What Is Paint and How Is It Made?

A long time ago, paint was created from a very wide variety of materials—virtually anything at one’s disposal! These days, we do things a little bit differently; only high-quality ingredients are used, and only after they’ve been precisely measured and tested to ensure that the final product looks great and lasts for a while. Keep reading to learn a little more about what ingredients are used to make paint, along with a brief breakdown of the manufacturing process.

The 4 Main Ingredients Used to Make Paint

There is a lot of thought put into the ingredients used to make paint; the final product must meet several different standards in terms of look and longevity, but also, it needs to be able to be applied as a liquid and resiliently dry and turn solid! In order to achieve this, many different components are used. Here’s a closer look at four key ones:

• Pigments are used to provide color, hiding, and control the level of gloss. Some common ones include zinc oxide, iron oxide, and chromium oxide, used for white, red, and green.
• Resins hold the pigment particles together after they’ve been separated, and they also provide protection and adhesion to the surface being painted.
• Solvents such as turpentine or water act as carriers for the pigments and resins.
• Additives are used to enhance certain properties in the paint like ease of brushing, scuff resistance, mold resistance, and drying and sag resistance.

The 5 Key Steps of the Paint-Manufacturing Process

The paint-making process can generally be summarized by these five key steps: measuring the ingredients, preparing the mill-base, combining all of the ingredients, testing the quality, and finally canning the paint. Here’s a very brief breakdown of each of these integral steps:

1. Measurement of the ingredients – All of the ingredients are measured by either weight or volume using highly-accurate electronic scales, or floor scales when greater accuracy of small additions is required. They’re then distributed into calibrated vats and graduated measuring containers.
2. Preparation of the mill-base – Pigments are powders of typically such a small size that they tend to clump together, meaning they need to be broken down to prepare the mill-base. This is done by mixing in resin and certain additives as the mixture is rolled and milled.
3. Adding the let-down – The remaining ingredients are combined and mixed into the let-down, and when ready, it’s added to the mill-base.
4. Testing the quality – After any final additions have been made, the quality of the mixture is tested for properties like density, tint strength, color, viscosity, dry time, applications, and the degree of dispersion.
5. Canning and distributing the paint – When the testing is complete and the batch has passed, a sample is taken and stored for future reference. The paint is then finally canned and sent off to various branches and warehouses for distribution.

The next time you admire the paint finish of your home, it doesn’t hurt to also take a moment to appreciate all of the hard work and precise calculations that go into the very color you’re looking at!

About Platinum Painting of Frisco

The talented team at Platinum Painting of Frisco has helped hundreds of homeowners around the Frisco area with a wide variety of paint projects, including both interior and exterior house painting. If you have any questions about the blog or you’d like to get in touch with the team, don’t hesitate to reach out online or by phone! Telephone: (972) 372-0404.