Paint products

Paint products consist of many ingredients. The have adhesives, solvents, excipients and pigments. For example oil paints and oil varnish have a linseed oil adhesive, wood turpentine solvent, and a drier as a excipient.

The purposes of the adhesives are:

  • Bind the paint pigments and make the paint or varnish stick to its base.
  • Give a protective layer to the finished surface.
  • Improve the weather and temperature sealing.
  • Improve the water and chemical resistance.

Each adhesive has a different effect on the paints or varnishes drying speed and workability. The adhesive produce a coating on the paint/varnish after it dries

  1. Chemically drying which means a chemical reaction starts the drying process.
  2. Physically drying which means that the adhesive dries without any chemical reaction such as the solvent dissolving.

The purposes of the solvents are:

  • Dissolve the adhesive on the paint or varnish
  • Lowering the viscosity.
  • Control/regulate the application properties, evening and drying speeds. 

The purpose of the excipients are:

  • Improving the quality of the paint ingredients
  • Making the paint or varnish dry faster
  • Improve the shelf life and leveling
  • Prevent mold from living inside the paint
  • Prevent UV-light from changing the color of the paint

Categorizing paints

Paint products can be divided into paints and varnishes. Paints are opaque and they have color pigments.Varnishes don’t have pigments and therefore produce a clear coat. Both of the paint products however, have adhesives, solvents and excipient. Paint products can also be grouped based on the solvent. Waterborne and solventborne paint.

Waterborne paints and varnishes

  • Suited for indoor use such as walls and ceiling
  • They can also be used with furniture however they tend to dry fast so expertise required.

Solventborne paints and varnishes

  • Dry slow but are very durable
  • Smell bad
  • Alkydpaints are suited for furniture, indoor doors and windows.
  • Oil based paints are suited for outdoor furniture and outdoor doors and windows and also furniture restoration.

Latexpaint is a uniform name for different types of waterborne paints. Waterborne paints, also known as latexpaints are plastic dispersion paints that have small polymer particle adhesives are free in the water. While drying, water is dissolved from the paint until it becomes plastic and glues into a paint coat.

The paint that was created in the 50’s and 60’s had a latex adhesive. This adhesive caused molding problems in buildings. The latex formed a coat that was too strong and therefore didn’t let any air or moisture through it. This way the molding got stuck inside and started to destroy the ceiling. Calling a watesborne paint a latex paint is wrong since they no longer have latex in them.

Waterborne paints are commonly known as acrylate paint.

In the 60’s latex paints were the most used indoor paints. Their popularity had many reasons. The paint was suitable for paint rollers and therefore made the spreading of the paint easier and sped up the painting process. The smell wasn’t as strong as the paints used before. All though back then those paints weren’t considered a health risk or a risk for the environment. Paints noawadays are both safe for the painter and are environmentally friendly.