Shyster Paint Manufacturer

Hi all,

Do you recall a few years back there was a sort of scandal surrounding one of the major paint manufacturers whose "brilliant white" turned to a sort of sepia/magnolia shade in a matter of a few months. I'm about to buy a large amount of brilliant white and want to avoid the wankers that made the bad stuff (and refused to compensate those who used their rotten old paint in good faith). I *think* the guilt party was either Crown or Dulux but can't recall which - if either. Can anyone help me out here?

cheers, cd.

Reply to
Cursitor Doom
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Reply to
Jonno

I'm not sure that the moniker "shyster" is fair. As I understand it, with brilliant white paint, UV exposure is important. Paint not exposed to UV light yellows. It's in the nature of the stuff.

Tim

Reply to
Tim+

It's only been a problem since they gave up using lead oxide as a pigment.

Reply to
harryagain

I thought titanium oxide was the main white pigment?

Reply to
Andy Burns

Traditionally the main white pigment in paint was white lead (basic lead carbonate, 2PbCO3.Pb(OH)2), but in sulphurous city atmospheres it would discolour and darken over time (the walls of our chemistry labs at school had at one time been inadvertently painted with a lead-based paint; they soon went blotchy brown from all the H2S in the air, and this discolouration kept bleeding through subsequent coats of paint even though these were not lead-based). An assortment of other white pigments have been used, but titanium dioxide is now the most common pigment, often in combination with zinc oxide.

See

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Reply to
Chris Hogg

"White lead mixes well with linseed oil - with which it has what is sometimes described as a natural affinity-other oils, and turpentine. It is used both as a white paint and as a base for mixed paints, for interior or exterior application. For certain purposes, such as, for example, on out­side woodwork, it has few equals and no superior."

I dragged an old (20 year?) tin of white undercoat out of the shed a couple of days ago, there was a deep layer of what smelt like linseed oil on top, and the solids were beige and lumpy like curdled milk, it mixed back together pretty well and became white, no problems at all using it ...

Reply to
Andy Burns

The problem nowadays is that much paint is basically brand engineered, so its often hard to know which is the best. A friend recons paint made by Valspar is very good, but I'm sure it was recently brand puurchased by one of the DIYSheds, so is probably just like all the others!

Brian

Reply to
Brian-Gaff

They changed to titanium dioxide because it overcame the problem of white lead yellowing when exposed to coal fire smoke.

Reply to
Nightjar

Nothing to do with lead being banned from most paints?

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

It was a problem of around 10 years ago, when the paint was reformulated to comply with a change in European regulations. I think that it only affected gloss. Crown, who I had just finished working for, labelled their tins with a warning that the colour might not be stable but Dulux didn't, hence the story Jonno linked to. (I had a litre of Crown gloss that discoloured but most of it's been repainted since, and that which hasn't can't be seen until I open one particular door.)

Reply to
Peter Johnson

Titanium dioxide was introduced as a paint pigment in the 1950s. Lead in paint available to the public was banned in 1992.

Reply to
Nightjar

In message , Peter Johnson writes

Here is something that I posted in this forum 2 years ago. It might be relevant.

" My son has bought new primed cast iron drain pipes to replace the

120yo ones that have rusted away. He wanted to match the original paint, which was a sort of matt white. I went to a local supplier who provided 5L "Johnstone's flat oil-based brilliant white".

Son painted 2 coats in his garage and said the paint seemed excellent, and I admired the results when I visited.

Then on Monday he finally read what it said on the tin and sent me an email expressing, shall we say, dismay. The tin and the datasheet say

"A solvent-borne, traditional matt finish formulated for interior use. Based on an alkyd resin it provides excellent obliteration and flow characteristics and produces a smooth even finish with excellent durability".

I rang and spoke to the Johnstone's technical support desk, who said the formulation was exactly what they would use for an exterior paint, and the reason it said "Interior" was that getting it independently certified for "Exterior" was a long and expensive process, so hadn't be done for this paint. I then asked about yellowing and they said that yellowing would only take place in low light conditions indoors eg on skirting boards and that the paint would be fine used externally in natural UV light.

So we have a paint sold as interior that is better as an exterior paint.

I blame the EU."

2 years on, he has one section of drainpipe fixed to the wall and the 2 hoppers. The scaffolding tower had to be moved to another part of the grounds for a more urgent job. The paint has not yellowed.
Reply to
Bill

Sounds like good advice; I'll take it!

Reply to
Cursitor Doom

This sounds counter-intuitive. In the past I've always associated yellowing with UV exposure!

So do I. For everything. And I'm usually justified.

Reply to
Cursitor Doom

Maybe, but it is what happens (or did with the older solvent borne gloss paints anyway)

In our old house, bought in 1997, and not really redecorated for some years, there were yellowed shield shaped areas on the white glass painted panelled stairway

Reply to
Chris French

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