What is the dew point? People with what common condition should avoid isocyanates? What is laitance? How long should you shake an aerosol paint can? What is the shelf life for most paints? Amplitude is a measure of what? How long should you leave a newly-painted swimming pool before filling? [see answers below]

These and other questions are answered in an online Knowledge Base for professional paint users and specifiers, developed by independent paintmaker HMG Paints. With a market history dating back almost 75 years and the collective experience of its paint technicians and chemists, HMG felt it appropriate to publish its most Frequently Asked Questions, to help customers solve niggling queries and check up on critical points.

The Knowledge Base is at www.hmgpaint.com and it’s just a question of logging in, obtaining a password by return and clicking on the various categories. At present these cover everything from British and International Standards numbers, to spray gun set-up and surface preparation, with all the factsheets presented in easily printable Acrobat format. What’s more, HMG challenges the trade to come up with other paint-related FAQ’s, so the Knowledge Base can continue expanding.

Among the material available online are a theoretical paint coverage chart, an outline of the current isocyanates code of practice, an explanation of accelerated weathering tests and a factsheet on coverage rates and overcoating schedules, as well as a simple Centrigrade-Fahrenheit conversion table.

There’s a fairly comprehensive document on surface preparation and product application, covering steel, aluminium, woodwork, masonry, concrete and previously-painted substrates, plus a separate sheet devoted to galvanised steel. Also featured is a guide to painting swimming pools, with a warning about proper preparation and application, and another about coating concrete floors.

HMG also offers users the resource of its R&D laboratory for identifying and counteracting difficult-to-overcoat substrates and finishes, as well as the services of its QA department for updates on current BS, ISO, EN, ASTM and other technical standards.

Further enquiries to:

HMG Paints
Riverside Works
Collyhurst Road
Manchester
M40 7RU
Telephone 0161 205 7631
email sales@hmgpaint.com

Answers: Dew point is the temperature at which condensation starts to form. Asthmatics should avoid processes involving isocyanates. Laitance or efflorescence refers to the residual salts left after concrete has dried. Shake the can for a minimum of 2 minutes to fully mix the contents. The shelf life for most paints is 12 months in cool, dry conditions. Amplitude is a measurement in microns of the difference between the peaks and troughs in a metal surface. It’s best to leave a newly-painted pool around 2 weeks before filling with water.

Press Contact David Gent Creative
Tel 01706 220388
Fax 01706 215849
email david@davidgent.com

Frequent automatic brush washing can be detrimental to vehicle paintwork, the scratching and minor abrasions caused by rotating plastic brushes leading to considerable gloss reduction over time. Add road dust and grit into the watery mix and they literally take the shine off automotive topcoats.

Now, innovative, independent British paintmaker, HMG Paints of Manchester, has developed a self-healing topcoat system, which actually recovers from scratches and blemishes, restoring the original shine. Called Recover and believed to be unique in its formulation, this self-healing, highly scratch-resistant coating is ideal for the bus and coach market, where vehicles typically go through brush washes every day, as well as truck and automobile finishing and refinishing applications.

Recover is a clear 2-pack isocyanate cured polyurethane coating, which is spray applied over any HMG basecoat system, available in virtually any colour. Not only is this remarkable coating self-healing, it is also ‘water clear’, which means no slight yellowing effect, highly accurate shade matching and excellent colour retention.

“Most bus and coach operators are highly image conscious, as are many CV fleet owners, and like to have their vehicles looking pristine on the road,” says HMG’s Sales & Marketing Director, Stephen Falder. “We believe there is tremendous market potential for this product, which represents a genuine technical breakthrough, and have already trialled it successfully with bus companies and manufacturers. Experienced professionals looking at six month old paintwork actually believe it’s newly resprayed. Yet there will be no significant cost premium on this two-component PUR coating.”

As one of the last independent British manufacturers of automotive coatings and a leading supplier to the UK bus and coach industry, HMG Paints is continually researching and developing new paint systems at its Collyhurst Road site. In order to come up with a solution to an age-old market irritation, the degradation of gloss finishes caused by brush washes, the company’s R&D department recently conducted extensive laboratory testing of scratch-resistant automotive clear coats, in the process developing the formulation for Recover.

Automotive clear topcoats are required to possess a number of performance characteristics, including toughness, durability and excellent resistance to chemicals and scratching. Market experience has shown that polyurethane (PUR) coatings based on aliphatic isocyanates are superior to conventional finishes in this respect, although even with these coatings there is traditionally a compromise, in that any increase in scratch resistance was generally accompanied by a decrease in chemical performance. However, HMG’s paint technicians reasoned that, given the many options for modifying the chemical structure of PUR coatings, there was a great deal of scope for further performance optimisation.

The company then conducted an extensive series of tests to determine the detailed characteristics of scratch resistance at all stages of binder and coating development, using image analysis techniques and microhardness measurements. Since existing studies showed that scratching of vehicle bodies in automatic brush washes is primarily caused by sandy dirt particles, this process was recreated in a laboratory brush wash simulator by adding quartz sand to the water and washing test panels coated with various 1K and 2K polyurethanes, then examining the results.

Scratching subjects the coating to considerable localised mechanical stress and any recovery starts shortly after stress removal, due to the viscoelastic deformation behaviour of polymer networks, known as ‘reflow’. Such in-depth analysis led to the formulation of Recover, a flexible, yet tough and durable 2K PUR coating, which possesses optimum chemical and scratch resistance characteristics, as well as inherent self-healing or ‘reflow’ properties.

This self-healing nature allows the paint film to recover and obscure any minor marks and scratches caused by mechanical washing, within a time period of anything from 5 minutes to an hour or so, depending on severity. To demonstrate this effect, HMG has even produced sample Recover-coated panels, which technical and sales personnel can abrade with Scotchbrite pads and allow customers to see the coating recover before their eyes.

HMG’s Recover can be sprayed with conventional or HVLP equipment, then force cured at up to 60ºC, with drying times comparable to conventional 2K PUR coatings. HMG Paints has also developed appropriate polishing techniques for this unique clear coat, in association with automotive specialists Autoglym, Farécla and 3M.

Further enquiries to:

HMG Paints
Riverside Works
Collyhurst Road
Manchester
M40 7RU
Telephone 0161 205 7631
email sales@hmgpaint.com

Press Contact David Gent Creative
Tel 01706 220388
Fax 01706 215849
email david@davidgent.com

HMG Paints’ Acrythane A211 high performance polyurethane topcoat is normally associated with protecting cars, coaches and commercial vehicles, thanks to its superb long-term durability and outstanding weather resistance. Now, however, it is also performing conservation duties on a newly-restored historic building in Oxford. The building is the 18th century Radcliffe Observatory, built with funds from Queen Anne’s physician Dr John Radcliffe (1652 - 1714) and now used as a common room by Green College. Sharing its patron with the magnificent Radcliffe Camera library, the observatory was recently cleaned and restored by historic building specialist, E Bowman & Sons of Stamford, and the project has created much interest within Oxford, since it is such a well known and cherished landmark.

Acrythane A211 is playing a modest, yet critical role in this project, by sealing and protecting the original brass inscriptions, which name the figures of Eight Winds that encircle the top of Radcliffe Observatory’s octagonal tower. The two-pack acrylic polyurethane was specified by London consulting architects, Peter Inskip + Peter Jenkins Architects, and the solid brass letters were sprayed by Buckinghamshire bodyshop, L W Burrows & Sons. Ever keen to underline the conservation credentials of its high performance surface coatings, Manchester-based HMG Paints supplied the product at a discount, offered application advice and maintained a close interest in this noteworthy project.

Green College is a graduate college of the University of Oxford and its three-acre site is dominated by the eighteenth century Radcliffe Observatory, which functioned as an astronomical observatory for 160 years, until its equipment was transferred to the less-polluted atmosphere of Pretoria, South Africa. Building began in 1772 under the direction of architect Henry Keene, although following his death in 1776, the Observatory was completed to a different design by James Wyatt, who based his idea on a smaller Tower of the Winds in Athens. The sculptor John Bacon also used this original tower as the basis for the flying figures of the Eight Winds, carved in Windrush stone around the top of the Observatory. The Greek inscriptions for these winds, including Boreas (N), Apeliotes (E), Notos (S) and Zephyros (W), are featured in brass lettering, just below the sculptured panels.

Radcliffe Observatory, consisting of a north facing semi-circular central building and Wyatt’s Tower of the Winds above, now houses a common room for 300 graduates, the college dining room in the former library above and, on the top floor, the octagonal observing room. Over the centuries, the condition of Bacon’s Cotswold stone sculptures had deteriorated quite badly, while the building’s eleven Signs of the Zodiac, originally modelled for the Coade Stone works by JCF Rossi, also required attention. Thus, the Warden and Fellows of Green College commissioned the conservation project, which was monitored throughout by Domestic Bursar, Gerald Chambers, in consultation with project architect Stephen Gee, of Inskip + Jenkins.

The project first entailed conservation cleaning of all the masonry work, the 18th century artificial Coade stone panels, including the Morning, Noon and Night carvings, the Bacon sculpted figures, cast lead statues and topmost copper globe, and the brass lettering elements. It also involved sensitive stone repairs with sculptured indents and lime mortar, as well as the limewashing of all lead-painted masonry elements.

The contractor was Lincolnshire-based E Bowman & Sons, which has undertaken many restoration projects on important historic buildings and boasts an in-house team of skilled craftsmen, which is able to undertake most aspects of conservation repair work, together with the traditional skills of stonemasonry, leadworking and joinery. For the Radcliffe Observatory contract, this team was supplemented by the detailed stone sculpting of Richard Noviss and the carved masonry work of Corin Johnson. Modern practices of conservation repair were adopted, as opposed to wholesale stone replacement methods used in the past, ensuring much of Bacon’s original, fine sculpting is retained.

Bowman’s Conservation Manager, Fred Markland, who managed the contract, contacted HMG Paints, when the architects specified Acrythane A211 for applying a clear lacquer coating to the brass lettering, on the advice of conservation experts. HMG advised that A211 needed professional application, preferably by an automotive bodyshop, and suggested that a high gloss finish was more durable than the proposed matt, especially as technical performance was more important than aesthetics at that height above the ground.

Renowned for its excellent all-round exterior durability and resistance to severe weather conditions and physical/chemical cleaning regimes, Acrythane A211 is suitable for application to a variety of substrates, including ferrous and non-ferrous metals, wood, concrete and plastics, and is an extremely versatile finish with a wide range of end uses. Its technical properties and rapid drying characteristics makes it a first choice transport coating, as a clear or pigmented topcoat, while industrially it is used as a low temperature baked enamel, the short stoving schedule ensuring quick throughput. Now its qualities are being recognised in the conservation field, adding another dimension to its versatility.

Further enquiries to:

HMG Paints
Riverside Works
Collyhurst Road
Manchester
M40 7RU
Telephone 0161 205 7631
email sales@hmgpaint.com

Press Contact David Gent Creative
Tel 01706 220388
Fax 01706 215849
email david@davidgent.com

Although it dates back to ancient Roman times and beyond, graffiti is very much a modern malaise and it is especially distressing when it affects a charitable organisation like Samaritans, which is largely run by unpaid volunteers and has better ways of allocating precious funds.

The Samaritans branch in Norwich, one of more than 200 across the UK, had a long-standing problem with graffiti, which meant continually repainting its entrance doors to obliterate the rude remarks and drawings. The graffiti attack didn’t appear to be personal, just the temptations of big wooden doors in a city centre setting, but the problem was real and costly enough, diverting volunteers from much more important work.

Then a chance meeting between Jean Parker, Director of Samaritans’ Norwich branch, and John Falder, MD of Manchester-based HMG Paints, provided a solution. Hearing about the problem, John promised a litre of HMG’s Superthane anti-graffiti paint, which is widely used in the railway industry to resist spraypaint and other damage to carriage exteriors and interiors, as well as in underground subways.

“After the first dozen or so times spent cleaning from graffiti from our doors, it was becoming rather wearing and it was great to know there’s a product like this that deals with the problem once and for all,” says Jean. “Until I spoke to John, I didn’t know there was such a thing as anti-graffiti paint. It has made a big difference and means we no longer have to repaint our doors every other month. We’re very grateful to them.”

HMG’s Superthane is a 2-pack polyurethane coating offering ultimate levels of weathering, colour retention and resistance to solvents, abrasion and a very wide range of chemicals. Its outstanding solvent resistance means that neither the solvents in the spraypaint used for graffiti tagging, nor the strong cleaning agents used to remove it, will damage the painted surface. Thus it resists marking in the first place and any graffiti that should adhere can be readily cleaned off.

Superthane can be applied to a whole variety of substrates, including ferrous and non-ferrous metals, wood, concrete, plastics and fibreglass, and is available in a full range of BS, DIN and US standard colours, as well as a clear finish for protecting bright metal surfaces. The paint supplied FOC to Samaritans Norwich was in a deep blue to match the building décor.

Currently celebrating its 40th anniversary, the Samaritans branch in St Stephen’s Square calls on the services of 169 unpaid volunteers and operates 24 hours a day, dealing with calls from the local community and forming part of the national support network. Last year, Samaritans as a whole received some 4.6 million calls, which were answered by over 18,300 trained volunteers, as part of its mission to provide confidential emotional support for people who are experiencing feelings of distress or despair, including those that may lead to suicide.

Further enquiries to:

HMG Paints
Riverside Works
Collyhurst Road
Manchester
M40 7RU
Telephone 0161 205 7631
email sales@hmgpaint.com

Press Contact David Gent Creative
Tel 01706 220388
Fax 01706 215849
email david@davidgent.com

Oxfordshire Playbus’ new single-decker ‘Sensory Bus’ is the only one of its kind in the country and likely to be the first of many, such has been the interest. It meets a need for disabled children, those with emotional and behavioural difficulties, and adults with Alzheimer’s Disease to have access to a static sensory room, of the type pioneered by hospices and special needs schools. Touring the county and visiting nurseries, schools, nursing homes and people’s own houses, the Sensory Bus provides a genuine sense of inclusion for many youngsters and senior citizens, the interactive equipment onboard helping to stimulate all their individual senses.

Now in its 25th anniversary year, Oxfordshire Playbus is a registered independent charity and continually seeking funds, grants and other support to help maintain nine different county-wide projects, from a big double-decker playbus to a toy library and book recycling scheme. So when Manager, Niz Smith, approached Manchester paintmaker HMG Paints for materials to finish its newly converted Sensory Bus, she was ‘absolutely chuffed’ when the company agreed to support the project with 60 litres of high performance transport coatings.

“As you can imagine, when we ring for support, we do get a lot of rejections,” says Niz. “But HMG grasped the idea immediately and have supported us with enthusiasm.”

HMG Paints has supplied speciality coatings and primers to the UK bus and coach industry for many decades and provides original finishes for Plaxton, now part of Transbus International, whose body is the basis of the new Sensory Bus. For this project, HMG donated a 2-pack primer, a clear-over-base topcoat in pearlescent white, and a 2-pack clear lacquer, together designed to produce a high quality, durable gloss finish. The paint was applied by commercial vehicle bodybuilder and repairer, Mass Engineering of Sheffield, who built the original Oxfordshire Playbus and successfully tendered for the latest refitting and refinishing contract.

“They’ve done a cracking job,” enthuses Niz, “and the Sensory Bus is already attracting plenty of attention, so we may have started a trend.”

Designed for easy access with a steplift for wheelchairs, the single decker has been totally stripped out and divided into a dark room and contrasting light room. The lightproof dark area is equipped with UV fibre optics on the floor and ceiling, illuminated bubble tubes with colourful fish mobiles, balls and boxes that glow, and colour wash downlighters. The light room has a sound system, aromatherapy diffuser, giant dice, fog machine and a whole variety of switches and levers, enabling visitors with all types of disability to operate the effects and, according to Niz, ‘give them a chance to make decisions’.

The Sensory Bus tours around the county and has once accommodated 24 children for storytelling in the dark room, although more normally hosts 4 or 5 people at a time. Stopping at schools, old people’s homes and private houses, it reaches everyone from elderly Alzheimer’s sufferers in their 80’s and 90’s, down to a housebound 18 month old toddler undergoing chemotherapy. Wherever it goes, the bus brings pleasure, stimulation and a rare chance for disabled people to ‘include’ their able-bodied peers in an activity of their very own.

Further enquiries to:

HMG Paints
Riverside Works
Collyhurst Road
Manchester
M40 7RU
Telephone 0161 205 7631
email sales@hmgpaint.com

Donations and enquiries to:
Oxfordshire Playbus
Thames Business Advice Centre
Osney Mead
Oxon OX2 0DR
Telephone 01865 256809
email oxonplaybus@aol.com

Further enquiries to:

HMG Paints
Riverside Works
Collyhurst Road
Manchester
M40 7RU
Telephone 0161 205 7631
email sales@hmgpaint.com

Press Contact David Gent Creative
Tel 01706 220388
Fax 01706 215849
email david@davidgent.com