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No pain, no stain (literally)
Stain testing the coating on your kitchen cabinet
As someone who has had a blender “incident” with an acai and berry smoothie, checking the stain resistance of any coating protecting my kitchen cabinets is a top priority. Powder coating, specifically powder coating with excellent technical performance and gorgeous aesthetics, like IFS PureClad FFT powder for wood and MDF, is new to the market. So what about that all important stain resistance. Does it stand up to the scientific testing (and more importantly, my culinary ineptitude)?
To find out how the PhD chemists in white coats figure this out, we spoke to the PureClad team. They explained one of the common tests that is done to check the stain resistance of a coating like PureClad FFT.
Like many scientific tests, there’s an ASTM test method for stain testing. ASTM D1038 outlines the Standard Test Method for Effect of Household Chemicals on Clear and Pigmented Organic Finishes. Great, that makes it much easier. Let’s delve into what’s involved in that test.
ASTM D1308 determines the effect of household chemicals – things like ketchup, mustard, and wine (and evil purple smoothies) - on the coated surface, such as discoloration, change in gloss, blistering, softening, swelling, loss of adhesion, or anything else.
The ASTM spec outlines three different methods – spot testing covered, spot testing uncovered and immersion testing. As we’re thinking about every day kitchen cabinets, let’s look closely at spot testing, uncovered.
The uncovered spot test specification lays out the conditions in which the test should occur – conducted under controlled conditions to simulate the typical temperature and humidity where the product will be used - and how to prepare the panel for testing.
Once the panel is prepped, the “stain” – let’s stick with ketchup, wine and honey mustard – is then placed onto a horizontal panel and left open to the air (uncovered). After an agreed time interval (15 minutes, 1 hour, and 16 hours are often used) the stain is wiped away and the coating examined. The chemist is looking at the panels and asking is it permanently discolored where the stain was? Has the gloss changed as a result of the stain? Is there blistering or loss of adhesion where the stain was placed?
ASTM D1038 testing was an important part of the testing done on IFS PureClad FFT, and the results were impressive. This tough, gorgeous and sustainable coating passed all three uncovered spot tests with flying colors.
Another reason to switch to PureClad FFT.