WHAT PAINTS AND STAINS DO

Nearly every kind of surface, from drywall to concrete, needs protection from the elements. These damaging elements can range from raging blizzards to innocent looking sunlight on a living room wall. The full total thickness of the paint that ends up on the exterior of your home is usually about one tenth the thickness of your skin, and interior paint is even thinner. We ask a lot of that covering of skin. What it can do depends on a number of factors, like the quality and kind of paint or stain, and how well the surfaces prepped and painted.

Paint and stain should be durable, resisting fading and abrasion and allowing repeated washings. Interior paint should go on with reduced spattering. An excellent interior stain or clear finish should resist fading, peeling, or yellowing, and also be easy to keep up, free of impurities or waxes which could collect dirty residue and make cleaning or recoating difficult. Exterior paints should dry with a toughness that resists deterioration from all types of exposure, and an elasticity which allows for constantly expanding and contracting surfaces. With their deep penetration and resistance to ultraviolet (UV) light, the stains and finishes on your home's external surfaces should give a similar high performance.

The History of Paint and Stain

The oldest known paint was employed by the painters of Lascaux, who ground natural pigments with water and a binder that might have been honey, starch, or gum. You might be wondering why these cave paintings have lasted a large number of years as the paint on the south part of your house is peeling after only three winters. Here's why: The continuous mild temperature, humidity, and dark interiors of caves are ideal chemical preservatives. Your home, on the other hand, is exposed to all types 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 vegetable dyes to paint images which may have lasted thousands of years. The Egyptians used asphalt and pitch to preserve their paintings. The Romans later used white lead pigment, developing 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 transformed little in the following centuries.

Milk paint dates back to Egyptian times, was widely used up until the late 1800’s when oil-based paints were introduced. Odorless and non-toxic, milk paint today is being revived as an excellent interior paint. Cassein, the protein in milk, dries very level and hard, and can be tinted with other pigments. Like stains, milk paint needs to be sealed with a wax or varnish, and is very durable.

Created from hogs' bristles, badger and goat hair, brushes also changed little for several centuries. Bristles were hand bound, rosined, and greased, then hand laced into the stock of the brush. Hog's hair brushes, called China bristle brushes, remain a preferred brush for oil-based paints.

Pigments originally came from anything that bore a color, from ground up Egyptian mummies to pasture mud. Most mineral or inorganic pigments came from rust, potassium, sea salt, sulphur, alum (aluminum), and gypsum, among others. Some extravagant works incorporated precious stones such as lapis lazuli. Hundreds of organic and natural pigments from plants, insects, and animals made-up 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 publicized in 1773 was reprinted 14 times until 1900, with only minor revisions. However, the colder climates of northern Europe have brought about the necessity for more durable paint, and in the 1500s the Dutch artist 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 dangerous. Paints and varnishes were usually blended on site, in which a ground pigment was mixed with lead, oil, and solvents over sustained high heat. The maladies that arose from harmful exposure were common among painters at least until the late 1800s, when paint companies commenced to batch ready mix coatings. While exposure to toxins given off through the mixing process subsided, exposure to the harmful substances inherent in paints and stains didn't change much before 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 began 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 attractiveness as a safe, quality option to oil-based paints. Latexes have altered from simple "whitewashes" to highly advanced coatings that can outlast oil-based products. Both oil-based and latex coatings are emerging every year with noteworthy improvements, like the ground metal or glass that's now added to reflect destroying UV light.

A milestone in the evolution of coatings occurred in the very early 1990s with the introduction of a fresh class of paints and stains known as "water borne." Created by the need to adhere to stricter regulations, water borne coatings decrease the volatile organic materials, or VOCs, found in standard paint and stains. Toxic and flammable, VOCs evaporate as a coating's solvent dries. They could be inhaled or assimilated through your skin, and create ozone pollution when subjected to sunlight.

PAINT AND STAINS MAKE UP

Paints and stains contain four basic types of ingredients: solvents, binders, pigments, and additives.

Binders and Solvents

Solvents will be the vehicle or medium, for the materials in a paint or stain. They determine how fast a finish dries and how it hardens. Water and alcohol are the main 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 resilience. The cost of paint will depend in large part upon the grade of its binder.

Because water is the vehicle in latex paint, it dries quickly, enabling recoating the same day. The odor that you see when utilizing 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 include a better amount of acrylic resins for greater hardness and durability.

Alkyds and oil-based paints are basically the same thing. The term alkyd is derived from "alcid," a mixture 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 improved alkyd for home use. Urethane boosts resilience.

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 more durable, require only water clean-up, have little odor, and are non-flammable. One disadvantage: They swell solid wood grain and require sanding between coats.

Stain and Paint Pigments

Pigments are the costliest component in paint. In addition to providing color, pigments also affect paint's hiding power - its capability to hide an identical color with as few coats as you can. Titanium dioxide is the principal 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 easier.

Paint and Stain Additives

Additives regulate 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 capacity to flow and level; they go on smoother than latex and dry more slowly, so brush marks have more time to level out. That is why oil-based paints tend to run on vertical walls more than latexes do.

Latex paint has been playing catch up with oil-based paint over the years. Today many latexes outperform oil-based paints and primers, thanks to thickeners, wetting agents (soapy substances that are also called 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 triggered when the soap wetting agent rises to the surface as it dries. The better the paint, the less pin holing you will have. It used to be that if latex paint was shaken at the paint store you would have to let it to settle for a couple of 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, since it dries slowly and resists freezing, can stick and dry in temperature from 50°F to 120°F. With added coalescents and, believe it or not, antifreeze, some latexes can be employed in the same temperature range, and even lower. Some exterior latexes can be securely applied at temperatures as low as 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 put into paints and stains to help slow the aging process. Sunlight is responsible for a lot of the break down 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 contain finely ground metals and ground glass which is now being added for even more reflection of the sun's rays.

If you live in a region with tons 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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