Durosheen®
Durosheen® Long Life Paint - formula no:9D.

An exceptional, clean air, VOC free, (Volatile Organic Compounds) coloured, vitreaous enamel like paint.

When applied, Durosheen® typically results in a very smooth, low sheen, colouring finish and is an extraordinarily long lasting, interior / exterior decorative and protective surface coating.

Durosheen® is supplied as a ready-to-mix into water powder. The resulting liquid is a universal, multi-use paint.

It’s a suitable paint for walls, ramps, roofs, columns, beams, concrete products, industrial floors, exterior pavements, coloured delineated paths and virtually all other surfaces.

Ability recommends to test this product first before use with a free, no charge sample - trials are essential!

Want a tough, very long-lasting paint with a smooth low sheen finish, which is available in any colour! Want a durable coloured concrete sealer that’s guaranteed? Why not check out Ability’s Durosheen® ?

• Durosheen®Low Sheen is a robust ‘two pack’ but one-step, easy-to-prepare, mix-into-water powder paint product where the water is the reactant.

• It’s an invention of Ability and officially known as a polymer modified, mineral (inorganic), water reactive paint. Simply read and follow the easy recommendations for use on the Durosheen® Low Sheen product label.

For project based testing - a free 1kg sample of the product (to make 0.9 litre of liquid paint) in a preferred colour will be forwarded upon request for testing prior to actual project use of the product.

• Multi purpose, universal use, aqueous (water based) Durosheen® Low Sheen formula may be ordered in virtually any colour. Yes, we make it in any custom colour for you but it is not available as a clear coating.

• After the easily prepared liquid paint is applied to a properly prepared, water dampened surface, according to Ability’s recommendations with a minimum of two (2) coats it becomes a hard yet flexible, decorative/ protective, rust and efflorescence preventing, long-life paint suitable for almost any surface.

• It’s all paint with 100% active solids, ie no solvents - unlike most paints the mix water for Durosheen® is the chemical reactant, becomes part of the paint and not intended as an evaporating solvent.

• This watertight, fire retardant, clean air, exterior/interior paint is of a similar formulation to Ability’s famous decades lasting the Paint high build, stipple textured paint and offers medium build potential, a very long life and many other beneficial properties.

• The unique patented formula (Patent No: PCTAU01/00377) also offers high adhesion to virtually any clean, sound, firm, uncontaminated surface - preferably, for a good finish, a smooth surface or one filled and patched to make it smooth - including already smooth, previously painted surfaces that have been suitably abraded to ensure high adhesion.

• For best looking and lasting results, surfaces should be prepared to a firm, sound and clean condition with at least two (2) coats of Durosheen® Low Sheen applied.

• After setting (‘touch’ drying) and fully hardening in exterior situations, the product offers high resistance to water penetration (including corrosive sea or saline water to which it is highly resistant), wear and abrasion, and particularly chemical solutions and paint destructive UV radiation from the sun.

• The product is easily prepared by thoroughly power mixing two (2) parts by volume of Durosheen® Low Sheen powder into one (1) part by volume of drinkable water (preferably adjusted with warm water or ice cubes to have an approximate temperature of - 23°C) for 6-8 minutes then allowing this mixture to stand and activate for about 20-30 minutes followed by re-mixing for 4-5 minutes.

• The resultant liquid paint coating is suitable for application with a minimum of two (2) coats directly - usually if the surface is smooth enough - without a primer (separate first coat) or a ‘fairing’ mortar to existing hard-scape concrete and relatively smooth asphalt pavements - such as may be applicable for pedestrian road crossings, ramps, steps, metal stairs, floors, walls, roofs, as well as for concrete products, suitably primed wood and metals, and the surfaces of virtually any other construction materials - including previously coated materials that are smooth, or filled and patched to make them smooth, and have been properly prepared for painting - one of the best and easiest ways to prepare most exterior surfaces for painting with Durosheen® Low Sheen coating, especially for concrete, asphalt, brick/block masonry, wall rendering mortar etc, is to hire and use a 3000 psi pressure washing/water-blasting machine such as a ‘Gurni’ machine. This water blasting process removes any surface weakness, which is often the case applicable with many concrete pavements. It also cleans and dampens the surface - all in one operation - to make them firm, sound and clean, and if porous or absorbent to water, lightly but uniformly dampened.

• For a good-looking, consistent, uniformly even, low sheen, colourful result, it is best to uniformly apply Durosheen® liquid paint to smooth surfaces - or those that have been suitably filled and patched with a quality low-shrink patching mortar such as Ability’s Fultone Mortar 8 and/or sanded/abraded to make them smooth and/or which have been coated first with Ability’s flat, matte, semi-smooth, medium to high build X55 Hi-Seal Paint - a similar formula to Durosheen® Low Sheen - but without the sheen.

• The applied product, at for example in an air and mixed liquid product temperature of 23°C, sets and touch dries in about one and a half (11/2) to two (2) hours and when almost fully hardened (in approximately 7 - 21 days at this temperature and a relative humidity (RH) of 60%), has good resistance to abrasive wear - both in a dry and wet condition. However, Durosheen® Low Sheen’s resistance to wet, scrubbing/abrasion and general water resistance is not especially high initially (1 - 7 days) particularly for this time in temperatures lower than 16°C - 18°C.

• Durosheen® Low Sheen continues to harden with time (and extended time at low ambient temperatures) and particularly with an increase in air temperature and RH. On average, it reaches its maximum hardness and mechanical strengths at an age of about 21 days whilst maintaining a high degree of continuing flexibility.

• On trafficked surfaces, when fully hardened, it features low slip/trip and skid resistance.

• The product’s relatively low early water resistance may be increased by using warm water (35-45°C) to mix the product and also by adopting in about 4-6 hours after its setting or ‘touch’ drying in exterior locations, the simple procedure of intermittent water spray curing - initially gently using a garden hose.

• This beneficial water spraying procedure simply involves spraying the set freshly applied two (2) coated Durosheen® paint work with about six (6) x ten minute water hosings over one (1) to two (2) days following completion of the coating work.

• Please refer to Ability’s Durosheen® Low Sheen product label as well as printed recommendations for use of another similar Ability coating entitled, X55 Hi-Seal Paint Application Booklet which describes this easy intermittent water spray curing procedure in detail.

• Hard but flexible, traffic durable, weather durable and highly fire retardant when fully hardened, Durosheen® Low Sheen paint for medium to large projects can be made available on firm advance order in any desired custom colour, (we can make it in a particular colour especially for you) using one or more of the 52 powder colourants in Ability’s colourfast, UV resistant inorganic abilox® mineral oxide range of colouring powder pigments.

Alternatively, if bright, high chroma colours are required, we can provide the product in vivid colours from Ability’s lightfast organic duro® pigment range. The duro® range of pigments gives highly lightfast colouring but unlike those in the abilox® range, none are absolutely permanent in exterior exposure situations but would typically last for 6 -10 years (see below).

Durosheen® Low Sheen is a polymer modified, mineral, decorative and a corrodible (rustable) metal protective, solvent-free, clean air, ecologically sustainable, odour-free, high performance, paintable, colouring, low ‘sheen’ surfacing that sets and hardens quickly at average ambient air temperatures and as a result doesn’t need baking to make it hard.
It is a safe-to-use, safe for the environment, non-solvent based paint that does not emit climate changing greenhouse gasses.

• When dry and hardened the top coat of a highly recommended two (2) coat Durosheen® Low Sheen coating system applied over a smooth surface shows in direct sunshine, a smooth, low sheen finish with a very slight lustre.

• The applied product is flexible and adheres to virtually all materials including weathered fibreglass and plastic rainwater tanks (2 coats) and is expected to provide substantial longevity, freedom from flaking off and other performance improvements when compared with typical architectural, paving and concrete sealer paints on asphalt and concrete pavements.

• Durosheen® could be considered a superior performing alternative to ‘oil’ based ‘enamel’ (alkyd) paint – a paint type, which continues to be used in bathrooms and kitchens because of its perceived higher resistance to warm steamy air environments compared with other paint types such as high quality water miscible acrylic latex bound house paints in general and Durosheen® in particular.

• At a typical coverage rate of 5 to 6m2/litre, could clean air Durosheen® Low Sheen paint be considered for example as a part of an important list of long-lasting surface coating materials for the creative public artist and for a project designer’s/specifier’s wall or pavement art project?

• Durosheen® Low Sheen long-lasting surface coating material may also be made available in experimental flat or semi-glossy surface finishes.

• The highly durable Durosheen® technology is already available in some of Ability’s similar well proven, long-life paint products such as the decades lasting, matte, and semi-smooth X55 Hi-Seal and high build, proven in performance, matte, ‘sandy’ stipple textured the Paint respectively.

• The latter product has been successfully used at countless Australian building and architectural landscaping projects over 20 years - all so far without any noticeable deterioration in that time!

• Rough, pitted floors, pavements, walls etc may be coated (first coat) with Ability’s high build ‘the Paint’ to help fill in small cracks, surface voids and holes - prior to the application of a subsequent single coat of medium build Durosheen® Low Sheen paint. This combination results in a very durable two (2) coat paint system.

• For the coating of interior floors, walls and ceilings, other interior surfaces and building products and materials to be located in an interior or in a UV protected exterior situation, Durosheen® Low Sheen can be made available in bright - even mega vivid colours using in its manufacture, Ability’s organic duro® pigments.

• Organic duro® colouring pigments are Ability’s other alternative colourant range to abilox® colourants, which give clean, strong, bright colouring results when incorporated into coatings, concrete, mortar and many other materials during their mixing phase. However, like all organic pigments, none are absolutely colourfast to long-term UV ray exposure in sunlight and will typically last, for example in Melbourne for 6 -10 years before starting to fade - depending on the particular colour - either blue, green, red, yellow etc. Products and materials incorporating them, are therefore recommended by Ability for interior use or exterior situations protected from strong, direct UV rays in sunlight. Therefore, the exterior UV radiation protection may be in the form of a building overhang, skillion or cantilevered roof structure or a separate sail structure.

Ability recommends to test product first - before use - trials are essential.