Paints and getting your boat painted - how to summarize my long list of questions to make a thread worth reading and responding to.... It's a bit of a dilemma... But I'll try my best.
There are so many opinions on paints and painting; I find that the marine world seems to rely heavily on "marine" grade paints but really, what are those?
Whenever I run into these kinds of things, I tend to look to the standards world. In this case, easiest to look into the MIL standards as they tend to be driven by the military and performance and $'s count - and they are easy to find and free....Free is a good thing, especially at this stage where I'm really just trying to get my mind around this.
Mil standards like MIL-DTL-24441 and MIL-PRF-24535 and a host of others provide a lot of information about coating systems on boats. Funny though, the marine paint products that are aimed at the recreational boating market don't give technical details about their products, at least what I could find. Mostly what I find are marketing terms. "high performance polyurethane" - "polyurethane-based coating" but looking into the standards, I'm finding terms like "epoxy-polyamide" - "Chlorinated Alkyd Enamel" - "Silicone Alkyd Enamel" and more.
But what I'm not finding is any sort of technical "bridge" between what I find in standards and what I find in paints aimed at the recreational boating market. That always sends up a real red flag in my mind as my main goal is to achieve excellent quality coupled with the lowest price. Whenever I see these "marketing" terms and no connection to serious standards, my mind begins thinking "High cost, and undefined performance".... The old saying, "if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit" comes to mind.
Now I'm not trying to downplay or in any way criticize these marine paint companies, I'm sure they produce good products. What I'm really interested in is learning about the real paint requirements in such a way as I can then evaluate a painting system even if it's not marketed to the recreational boating industry. And I sure don't want one that isn't going to stand the test of time.
Do we have any polymer chemists or folks that understand paint here that can shed light on this? I'd be really interested in learning more.
dj
There are so many opinions on paints and painting; I find that the marine world seems to rely heavily on "marine" grade paints but really, what are those?
Whenever I run into these kinds of things, I tend to look to the standards world. In this case, easiest to look into the MIL standards as they tend to be driven by the military and performance and $'s count - and they are easy to find and free....Free is a good thing, especially at this stage where I'm really just trying to get my mind around this.
Mil standards like MIL-DTL-24441 and MIL-PRF-24535 and a host of others provide a lot of information about coating systems on boats. Funny though, the marine paint products that are aimed at the recreational boating market don't give technical details about their products, at least what I could find. Mostly what I find are marketing terms. "high performance polyurethane" - "polyurethane-based coating" but looking into the standards, I'm finding terms like "epoxy-polyamide" - "Chlorinated Alkyd Enamel" - "Silicone Alkyd Enamel" and more.
But what I'm not finding is any sort of technical "bridge" between what I find in standards and what I find in paints aimed at the recreational boating market. That always sends up a real red flag in my mind as my main goal is to achieve excellent quality coupled with the lowest price. Whenever I see these "marketing" terms and no connection to serious standards, my mind begins thinking "High cost, and undefined performance".... The old saying, "if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit" comes to mind.
Now I'm not trying to downplay or in any way criticize these marine paint companies, I'm sure they produce good products. What I'm really interested in is learning about the real paint requirements in such a way as I can then evaluate a painting system even if it's not marketed to the recreational boating industry. And I sure don't want one that isn't going to stand the test of time.
Do we have any polymer chemists or folks that understand paint here that can shed light on this? I'd be really interested in learning more.
dj