FAQ

ABATEMENT: Involves either removal of the painted sur­face, cov­er­ing the painted sur­face with an imper­me­able sur­face, or cov­er­ing sur­face with heavy-​​duty coat­ing (encapsulant).

ACRYLIC: A syn­thetic resin used in high-​​performance water-​​based coat­ings. A coat­ing in which the binder con­tains acrylic resins.

ADHESION: The abil­ity of dry paint to attach to and remain fixed on the sur­face with­out blis­ter­ing, flak­ing, crack­ing or being removed by tape.

AEROSOL: A prod­uct that uses com­pressed gas to spray the coat­ing from its container. Historical Note: Aerosol paint prod­ucts have not con­tained chlorofluorocarbons–CFCs–since 1978.

AIR CURE: One method by which liq­uid coat­ings cure to a dry film. Oxy­gen from the air enters the film and cross-links the resin mol­e­cules. Also called “Air Dry” and “Oxidizing.”

ALKYD: Syn­thetic resin mod­i­fied with oil. Coat­ing that con­tains alkyd resins in the binder.

AMIDE: A func­tional group which can act as an epoxy resin cur­ing agent.

ANTI-FOULING PAINT: Paints for­mu­lated espe­cially for boat decks and hulls, docks and other below-​​water-​​line sur­faces and struc­tures to pre­vent the growth of bar­na­cles and other organ­isms on ships’ bottoms.

BINDER: Solid ingre­di­ents in a coat­ing that hold the pig­ment par­ti­cles in sus­pen­sion and attach them to the sub­strate. Con­sists of resins (e.g., oils, alkyd, latex). The nature and amount of binder deter­mine many of the paint’s per­for­mance properties–washability, tough­ness, adhe­sion, color reten­tion, etc.

BLISTERING: For­ma­tion of dome-​​shaped pro­jec­tions in paints or var­nish films result­ing from local loss of adhe­sion and liftin­g of the film from the under­ly­ing surface.

BODY: The thick­ness or vis­cos­ity of a fluid.

BOILED OIL: Lin­seed (some­times soya) oil that was for­merly heated for faster dry­ing. Today, chem­i­cal agents are added to speed up the dry­ing process.

BUTADIENE: A gas which is chem­i­cally com­bined with styrene to cre­ate a resin used in latex binders, styrene-​​butadiene.

CATALYST: Sub­stance whose pres­ence increases the rate of a chem­i­cal reac­tion, e.g., acid cat­a­lyst added to an epoxy resin sys­tem to accel­er­ate dry­ing time.

CHALKING: For­ma­tion of a pow­der on the sur­face of a paint film caused by dis­in­te­gra­tion of the binder dur­ing weath­er­ing. Can be affected by the choice of pig­ment or binder.

CHROMA: A mea­sure­ment of color. The degree of sat­u­ra­tion of a hue. A color at its full inten­sity has max­i­mum chroma.

CLEAR COATING: A trans­par­ent pro­tec­tive and/​or dec­o­ra­tive film; gen­er­ally the final coat of sealer applied to auto­mo­tive finishes.

COALESCENT AID: The small amount of sol­vent con­tained in latex coat­ings. Not a true sol­vent since it does not actu­ally dis­solve the latex resins, the coa­les­cent aid helps the latex resins flow together, aid­ing in film formation.

COATING: A paint, var­nish, lac­quer or other fin­ish used to cre­ate a pro­tec­tive and/​or dec­o­ra­tive layer. Gen­er­ally used to refer to paints and coat­ings applied in an indus­trial set­ting as part of the orig­i­nal equip­ment manufacturer’s (OEM) process.

COHESION: A bond­ing together of a sin­gle sub­stance to itself. Inter­nal adhesion.

COLORANT: Con­cen­trated color (dyes or pig­ments) that can be added to paints to make spe­cific colors.

COLORFAST: Non-​​fading in pro­longed expo­sure to light.

COLOR RETENTION: The abil­ity of paint to keep its orig­i­nal color. Major threats to color reten­tion are expo­sure to ultra­vi­o­let radi­a­tion and abra­sion by weather or repeated cleaning.

CORROSION INHIBITIVE: A type of metal paint or primer that pre­vents rust by pre­vent­ing mois­ture from reach­ing the metal. Zinc phos­phate, bar­ium metab­o­rate and stron­tium chro­mate (all pig­ments) are com­mon ingre­di­ents in corrosion-​​inhibitive coat­ings. These pig­ments absorb any mois­ture that enters the paint film.

CREOSOTE: A liq­uid coat­ing made from coal tar once used as a wood preser­v­a­tive. It has been banned for con­sumer use because of poten­tial health risks.

CURE, CURING: The process when a liq­uid coat­ing becomes a hard film.

DEAD FLAT: No gloss or sheen.

DILUENT: A liq­uid used in coat­ings to reduce the con­sis­tency and make a coat­ing flow more eas­ily. The water in latex coat­ings is a dilu­ent. A dilu­ent may also be called a “Reducer,” “Thin­ner,” “Reduc­ing Agent” or “Reduc­ing Solvent.”

DRIERS: Var­i­ous com­pounds added to coat­ings to speed the drying.

DRY COLORS: Powder-​​type col­ors to be mixed with water, alco­hol or min­eral spir­its and resin to form a paint or stain.

DRYING OIL: An oil that when exposed to air will dry to a solid through chem­i­cal reac­tion with air: lin­seed oil, tung oil, per­illa, fish oil, soy­bean oil.

EARTH PIGMENT: Those pig­ments that are obtained from the earth, includ­ing barytes, ocher, chalk and graphite.

EGGSHELL: Gloss lying between semi­gloss and flat.

EMULSION: A mix­ture of solids sus­pended in a liquid.

EMULSION PAINT: Coat­ing in which resins are sus­pended in water, then flow together with the aid of an emulsifier. Example: latex paint.

ENAMEL: Broad clas­si­fi­ca­tion of paints that dry to a hard, usu­ally glossy fin­ish. Most equipment-​​coating enam­els require bak­ing. Enam­els for walls do not.

EPOXY: Extremely tough and durable syn­thetic resin used in some coat­ings. Epoxy coat­ings are extremely tough, durable and highly resis­tant to chem­i­cals, abra­sion, mois­ture and alcohol.

EXTENDER: Ingre­di­ents added to paint to increase cov­er­age, reduce cost, achieve dura­bil­ity, alter appear­ance, con­trol rhe­ol­ogy and influ­ence other desir­able prop­er­ties. Less expen­sive than prime hid­ing pig­ments such as tita­nium diox­ide. Exam­ples: bar­ium sul­phate, cal­cium car­bon­ate, clay, gyp­sum, sil­ica, talc. May also improve coat­ing performance.

FILM BUILD: Amount of thick­ness pro­duced in an appli­ca­tion. Mil­lime­ters (mils) of dry film per mils of applied wet film.

FILM THICKNESS: Depth or thick­ness of the dry coat­ing in millimeters.

FIRE RESISTANCE: The abil­ity of a coat­ing to with­stand fire or to pro­tect the sub­strate to which it is applied from fire damage.

FIRE RETARDANT: A coat­ing which will (1) reduce flame spread, (2) resist igni­tion when exposed to high tem­per­a­ture or (3) insu­late the sub­strate and delay dam­age to the substrate.

FLAT: A sur­face that scat­ters or absorbs the light falling on it so as to be sub­stan­tially free from gloss or sheen (0−15 gloss on a 60-​​degree gloss meter).

FORCED DRY: Bak­ing the paint between room tem­per­a­ture and 150 degrees F to speed the dry­ing process.

GALVANIZING: Process in which a thin coat­ing of zinc is applied to iron or steel to pre­vent rust.

GLOSS: The lus­ter or shini­ness of paints and coat­ings. Dif­fer­ent types of gloss are fre­quently arbi­trar­ily dif­fer­en­ti­ated, such as sheen, distinctness-​​of-​​image gloss, etc. Trade prac­tice rec­og­nizes the fol­low­ing gloss lev­els, in increas­ing order of gloss:flat (or matte)– prac­ti­cally free from sheen, even when viewed from oblique angles (usu­ally less than 15 on 60-​​degree meter); eggshell– usu­ally 20–35 on 60-​​degree meter; semi-gloss–usually 35–70 on 60-​​degree meter; full-gloss–smooth and almost mirror-​​like sur­face when viewed from all angles, usu­ally above 70 on 60-​​degree meter.

GLOSS METER: A device for mea­sur­ing the light reflectance of coat­ings. Dif­fer­ent brands with the same descrip­tion (such as semi-​​gloss or flat) may have quite dif­fer­ent rat­ings on the gloss meter.

HARDENER: Cur­ing agent for epox­ies or fiberglass.

HAP: See Haz­ardous Air Pollutant

HAZARDOUS AIR POLLUTANT: Pol­lu­tants that are known or sus­pected to cause can­cer or other seri­ous health effects, such as repro­duc­tive effects or birth defects, or adverse envi­ron­men­tal effects.

HEPA VACUUM: High-​​efficiency par­tic­u­late air-​​filtered vac­uum designed to remove lead– con­t­a­m­i­nated dust.

INERT: A mate­r­ial that will not react chem­i­cally with other ingredients.

IN-PLACE MANAGEMENT: A series of steps used as an alter­na­tive to lead-​​based paint removal. Improves con­di­tion of intact lead-​​based paint to reduce and/​or elim­i­nate haz­ards with­out total removal.

INTUMESCENCE: A mech­a­nism whereby fire-​​retardant paints pro­tect the sub­strates to which they are applied. An intu­mes­cent paint puffs up when exposed to high tem­per­a­tures, form­ing an insu­lat­ing, pro­tec­tive layer over the substrate.

LACQUER: A fast-​​drying usu­ally clear coat­ing that is highly flam­ma­ble and dries by sol­vent evap­o­ra­tion only. Can be recon­sti­tuted after dry­ing by adding solvent. Historical Note: The word lac­quer is derived from the word lac, which describes the secre­tions of the lac bee­tle. This insect, found mainly in Asia, deposits its secre­tions on branches of trees and this crop is later har­vested. The resin devel­oped by the insects, in its orig­i­nal state, con­tains a red dye. This dye is sep­a­rated from the resin by boil­ing in water. Next, the residue resin, known as seed lac, is melted, strained, cooled, and flaked and then becomes shellac.

LATEX-BASED PAINT: Gen­eral term used for water-based emul­sion paints made with syn­thetic binders such as 100% acrylic, vinyl acrylic, ter­poly­mer or styrene acrylic. A sta­ble emul­sion of poly­mers and pig­ment in water.

LEAD: A metal, pre­vi­ously used as a pig­ment in paints. Dis­con­tin­ued in the early 1950s by indus­try con­sen­sus stan­dard, and banned by the Con­sumer Prod­ucts Safety Com­mis­sion in 1978 because of its toxicity.

LEFTOVER PAINT: See Post-​​Consumer Paint Management

LINSEED OIL: Dry­ing oil made from the flax seed. Used as a sol­vent in many oil– based paints. “Boiled” lin­seed oil can be used to pro­tect wood from water dam­age. Some­times used as a fur­ni­ture polish.

LIQUID DRIERS: Solu­tion of sol­u­ble dri­ers in organic solvents.

LITHOPONE: A white pig­ment of bar­ium sul­fate and zinc sulfide. Historical Note: Litho­pone was once a pri­mary sub­sti­tute for lead car­bon­ate or “white lead” pig­ments; it has been largely replaced by tita­nium dioxide.

MARINE PAINT: Coat­ing spe­cially designed for immer­sion in water and expo­sure to marine atmos­phere. (See also Anti-​​fouling Paint).

MATERIAL SAFETY DATA SHEET (MSDS): Infor­ma­tion sheet that lists any haz­ardous sub­stance that com­prises one per­cent or more of the product’s total vol­ume. Also lists pro­ce­dures to fol­low in the event of fire, explo­sion, leak or expo­sure to haz­ardous sub­stance by inhala­tion, inges­tion or con­tact with skin or eyes. Coat­ings man­u­fac­tur­ers are required to pro­vide retail­ers with an MSDS for every prod­uct they sell to the retailer. Sales clerks should make MSDSs avail­able to retail customers.

MINERAL SPIRITS: Paint thin­ner. Sol­vent dis­tilled from petroleum.

MONOMER: Sub­stance com­posed of low mol­e­c­u­lar weight mol­e­cules capa­ble of react­ing with like or unlike mol­e­cules to form a polymer.

NAPHTHA: A petro­leum dis­til­late used mostly by pro­fes­sion­als (as opposed to do-​​it– your­self painters) for cleanup and to thin solvent-​​based coat­ings. A volatile organic com­pound (see VOC).

NATURAL RESINS: Resins from trees, plants, fish and insects. Exam­ples: damars, copals.

NONVOLATILE: The por­tion of a coat­ing left after the sol­vent evap­o­rates; some­times called the solids content.

OIL PAINT: A paint that con­tains dry­ing oil, oil var­nish or oil-​​modified resin as the film-​​forming ingre­di­ent. The term is com­monly and incor­rectly used to refer to any paint sol­u­ble by organic solvents.

OLEORESIN: A nat­ural plant prod­uct that con­tains oil and resins. Tur­pen­tine is an example.

OXIDATION: Chem­i­cal reac­tion upon expo­sure to oxy­gen. Some coat­ings cure by oxi­da­tion, when oxy­gen enters the liq­uid coat­ing and cross-​​links the resin mol­e­cules. This film-​​forming method is also called “Air Cure” and “Air Dry.” (Oxi­da­tion also causes rust on bare metals.)

PAINT: A coat­ing includ­ing resin, a sol­vent, addi­tives, pig­ments and, in some prod­ucts, a dilu­ent. Paints are gen­er­ally opaque, and com­monly rep­re­sent the por­tion of the indus­try known as “archi­tec­tural coatings.”

PAINT REMOVER: A chem­i­cal that soft­ens old paint or var­nish and per­mits it to be eas­ily scraped off. Also called “stripper.”

PAINT THINNER: See Min­eral Spirits.

PENETRATING FINISH: A fin­ish that sinks into the sub­strate, as opposed to set­tling on the surface.

PIGMENT: Insol­u­ble, finely ground mate­ri­als that give paint its prop­er­ties of color and hide. Tita­nium diox­ide is the most impor­tant pig­ment used to pro­vide hid­ing in paint. Other pig­ments include anatase tita­nium, bar­ium metab­o­rate, bar­ium sul­phate, burnt sienna, burnt umber, car­bon black, China clay, chromium oxide, iron oxide, lead car­bon­ate, stron­tium chro­mate, Tus­can red, zinc oxide, zinc phos­phate and zinc sulfide.

POLYMER: Sub­stance, the mol­e­cules of which con­sist of one or more struc­tural units repeated any num­ber of times; vinyl resins are exam­ples of true polymers.

POLYMERIZATION: The inter­lock­ing of mol­e­cules by chem­i­cal reac­tion to pro­duce very large mol­e­cules. The process of mak­ing plas­tics and plastic-​​based resins.

POLYVINYL CHLORIDE: A syn­thetic resin used in the binders of coat­ings. Tends to dis­color under expo­sure to ultra­vi­o­let radi­a­tion. Com­monly called “vinyl.”

POST-CONSUMER PAINT MANAGEMENT: The fol­low­ing steps are rec­om­mended for deal­ing with post-​​consumer (left­over) paint: (1) Pur­chase the cor­rect amount of paint. (2) Store paint properly. (3) Use left­over paint. (4) Reuse, donate or recycle. (5) Dis­pose of paint prop­erly as a last resort.

PRIMER: First com­plete coat of paint of a paint­ing sys­tem applied to a sur­face. Such paints are designed to pro­vide ade­quate adhe­sion to new sur­faces or are for­mu­lated to meet the spe­cial require­ments of the surfaces.

PROPELLANT: The gas used to expel mate­ri­als from aerosol containers.

RESIN: Syn­thetic or nat­ural mate­r­ial used as the binder in coat­ings. Can be translu­cent or trans­par­ent, solid or semi-​​solid. Examples: acrylic, alkyd, copal ester, epoxy, polyurethane, polyvinyl chlo­ride, silicone.

ROSIN: Nat­ural resin obtained from liv­ing pine trees or from dead tree stumps and knots.

SEMI-GLOSS FINISH: Fin­ish that has a low lus­ter sheen. Semi-​​gloss paints are for­mu­lated to give this result (usu­ally 35–70 degrees on a 60-​​degree meter).

SHELLAC: A coat­ing made from puri­fied lac dis­solved in alco­hol, often bleached white.

SILICONE: A resin used in the binders of coat­ings. Also used as an addi­tive to pro­vide spe­cific prop­er­ties (e.g. defoamer). Paints con­tain­ing sil­i­cone are very slick and resist dirt, graf­fiti and bac­te­r­ial growth, and are sta­ble in high heat.

SOLIDS: The part of the coat­ing that remains on a sur­face after the vehi­cle has evap­o­rated. The dried paint film. Also called Nonvolatile.

SOLVENT: Any liq­uid which can dis­solve a resin. Gen­er­ally refers to the liq­uid por­tion of paints and coat­ings that evap­o­rates as the coat­ing dries.

SOURCE REDUCTION: Steps taken to reduce waste gen­er­a­tion and tox­i­c­ity at the source through more effec­tive uti­liza­tion of raw mate­ri­als and reformulation.

SPECULAR GLOSS: Mirror-​​like fin­ish (usu­ally 60 degrees on a 60-​​degree meter).

SUBSTRATE: Any sur­face to which a coat­ing is applied.

TITANIUM DIOXIDE: White pig­ment in vir­tu­ally all white paints. Prime hid­ing pig­ment in most paints.

TURPENTINE: Dis­tilled pine oil, used as a cleaner, sol­vent or thin­ner for oil-​​based and alkyd coatings.

URETHANE: An impor­tant resin in the coat­ings indus­try. A true ure­thane coat­ing is a two-​​component prod­uct that cures when an iso­cyanate (the cat­a­lyst) prompts a chem­i­cal reac­tion that unites the components.

VEHICLE: Por­tion of a coat­ing that includes all liq­uids and the binder. The vehi­cle and the pig­ment are the two basic com­po­nents of paint.

VINYL: See Polyvinyl Chloride.

VISCOSITY: The prop­erty of a fluid whereby it tends to resist rel­a­tive motion within itself.

VOC: See Volatile Organic Compound.

VOLATILITY: The defin­ing qual­ity of a liq­uid that evap­o­rates quickly when exposed to air.

VOLATILE ORGANIC COMPOUND: Organic chem­i­cals and petro­chem­i­cals that emit vapors while evap­o­rat­ing. In paints, VOC gen­er­ally refers to the sol­vent por­tion of the paint which, when it evap­o­rates, results in the for­ma­tion of paint film on the sub­strate to which it was applied.

VOLUME SOLIDS: Solid ingre­di­ents as a per­cent­age of total ingre­di­ents. The vol­ume of pig­ment plus binder divided by the total vol­ume, expressed as a per­cent. High-​​volume solids mean a thicker dry film with improved durability.

WATER BASED: Coat­ings in which the major­ity of the liq­uid con­tent is water.

WHITE LEAD: Lead carbonate