I bought some Plasti Dip to use on my wheels and my daughter formed a very good question. How does rubber become a liquid, shoved in a can, stay in there as a liquid, and then dry as a peelable rubber material once applied to a surface? Not just Plasti Dip, but bed liner sprays and other similar products.
I haven’t found a straightforward answer through Google.
In: Chemistry
If you put powdered sugar/salt in a glass of water, it will dissolve. If you spray this on a surface, it goes on as a liquid. Once it dries, it leaves a white film.
Plasti Dip is basically a 1 part synthetic resin, dissolved in 1-2 parts naptha, and 1 part gasoline. Gasoline and naptha both evaporate quickly, so it dries extra fast.
This is the MSDS, Hexane and Toulene are basically Gasoline; Naptha is camping fuel:
[https://www.tapplastics.com/image/pdf/MSDS%20Plasti%20Dip.pdf](https://www.tapplastics.com/image/pdf/MSDS%20Plasti%20Dip.pdf)
As for bed liners, these are now a bit more complicated. The good ones are a urethane epoxy base. Instead of drying, they cure. They have a chemical mixed in that causes a complex reaction which leads to it hardening over time.
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