coating. It dried in a few minutes and works perfectly.

Almost 10 years ago I bought an aerosol can of the same 841AR. Over that time I sprayed 5 Stratocasters which have big pickup and control cavities. I thought the can had plenty of paint left but one day I took it out and it had failed. There was a huge solidified clog of bubbly paint at the nozzle, sort of like when a battery dies and leaks chemicals. Worried about losing expensive product again, I bought this liquid can and planned to try hand painting it and spraying with Preval on a pair of guitars. I thought it a little odd that the 150mL can is more expensive than the aerosol listed as 326mL, but figured it was the can having propellant. First off the can was definitely new when it arrived but at best 60% full and that's being generous. I did one guitar with long wire channels brushing it on. With vigorous stirring it became very thin, but immediately began settling into sludge again while working. This leads to a lot of waste with too much on the brush and stirring stick having to be continuously cleaned in thinner. After 2 coats with 30 minutes dry time between, I ended up achieving a good shield measuring less than 20 Ohms resistance across two extreme ends of a cavity, and less than 5 across shorter distances . But it looks amateur, very uneven. Wanting the more professional look of spray, I looked into mixing it for the Preval. Per its data sheet MG's Thinner is 75% common Isopropyl Alcohol (IPA), so I decided to try thinning 1:1 with household 91% IPA. This worked fine in a few tests. I came back a few days later to mix a bigger batch. It was much harder to stir into a usable liquid, as if thinner was evaporating in the can. I added more alcohol, and eventually got a couple of coats spray with Preval. There's 3 issues with spraying. One, it’s a lot of prep to carefully mask off what you won't want to spray. Two, its very hard to spray side walls of narrow wire channels and 1-1/2" dep cavities like a Strat output jack. Three, spraying these at an angle there's a ton of overspray and waste. After doing two guitars, I'm down to maybe 3 couple ounces of 1:1 mix with IPA and mostly sludge in the can. For over $80 this really didn't go very far. Overall it gets the job done effectively but it's tedious on guitars with a lot of angles to paint. I'll probably buy the aerosol can again when this runs out.