PAINT RESEARCH

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22904, 11 June 1936, Page 18

PAINT RESEARCH

Pursuing the British Government's policy of encouraging scientific research in major industries, Mr Ramsay MacDonald, president of the council, will next week open large extensions to the laboratories of the Paint Research Association. Much useful work is already done in the research laboratories and technical control laboratories of individual firms, which refer problems to the laboratories of the association and to the Building Research Station. Such a flourishing industry as the British paint trade cannot, indeed, afford to neglect research, although 1 ! many old problems have been solved by the introduction of synthetic paints. For example, a check on conditions all over the world has proved that variations in temperature make surprisingly little difference to the drying of paints; the real enemy of paint is humidity. In a variable climate exterior work carried out with the old linseed oil paints, including those with a white lead basis, might easily be spoilt by rainfall, but synthetic finishes are freed from rain and dust spotting by the rapidity with which they become surface dry. The superiority of synthetic finishes, at all times evident, becomes in the worst conditions immeasurable.