How to Test the Resistance of Paints to Separation?

Paints and coating are used in different production verticals to ensure the strength and quality of the products and offer appealing look to the products. With the wide usage of paints, coatings and varnishes in different industries, it becomes mandatory for the manufacturers in paint manufacturing industries to ensure the strength and quality of the paint products before supplying it to the customers. There are many properties of paints that help to determine their quality such as adhesion strength, color quality, gloss corrosion resistance and many more.

Major Properties of Paints

One of the major properties of the paints is its adhesion strength. To enhance the quality of the products, it is necessary to ensure that the coating on the products is done in a highly effective and suitable manner that will not separate easily and will perform well. This can be performed by gauging the resistance strength of coatings to separation. To perform the same, several test methods are performed on the products to perform the adhesion testing to ensure that how efficiently coating or paintings are applied on the substrates. In the paint and plating industries, paint adhesion testing is majorly performed to analyze whether the coating is done efficiently on the substrates or not. The testing is performed using different test methods such as pull-off test, cross hatch test, and scrape adhesion test. Out of the mentioned test methods, cross hatch test is the best test method which is used to test the resistance strength of paints to separation.

Cross Hatch Test

Crosshatch is a very popular test method which is performed on the substrates to analyze the resistance of the coatings and varnishes to separation from the substrate. The test is performed using cross hatch tool that helps to cut the sample in a right angle lattice pattern to piece the material in all directions. Using these test methods, as per the test results quality of the material can be concluded quickly and easily. To test a substrate that has multiple coatings, determining the resistance of different layers of coating to separation can be easily attained. As per the ASTM standard test method, this can be done using two test methods, Test Method A and Test Method B.

According to test Method A, X shape cut is made on the sample with the help of cross cut blades. Now pressure sensitive adhesive tape is applied to the scratch. After few seconds, the tape is removed from the scratch and adhesion resistance strength is measured with 0 to 5 measurement scale.

According to test Method B, cross-hatch pattern is prepared on the sample. Now remove the detached coating using a soft brush. After this, the Adhesion is determined on a 0 to 5 scale.

The 0 to 5 scale for cross hatch test indicates that:

• Zero (0) means more than 65% area is removed,
• Five (5) means 0 percent area is removed.

Crosshatch test can be performed easily using Cross Hatch Tester, for more information on the product, contact our experts.