MarciW's Profile

I found out about David B. Lytle's "Magically Magnetic Paint Additive" through this blog thread and it seemed perfect. I mixed it with regular latex semi-gloss paint (he claims in this thread and on Bob Vila's site that it can be mixed with "any paint") and painted two walls with three coats of it. Both walls completely rusted and it has been nothing short of a nightmare ever since. The additive is just powdered iron and the paint guy at my hardware store said that it was the water present in the latex paint that caused it to rust. After some research, I found out that the pre-mixed magnetic paints (rustoleum, etc.) contain rust inhibitors that prevent this from happening. The additive contains no such protection and will rust if it comes into contact with even a small amount of water. When I contacted Mr. Lytle about this problem he was super rude and insisted that the additive was for use with primer only, not regular latex paint. Fair enough, but as he stated on this blog as well as on others that it could be mixed with "any paint" I don't think it was crazy of me to think that regular latex would be okay, especially when he describes on his website mixing it with remainder paint that he got on sale. In response, he sent me the following:

"There are countless companies making many different brands of paint. There are oil based paints and latex based paints. That is only in this country. Every other country in the world has makers of paints and they don't even come close to the same formulations as the ones made here. There is no way in the world that we could have ever tested our additive with every paint available world wide for use with our additive. It is true that you can mix our additive with any paint. That in no way is saying that you will be happy with the results." Then he copy and pasted the definition of "paint" from wikipedia.

Whoa dude, what?! I would stick to the pre-mixed magnetic paints that contain rust inhibitors and far away from the possibility of a crazy rusty wall and condescending and insulting customer service. I wish I had.