Paint Terminology - Volume 1
I am going to keep an ongoing list of common paint terms that that you will see me use on this website. I know that I am not going to be able to put all of the words on here at once, so this will be a article that I update as I add content. I will often use coatings instead of paints. Coatings refers to all paints, primers, epoxies, urethane, etc. All paints are coatings, but not all coatings are paints.
Common Paint Terms:
- Substrate - The surface that is being painted.
- Coverage - How many square feet one gallon of the coating can cover.
- Hide - How well the paint hides(covers) existing colors. Oftentimes people confuse hide with coverage.
- Blocking - How well a paint resists sticking to itself. For instance, when a cabinet door sticks to the frame or a window is difficult to open because the paint sticks.
- Adhesion - How well a coating sticks to substrates.
- Durability - How well a paint holds up to abuse.
- Washability and Scrubability - Refers to how much rubbing a coating can take before it fails.
Common paint failures and their causes:
- Peeling - Self explanatory. Causes include adhesion problems, poor prep, moisture, and more!
- Burnishing - Refers to a paint’s sheen being changed due to rubbing, washing, etc.
- Hat Banding or Picture Framing - This is when the brush cut-in shows a different color than the rolled parts of a wall.
- Holidays - These are areas where the paint was not applied thick enough the original substrate is visible through the paint.
- Flashing - When you paint over drywall mud or caulk and the paint sheen is different when it dries.
- Alligatoring - Severe paint cracking that looks like the skin of an alligator - various causes.
- Mudcracking - When paint is applied too thick or on a hot surface and dries to quickly. It cracks and looks like one of those deserts where the ground is cracked.
- Efflorescence - A white powdery substance that comes through paint if it is applied to fresh masonry without the appropriate primer.
- Surfactant Leaching - Occurs when a paint is exposed to excessive moisture before its initial has happened. It appears in the form of a white soapy goo coming out of the painted surface.
Common Solvents used for thinning and cleaning coatings:
- Water
- Mineral spirits/Paint thinner
- Lacquer thinner
- Xylene
- Denatured Alcohol
- Toluene
- Methyl-Ethyl-Ketone (MEK)
- Acetone
- Reducer 54 (RK7-54)
Keep checking back. I will continually update this list as I write more.
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