Steelscape DesignScape live
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Hi, and welcome to the first video of Designscape Live. I'm your host, Richard King, product manager at Steelscape, the industry leader for innovative design solutions in metal for building applications.
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Designscape live is a multi-part series on pre-painted metal. With the information learned from this video series, you'll be able to understand the benefits and applications of metal and why having a partner like Steelscape is so important.

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So, let's kick things off. Today we're talking about paint. What is paint, what does it consist of, and how do we achieve color? Paint is a liquid designed for application to a surface as a thin film that cures to a solid film. It serves to protect the surface whilst creating an attractive aesthetic appearance. Paint can be applied through brushing, dipping, spraying, or rolling, which at Steelscape is our specialty.

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Paint consists of three elements: resins, pigments and solvents. Resins are the binder of the paint and determine the physical and chemical properties of the product, including durability, its ability to be formed into products, and resistance to things such as corrosion and abrasion. Pigments make it beautiful. Their primary purpose is to add color. Solvents dissolve this potent combination into a consistency suitable for application. Additives may also be added to fine tune or improved performance characteristics. We can see that each of the three elements, resins, pigments, and solvents, each broadly reflect a third of the total paint volume, with additives usually only making up a small portion.

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So, we know that pigments correct color, but how? Pigments are insoluble particles which are finely ground and disperse with the resin to create color. They can be produced from naturally occurring minerals, called organic, or manmade by chemical processes, called inorganic. Inorganic pigments are typically dull yellows, reds, greens, browns and black line oxides. Organic pigments, by contrast, are brighter, including reds, blues, greens, violets and yellows.

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While they provided cleaner, more distinctive look, organic pigments are less durable. Specifically, organic pigments fade faster when exposed to UV light. This is an important consideration when selecting color for exterior applications. We can also see the most paint using construction coatings is relatively hard to give it durability, but not too hard so as to cause film cracking.

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So, what about color? How is it assessed? Color is the eyes' perception of the wavelengths of visible light reflecting from a surface. Color is a product of three dimensions, usually referred to as at lab scale, as pictured here. In the production process, this scale is used to assess finished product relative to a standard to ensure that color is produced to exacting customer requirements.

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So today, we've learned about paint, how paint leads to color, and how this color is assessed. Join us in the next video as we talk in detail about how this paint and its vibrant color is applied to metal.Text: