MORE ABOUT PAINTS AND STAINS
Almost every kind of surface, from drywall to concrete, needs protection from the elements. These damaging elements can range between raging blizzards to innocent looking sunlight on a dining room wall. The total thickness of the paint that ends up outside of your residence is usually about one tenth the thickness of your own skin, and interior paint is even thinner. We ask a whole lot of that layer of skin. What it can do depends on a variety of factors, like the quality and kind of paint or stain, and exactly how well the walls are prepared and painted.
Paint and stain should be durable, resisting fading and abrasion and allowing repeated washings. Interior paint can go on with reduced spattering. A quality interior stain or clear finish should resist fading, peeling, or yellowing, and also be easy to keep up, free of impurities or waxes that could collect dirt and grime and make cleaning or recoating difficult. Outside paints should dry with a toughness that resists deterioration from all sorts of exposure, and an elasticity which provides for constantly expanding and contracting areas. With their thorough penetration and level of resistance to ultraviolet (UV) light, the stains and finishes on your home's outside surfaces should give a similar high performance.
A Brief History of Stain and Paint
The oldest known paint was utilized by the painters of Lascaux, who ground natural pigments with water and a binder that may have been honey, starch, or gum. You might be wondering why these cave paintings have lasted thousands of years while the paint on the south side of your property is peeling after only three winters. Here's why: The frequent mild temperature, humidity, and dark interiors of caves are ideal chemical preservatives. Your house, on the other hand, is subjected to a myriad of weather and conditions.
The Egyptians knew as early as 1000 B.C. that paint could protect as well as decorate. Beeswax, vegetable oils, and gum arabic were heated and mixed with Earth and flower dyes to paint images which have lasted a large number of years. The Egyptians used asphalt and pitch to maintain their paintings. The Romans later used white lead pigment, making a formula that could exist almost unchanged until 1950.
The Chinese used oil from the Tung tree to cement the Great Wall, and to preserve wood. The Chinese used gums and resins to make advanced varnishes such as, shellac, turpentine, copal, and mastic. The formulas and applications for those varnishes also changed little over the centuries.
Milk paint dates back to Egyptian times, was widely used until the late 1800’s when oil-based paints were introduced. Odorless and non-toxic, milk paint today has been revived as an alternative interior paint. Cassein, the protein in milk, dries very level and hard, and can be tinted with other pigments. Like stains, milk paint must be coated with a wax or varnish, and it is very durable.
Created from hogs' bristles, badger and goat hair, brushes also transformed little for many centuries. Bristles were hand bound, rosined, and greased, then hand laced in to the stock of the brush. Hog's hair brushes, called China bristle brushes, are still a preferred brush for oil-based paints.
Pigments originally originated from anything that bore a color, from ground up Egyptian mummies to pasture dirt. Most mineral or inorganic pigments originated from rust, potassium, sea salt, sulphur, alum (aluminum), and gypsum, amongst others. Some extravagant projects incorporated valuable stones such as lapis lazuli. A huge selection of organic pigments from plants, insects, and animals constructed all of those other painter's palette.
Paints and stains changed little from the time of the Pharaohs to the Industrial Revolution. A book on varnishes shared in 1773 was reprinted 14 times until 1900, with only minor revisions. However, the colder climates of northern Europe did bring about the necessity for more durable paint, and in the 1500s the Dutch designer Jan van Eyck developed oil-based paint.
Starting during the Middle Ages lead, arsenic, mercury, and various acids were used as binders and color enhancers. These and other metals made the mixing and painting process hazardous. Paints and varnishes were usually blended on site, in which a ground pigment was blended with lead, oil, and solvents over sustained high heating. The maladies that arose from harmful exposure were common amongst painters at least before late 1800s, when paint companies began to batch ready mix coatings. While exposure to contaminants given off during the mixing process subsided, exposure to the harmful materials inherent in paints and stains didn't change much until the 1960s, when companies ceased making lead based paints.
World War I forced the U.S. painting industry to modernize. Manufacturers had to find a replacement for the natural pigments and dyes that came from Germany. They commenced to synthesize dyes. Today many pigments and dyes are chemically synthesized.
Improvements in the painting industry have extended well beyond pigments. Water-based latexes have gained in acceptance as a safe, quality option to oil-based paints. Latexes have improved from simple "whitewashes" to highly advanced coatings that can outlast oil-based products. Both oil-based and latex coatings are emerging each year with noteworthy improvements, including the ground metal or glass that's now added to reflect damaging UV light.
A milestone in the evolution of coatings occurred in the early 1990s with the introduction of a fresh class of paints and stains known as "water borne." Created by the necessity to adhere to stricter regulations, water borne coatings decrease the volatile organic substances, or VOCs, found in standard paint and stains. Poisonous and flammable, VOCs evaporate as a coating's solvent dries. They can be inhaled or assimilated through your skin, and create ozone pollution when exposed to sunlight.
THE MAKE UP OF STAINS AND PAINTS Paints and stains contain four basic types of substances: solvents, binders, pigments, and additives.
Paint and Stain Solvents and Binders
Solvents will be the vehicle or medium, for the elements in a paint or stain. They regulate how fast a finish dries and exactly how it hardens. Water and alcohol are the primary solvents in latex. Oil-based solvents range from mineral spirits (thinner) to alcohols and xylene, to napthas. The solvent also includes binders, which form the "skin" when the paint dries. Binders give paint adhesion and sturdiness. The expense of paint is based in large part upon the grade of its binder.
Because water is the vehicle in latex paint, it dries quickly, allowing for recoating the same day. The odor that you see when using a latex paint or stain is the "flashing," or evaporation, of the binder and solvents. The binders in latex are minute, suspended beads of acrylic or vinyl acrylic that "weld" as the paint dries. Latex enamels contain a increased amount of acrylic resins for increased hardness and durability.
Alkyds and oil-based paints are simply the same thing. The term alkyd is derived from "alcid," a combination of alcohol and acid that acts as the drying agent. Both have the same binders, which might include linseed, soy, or Tung oils. Oil based and alkyd enamels may contain polyurethanes and epoxies for extra hardness. Alkyd paints come in high performance combinations such as two part polyester-epoxy for commercial use and a urethane revised alkyd for home use. Urethane boosts toughness.
Water borne coatings use a two part drying system: water is the drying agent, and oils form a hard-drying resin. These new coatings match and sometimes out perform their oil-based cousins. They resist yellowing, are stronger, require only water clean-up, have little odor, and are non-flammable. One disadvantage: They raise hardwood grain and require sanding between coats.
Pigments
Pigments will be the costliest component in paint. In addition to providing color, pigments also impact paint's hiding power - its potential to protect an identical color with as few coats as is feasible. Titanium dioxide is the primary and most expensive ingredient in pigment. Top quality paints not only have significantly more titanium dioxide, but also more finely ground pigment. Inexpensive paints use coarsely ground pigment, which doesn't bind well and washes off more easily.
Additives; Paint and Stain
Additives determine how well a paint contacts, or wets, the surface area. They also help paint flow, level, dry, and resist mildew. Oil is the surfactant, or wetting agent, in oil-based paint. These paints have a natural thickness and ability to flow and level; they go on smoother than latex and dry more slowly, so brush streaks have a chance to smooth out. That is why oil-based paints have a tendency to drip on vertical walls more than latexes do.
Latex paint has been trying to catch up with oil-based paint over time. Today many latexes outperform oil-based paints and primers, because of thickeners, wetting agents (soapy substances that are also known as surfactants), drying inhibitors, defoamers, fungicides, and coalescents. Defoamers keep latex paint from bubbling and leaving pinpricks (called "pin holing") in the paint as it dries. Bubbling is caused when the soap wetting agent rises to the surface as it dries. The better the paint, the less pin holing you should have. It used to be that if latex paint was shaken at the paint store you would have to allow it to settle for a few hours. It is no longer the truth with better paints, which is often opened up and used right out of the shaker without threat of pin holing.
Coalescents help latex resins bond, especially in colder weather. Oil-based paint, because it dries slowly and resists freezing, can adhere and dry in temps from 50°F to 120°F. With added coalescents and, believe it or not, antifreeze, some latexes can be employed in the same temp range, and even lower. Some outdoor latexes can be properly applied at temperature ranges at only 35°F. Companies including Pratt & Lambert, Pittsburgh Paint, and Sherwin Williams have removed the surfactants to help their latex paints be applied in lower temperatures. Because the wetting agents have been removed, the latex dries faster.
UV blocking additives have been added to paints and stains to help slow deterioration. Sunlight is responsible for much of the breakdown of any covering. It fades colors, dries paint, and adds to the expansion and contraction process that makes paint crack and peel off. UV blockers in paint may consist of finely ground metals and ground glass which is currently being added for even more reflection of natural sunlight.
If you are in an area with a lot of humidity, rainfall, and insects, you may want to consider adding a biocide or fungicide to your paint. Biocide deters insects, and fungicide counters mildew. Many coatings already contain some fungicide, but only in small concentrations because of strict interstate regulations.
Sound Quality Painting
824 90th Dr SE suite B
Lake Stevens WA 98258
(425) 512-7400
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