|
PAINT COMPOSITION
All coatings are made of two primary ingredients: resin and pigment. The function of the resin is to provide adhesion, flexibility, hardness, moisture and chemical resistance, and resistance to ultra-violet light. The pigment provides the color and its composition helps determine how well it can resist fading.
There are three different kinds of pigments:
Organic Pigments: a class of pigments that may have good - but usually not ultimate - durability. Just as the curtains in your living room can be expected to fade with time, so can the organic pigments used in coatings. It generally costs less to use organic pigments.
Inorganic Pigments: pigments that are synthetic or naturally occurring which do not contain carbon compounds. The majority of these colorants provide excellent long-term performance. The exception is carbon black. Their higher performance usually comes at a higher cost than organic colorants.
Ceramic Pigments: named after their original use in ceramic products, these complex inorganic pigments are made from mixed metal oxides synthesized at molten metal temperatures. The most color-stable pigments available today, they offer unparalleled resistance to heat, light, chemical attack, and higher solar reflectance. These attributes make them ideal to use in the highest quality exterior coatings to assure long-term color retention even after decades of weathering. Higher cost is usually associated with their higher performance.
Our coatings are all made from ceramic or inorganic pigments with a silicone-protected polyester resin. The silipoly resin is second in performance only to polyvinylidine fluoride (PVDF) resins. The PVDF resins are very expensive, while our much more affordable silipoly resin has come a long way to the point where its performance is almost as good PVDF.
HOW ARE PANELS PAINTED?
Our panels start out as 20,000 pound coils of flat sheet metal. They are loaded onto a machine that begins by uncoiling the coils. The uncoiled sheet then proceeds along a series of rollers through different phases of the process. First the metal is cleaned and degreased, then a chemical pretreatment is placed on the panel. Then the panel is dried before it proceeds to the primer unit. Once primed, it hits a curing oven to bake the primer on. It then goes through the machine that applies that main top coating. After being cured in an oven again, it is laminated to protect it, then recoiled.
At this point, to make your panels, we take the correctly colored coil, load onto one of our panel mills depending on what panel style you want, and the mill does the rest. It cuts the panels to length, and forms them. The panels are gathered, stacked, and shipped to you.
|
