View showing careful Dressing of Bull Stone Mill from Grinder
“As has been before stated, he was not the first to recognize the law governing minimum voids, but by that scientific use of the imagination which Tyndall so highly commends, he recognized, as by inspiration, the fundamental similarity existing between a film composed of solid particles cemented together by a semi-solid homogeneous menstruum and a layer of concrete composed of solid particles cemented together by a solid homogeneous medium. His application of the law permits the paint manufacturers to design a paint formula with full knowledge of the controlling conditions, so that it shall produce a coating neither too thick, and therefore uneconomical and subject to excessive internal strains, nor too thin, and thus weak and inefficient for protection. That Mr. Perry’s contention was well-founded, other paint technologists have since demonstrated; notably Mr. Wirt Tassin, in his microscopic studies of paint films in situ, and Prof. G. W. Thompson who, in his address to the Penna. Association of Master Painters at Reading, said:—“I want to agree with Mr. Perry * * * where he says that a pigment should be made up of particles of different sizes. Mr. Perry also draws a further parallel between paint and concrete where he refers to the form of the reinforcing pigment particles and suggests that in paint coatings as in concrete a field can be found for the chemically inert pigments with rod-like or hair-like structure, to strengthen the film, just as the steel rods and iron mesh are used to reinforce concrete in structural work—a suggestion which, since the first publication of the address, has been widely accepted as a practical aid in the manufacture of good paints.”
Use of Inert Pigments. There seems to be no reasonable doubt as to the efficiency of a small amount of inert pigments in paint, and the writer has often compared the manufacture of paint of the above type to the making of various alloys wherein zinc, copper, and other metals are added to gold in order to make a product possessed of greater durability, etc.
Batteries of Color Grinding Mills
There has been considerable inquiry as to just what is meant by the statement that “a moderate percentage of inert pigments, combined with properly adjusted mixtures of white lead and zinc oxide, have given wonderful service in all the tests.” The writer has been asked to define what “moderate” means. A “moderate percentage of inert pigments” should be defined as that amount of natural crystalline pigments that will, when mixed with white lead and zinc oxide, not materially detract from the hiding power of white lead and zinc oxide. It is possible to mix a certain percentage of these crystalline pigments with white lead and zinc oxide, and, by thorough grinding, incorporate them in such a manner that the mixture will show nearly as good a hiding power as the straight white lead and zinc oxide. When certain limits have been reached, however, and these limits must be determined by the manufacturer and painter in making practical tests, the further addition of inert pigments lowers the hiding power of the paint and therefore lowers the value of the paint. These remarks do not apply to artificial crystalline pigments, such as precipitated whiting, which possess greater hiding values than the natural pigments.
Perry’s Principles of Paint Making. Parts of the original paper[15] in which Perry so clearly set forth the principles from which the preceding laws were formed, follow:
[15] Physical Characteristics of a Paint Coating. R. S. Perry. Michigan Chapter, Amer. Institute of Architects, 1907.