The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California

Painting And Decorating

Knowing Paint

Pigments... Vehicles . . . Thinners . . . Driers . . . Ready-mixed Paints

Everything that is exposed is subject to the destructive action of the elements, sun, wind, rain, hail, heat, and cold. Paint protects surfaces from the direct attack of the elements and from the deteriorating effect of moisture.

In order to attain satisfactory results from paint it is necessary to consider the purposes for which it is to be used. An understanding of the functions of paint ingredients will avoid their indiscriminate use, and so ensure against paint failures. The master craftsman does a job well because he understands his materials and knows how to use them. So, too, the layman can achieve superior results if he has a knowledge of paint, and if he uses that knowledge to best advantage.

Paint is any white or colored liquid or paste to be used for protection, decoration or both on solid surfaces, and it is composed of a pigment or very fine powder, an oil or vehicle, a thinner, and a drier. Each of these four major ingredients imparts certain desirable characteristics to the paint, as is apparent from a consideration of the more commonly used pigments, vehicles, thinners, and driers.

Pigments. A pigment is a white or colored material, usually in the powder or paste form, which gives the paint its body, its opacity or covering power, and its color. These three qualities are not always obtained from the use of the single pigment. In fact, we commonly use a mixture of pigments in order to produce the desired color, body, and covering power. Certain basic pigments occur so often in paint mixtures that some knowledge of their properties is essential for any work with paints.

White lead has been the most important paint pigment for more than two hundred years. It is used extensively in practically all of the finer paints. It is one of the most opaque and durable of the white pigments and, when properly mixed with vehicles, thinners, and driers, plus the desired colors, it is.