Is it sturdy enough to sustain long term usage on say music gear or cameras?
I donāt recall tbh - one way to find out!
Look up here guys:
Thatās what I mean.
Hammeriteās an interesting one though, and might even hold the secret cause Hammerite is applied cold, is super tough and the chemicals involved are what gives it a hammered finish.
For those of you not getting along with your peeling knobs, help is at hand. You can now buy that stuff in standard aerosol cans, so nothing to stop you removing the old rubber coating and spraying on a new one. You can even take your pick of colours, (or even clear if you want to coat a ready-coloured item).
Just a tip for anyone who decides to pick up a can of that stuff. The trick to a durable coating that will hopefully not peel, is to properly degrease the surface and apply the rubber coating in multiple very fine mist coats instead of a single thick one. I think itās great stuff to be honest and has to rank as one of my favourite finishes. I think itās a very forgiving finish and looks very nice!
But yeah, if you want to re-rubberise your knobs or whatever, thatās the stuff you need although youāll need to remove the old coating first which is easy enough to do with the right chemical.
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Nah, not Zolatone. Iāve seen that stuff quite a few times on supermarket walls though 
And, unless Iām very much mistaken it is was used in the laundrette I used to go to with my mother when I were a nipper! Looks very much like the Plastikote Nate posted but designed for high traffic public areas whereas Plastikote seems more for decorative purposes, crafts, spraying vases etc.
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I used it on some racks I had made for a little skateboard shop I used to own in the early 90s. Good stuff!
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Definitely some dark art to camera manufacturing.
Form what I gather itās a polycarbonate compound.
Seems like some cameras a mold is used, others it a finish they put on some kind of metal body.
Itās definitely the fashionable look
"Current Canon bodies are made of anything from glass filled polycarbonate, to the same kind of engineering grade plastic that the light boxes of all current DSLRs, including the flagship models such as the Canon 1D X and the Nikon D4 are made of, to magnesium alloy.
Canon pioneered the use of glass filled polycarbonate materials in cameras way back in the film era. The first use of the material was for the lens barrel and some of the other non-optical components of the 50mm f/1.8 lens that was the standard lens for the Canon AE-1. Not long after that Canon and others started using the material for body panels and the like, with an aluminum skeleton and an all metal light box. Today the metal light box has been replaced by more rugged composites made by combining one or several different engineering grade plastics, such as Nylon 6-6 or Ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene, with other materials."
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Powder coating.
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the texture is similar to undercoating.
which is generally polymer based. Iām certain with a slightly more atomized process you would achieve a finer spackling. It distributes randomly. You would need a formula that hardens into more of a shell than the rubberized kind, but the texture can be achieved with an aerosol can.
edit:
I found something I painted with a can of undercoat. not quite as glamorous but you could achieve an affordable result with a can of something.
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It reminds me of sheet rock texturing with mud.
Itās as if itās speckled, then an edge is dragged over it to give the texture an even leveled surface which is raised.
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Thanks for all the interest and input on this, although I suspected it would continue to elude
One of the nicest finishes out there in my opinion, popular even, yet it still proves elusive!
Iām no expert on airbrushes, but if there are specific nozzles designed to allow adjustment of āsplotchinessā or āsplatterā or whatever itās called, then I suppose one way to replicate it would be to lay down a base coat using a smooth matt black base (using a normal nozzle), and then loosely spray a slightly glossier black over it (using a splotch nozzle).
The āsplotchā or āplatterā coat wouldnāt have that flattened-off effect that bodymechanics mentioned, but I suppose it would be the next best thing. It strikes me as something that would be difficult to do well manually though. I can imagine that getting an even and repeatable effect would be a lot harder than it might sound, especially when needing to spray onto corners and into recessed areas such as knob surroundings etc.
Another coating thatās different to this speckled finish but still maybe of interest is what is used on some Sennheiser microphones like on the current MKH series -
Itās a non-reflective Nextel coating, not sure if it has any acoustic benefit but I could imagine itās useful in a film set scenario if you wanted to minimise reflections. Itās super matte and fairly grippy. Seems like itās a paint that contains loads of tiny rubber particles, used in some aircraft interiors too apparently.
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Waldorf used to use this on synths (I have two that have it). Very cool feel, but ages badly.
Itās not what Iām after but it definitely looks nice!
Iām determinied to find out what the finish or process is called. Itās not the end of the world if I donāt, and theres a chance I might not use it even if I knew the name of it, but Iāll find out one way or the other. It exists and has done since the 70s, so the finish or process must have a name!