Instrumentation and painting quality control Available to Purchase

Any suggestion that the use of instruments in the inspection of painting and its allied operation of surface preparation is a substitute for the visual and critical inspection carried out by an inspector experienced in the work involved would be a serious disservice to the quality control of painting. Broadly speaking, the experienced inspector knows the problems associated with achieving a predetermined result, he knows how the operator may react to problems of access and other difficulties and is familiar with the short cuts that are sometimes taken. He can, by concentrating his attention on these higher risk areas, do much to prevent bad work and to eliminate the premature breakdown which too frequently mars the finished job. As each successive operation will tend to obscure any faults in the work already done, it is only when the inspector is at hand to see the work actually in progress, and at the completion of each stage, that a sufficiently high degree of security is achieved. This said, it must be added that it is only in conjunction with the use of instruments that the quality of the work can be correctly assessed. In fact the case for the introduction of instrumentation into painting quality control is particularly strong. But great care is required in the interpretation of individual measurements. Many of the tests for physical properties of the dry paint film are empirical, and need to be carried out under controlled conditions if reproducible results are to be obtained.