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The Metallic Paint Secret
Mysteries of Science |
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The company made parts for the automotive industry, mainly interior components that went into the dashboard. Many decorating and finishing processes were used. Metallic finish was used sparingly for safety reasons. Typically to create attention getting borders around dials, knobs and buttons, vacuum metalizing was used to coat these areas. The problem with vacuum coating was that it was not a selective coating method, everything received the metal coating and masking was not an efficient process. A competitor had developed a super bright metallic paint that looked similar to vacuum metalizing. After signing an agreement not to analyze the material the company obtained a sample and found that it did look bright and shiny. After receiving a second can of paint, the following week a technician announced that he could determine how the product was made without analyzing the material. How could this be done? Here's the rest of the story. There was a plastic wrapper that surrounded the sample paint can supplied by the competitor. There was thin metal on some areas of the plastic wrapper, but most had flaked off. The technician surmised that the competitor coated a plastic film with a release layer that would come off easily. They vacuum deposited shiny metal onto the release coated plastic film. The coating with the bright metal could be peeled off and ground into a pigment. The result would be a very thin and bright metal pigment that could be applied by painting or screening. |
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