# Dunn Edwards Aristoshield



## Gurnoe (Sep 5, 2015)

Has anybody used this Aristoshield stuff? https://www.dunnedwards.com/products/interior-paints-and-primers/finishes/aristoshield 
Its a new waterborne alkyd urethane enamel from Dunn Edwards. DE just opened a new store down the road from me and they gave me a gallon to try out. I generally use Arothane which is a similar product from Frazee, but DE assures me that Aristoshield will outperform Arothane - particularly in the areas of adhesion over existing oil finishes and as a metal paint. The label says it can be used DTM which is great. Protec is the only other waterborne alkyd enamel that I know of which can be used directly on metal.

In recent years I've purchased most of my paint from Frazee because it's convenient and they give me great prices on the products I use a lot of. Sherwin Williams bought Frazee and while the guys who work there are great I'm not promising to follow the SW conversion. DE has a new store that I can walk to so I'm in this flux stage where Frazee is giving me SW products to try and DE is trying to get me to come back (I used to get almost all of my paint from DE years ago but they followed a similar pricing arc to SW and became expensive early). No matter what the buyout of Frazee is costing my customers money which seems a shame. I hope I can at least figure out what is best for their money since everything is so expensive today. Any thoughts on Aristoshield or DE products in general?

Over the course of this weekend I'll put some of the Aristoshield side by side with Arothane on a few different substrates to see what it's all about myself. I'll scratch em up, mark em up, and try to clean em up and bring back pictures for everybody.

I did get word from the manager at Frazee that Arothane was popular enough that SW has picked it up for the national product line so a lot of you will be seeing a "water based alkyd-urethane hybrid emulsion enamel" or whatever gross verbose name SW gives it. I also have to admit that I recently used Emerald interior flat in a deep red and it covered fantastically... am I allowed to say that here?


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## Zoomer (Dec 17, 2011)

Please keep us posted. 
Would like to see it next to Advance and Breakthrough.


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## PACman (Oct 24, 2014)

Ok don't quote me on this, as neither company will ever admit to it, but I have a sneaking suspicion that this product was either co-developed with, or the formula was licensed from California Paints. They have for quite some time shared their main color collection and I have for some time thought they might be in cahoots on paint formulations. No proof whatsoever but it makes a lot of sense for them to do it. DE has quite a bit more VOC experience than Cali does and Cali would be hard pressed to break into the western markets on their own.

Just my suspicion thought.


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## MikeCalifornia (Aug 26, 2012)

I have tried in a deep blue semigloss for our little league organization last month, on a few doors. Coverage was excellent, doors were pretty crappy we sanded with a festool to smooth them out best we could. Seemed to level very nice. Dries real fast.


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## Gurnoe (Sep 5, 2015)

Thank you Mike. I figured you were the most likely person on this board to have tried it. I'm doing a house of baseboards using the stuff so I'll return with my thoughts on how it applies. I already like that the recoat time is half that of Arothane. 

Are you Ken's son? My dad has been painting in the north county for almost 40 years and he references a Ken Hess from time to time.


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## Gurnoe (Sep 5, 2015)

Zoomer said:


> Please keep us posted.
> Would like to see it next to Advance and Breakthrough.



Over the weekend I painted a scrap piece of trim with oil pro classic in satin and the other half in a colored gloss synlustro. Just now I painted some Arothane on a section of each half and Aristoshield on the other section. Once they dry I'll compare how well each sticks to the oil. I'm going to do a similar comparison on raw metal.

I don't often use Advance because I think Arothane is a better product (excluding the tints) but I do occasionally, so I'll try to get some other waterborne enamels in the mix as well.

Edit: I don't need to take this Arothane/Aristoshield comparison any farther. The Aristoshield sticks AND covers better. They both level well and adhere well to the oil alkyds.


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## Gurnoe (Sep 5, 2015)

So I've been messing around with this product a bit. The gallon I have is just a white base, no added tints, which I know can affect coverage. I painted this piece of wood with a colored gloss oil-based alkyd in an attempt to create a slippery surface. I didn't do any additional prep to the dried oil paint because I really wanted to determine which product sticks to oil better. The top sample is Arothane (semi) tinted to Swiss Coffee. The lower sample is the untinted Aristoshield. Both are one coat stretched thin. In both cases the paints developed these little rivulet holidays because of the lack of friction as the paint stretches out. The walls of the deepest brush marks actually pulled away from each other over this gloss paint. That didn't really surprise me since I put it on thin with a crappy brush over gloss but it was interesting to witness in real time. 

I was mostly curious about how well this product adheres to existing oil enamels. I would have liked to try this over a legitimately old gloss oil but I work with what I have. Both paints adhered to the oil satisfactorily but regardless of what I threw at them (finger nails, pocket knife, sandpaper) the Aristoshield slightly outperformed the Arothane. This is important to me because I do a lot of painting over existing oil finishes.

The Arothane is not labeled as usable DTM but it sticks decently to unprepped steel (outside of a paint can). Aristoshield seems to build a thicker film and therefore cover better - may require more significant thinning than the Arothane for hvlp spraying. I'll face that question when the time comes. Anyway, if you have a Dunn Edwards in your area try this Aristoshield it seems like good stuff. I'm going to throw in a couple pictures of the Emerald work I mentioned in the OP. I was tempted to use Aura but the Emerald flat worked well.


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## MikeCalifornia (Aug 26, 2012)

Gurnoe said:


> Thank you Mike. I figured you were the most likely person on this board to have tried it. I'm doing a house of baseboards using the stuff so I'll return with my thoughts on how it applies. I already like that the recoat time is half that of Arothane.
> 
> Are you Ken's son? My dad has been painting in the north county for almost 40 years and he references a Ken Hess from time to time.


No, he is not my dad. Although my dad was Ken and a paint contractor. I have met him, real cool guy, when I worked for SW in Encinitas.


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