It is quite thick, and fills imperfections and has a “self leveling” quality, so that the brush strokes tend to disappear, which makes it extremely easy to get a uniform, good-looking finish. The tropicool ($60/gal) is extremely easy to apply: open the can and start painting. The sun was slightly obscured by clouds so multiple measurements were taken and averaged to even out changes in the sun’s intensity. The plates were set out in the sun facing due south and the temperature of the back side measured with a FLIR thermal imaging camera. 95 (for the thermal camera to read properly). The back of all plates was sprayed flat black to get an emissivity close to. The front of each plate was painted as follows: Tropi-cool (foam roller), Rust-oleum (foam brush), Mostaliner (foam roller), flat black (spray can). None of the samples had any sanding or scuffing to improve adhesion. Surface prep was minimal: wipe with a clean paper towel, except that the monstaliner got a slightly better surface prep: clean paper towel soaked in acetone. I bought a 22” x 22” sheet of galvanized steel at the local metal yard, which I cut up into 4 11x11 pieces. The pictures tell the story, but some more details on how I tested are below for those who are interested. I was also disapointed in the durability of the Tropi-cool, while the Monstaliner lived up to its bedliner durability expectations. I was surprised at how well the Mostaliner did rejecting heat when compared to the Tropi-cool, which was designed expressly for it's heat rejection capabilities. I would expect other colors would run at temperatures between the Tropi-cool and the flat black (in other words, blue will run hotter than white, but not as hot as flat black). Rust-oleum protective enamel, oil-based gloss white: īottom line, the Monstaliner and Tropicool performed similarly (85 degrees vs 58 deg ambient), while the Rust-oleum ran slightly warmer at 88 degrees. Based on this post: I tested the radiative thermal properties of the following 3 white coatings, plus flat black as a reference:
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