Everywhere we look, we see paint. Yet, the color of said paint is a feature we don’t often think about when discussing product manufacturing. However, we can spend time today learning about this process. Truly, paint manufacturing has gone through plenty of changes since the lead scare in the 1970s. Since the ban on lead, the paint manufacturing process has gone through a significant overhaul thanks to the discovery of new techniques and pigments. So, what is the manufacturing process of paint? Let’s find out.

When learning about the paint manufacturing process, the first thing to note is that paint is made from gas or byproduct material produced from a pressure vessel. The material from the vessels can only transmit up to 250 grams of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) to meet regulations and prevent serious illness in users. There’s a lot that goes into the process of manufacturing paint, so let’s dive in further and finally find answers to this burning question: what is the manufacturing process of paint?

Before we can make the paint into a liquid, it first starts out as a grain. After the grain is made by manufacturers, it’s sent to paint plants, where the paint grain drops into a container of premixed resin with additional additives or solvents. The solvents and additives help form the paint into a paste.

In order to spread the pigment out, the paint mixture goes through two different processes. First, when the paste mixture is finished mixing, it’s transferred through a sand mill, where a cylinder spins to grind the pigment particles with sand or silica.

When grinding with sand or silica, the pigments become minuscule and easier to dispense into separate containers. Once done, the mixture goes through a filter to remove leftover sand pieces.

Then, close to 90 percent of the mixture gets sent through a high-speed dispersion tank if the paint byproduct needs to be dispersed elsewhere for at-home use. Once it goes through this process, workers perform an agitation phase to blend and turn the pigment into a solvent.

Whether the paste grain is taken through a sand mill or dispersion tank, both processes prepare the paints for the thinning process. Once it reaches its desired consistency (depending on the desired color), the paste gets tossed into kettles, where the agitation process adds solvent to help it reach its final form.

Once the paint has finished thinning, it then moves to canning. The pigments disperse into separate cans and bottles and then shift to quality control to perform tests and ensure the paint meets FDA standards and regulations.

The world is filled with detailed and breathtaking processes. We’ve learned a new approach as we focused on the paint manufacturing process; it all starts inside a pressure vessel and is then processed into the final product. Continue exploring online; you never know what you’ll learn.