Characteristics of good paints |10 December 2019
Mr Yakub during a Penlac-sponsored event at a public school (Photo source: A. G. Yakub)
There are a number of ways to judge a paint’s quality:
- Wearability
- Covering ability
- Ease of cleaning
- Environmentally friendly
- Aesthetic
- Practical and cost effective
Properties to be considered
1. Wearability:
Paint must be resistant to the wear and tear of the atmosphere and should maintain its colour, smoothness and finish for a long time.The Penlac factory has an in-house chemistry lab where technicians measure the paint’s colourfastness, its tinting strength, its viscosity, opacity and specific gravity – and that’s because Penlac places a lot of emphasis on quality control.
2. Covering ability:
Paints should cover the surface uniformly and homogeneously on which it is being applied and the finish should be smooth and uniform.
3. Ease of cleaning:
When it is required to clean the paint, it should be fairly easy to remove i.e. A good paint should not react chemically with the materials but should only cover its surface.
4. Environmentally friendly:
The most environment-friendly paints are water-based, with low or zero VOCs, and also those paints that do not have any plasticisers or biocides in them. Not all oil-based paints can be classified as eco-friendly because some may contain white spirit and other solvents.
[NB. VOCs stand for volatile organic compounds, which are vapours or gases that are released into the atmosphere and which denote the smell of the paint. Zero VOCs means no smell and that is being achieved for certain Penlac paint products with the use of expensive resins in the production process]
5. Aesthetic:
The paint should provide a comfortable room climate and, ideally, it should reduce the risk of moulds and algae growing on it. In that regard, Penlac has developed an effective anti-fungus paint that can be applied on surfaces exposed to high humidity and dampness to combat the growth of moulds and algae.
6. Practical and cost effective:
The other qualities of a good paint are that it must be affordable, ready to use and long lasting. In some cases, price can be a decisive factor in the selection of paints. But most avid customers tend to favour quality over price.
By A. G. Yakub, chairman & CEO of Penlac CO. Ltd