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There's nothing in this article about why the containers need to be painted. Could the shipping companies just paint their logo on rather than painting the whol

by Nition 9y ago

There's nothing in this article about why the containers need to be painted. Could the shipping companies just paint their logo on rather than painting the whole container and save a bunch of money?

esturk 9y ago
My guess would be the paint prevents rust.
tyingq 9y ago
Like why they need to be painted at all? Bare steel and a long journey over salt water. They would rust out pretty quickly.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
metafunctor 9y ago
A coating of some sort is probably necessary to limit rust and keep the containers is good shape longer.
- tesseract 9y ago
  My understanding is that shipping containers are usually made of COR-TEN steel, which forms a protective layer when it does rust (similar to the protective oxide layers that form on aluminum and stainless steel). But considering the containers are exposed to sea salt spray pretty much continuously, it makes sense that the additional protection of a coat of paint is necessary.
  - givemefive 9y ago
    even if the containers are made with corten, it's not good for sea. The protective rust keeps getting washed off by the rain and the salt is too much for it to handle. Ends up rusting just as bad..
  - CalChris 9y ago
    No, that's not going to work. CLIMATES NOT TO USE COR-TEN®: COR-TEN® steel requires alternating wet and dry cycles to form a properly adhered protective layer. Areas that have salt laden air, high rainfall, humidity, or persistent fog are typically not the proper environment for COR-TEN®. http://www.corten.com/frequently-asked-questions.html http://www.corten.com/frequently-asked-questions.html
    - Animats 9y ago
      Aware of that one. The trail bridge at Pilarcitos Creek on the California Coastal Trail in Half Moon Bay was made of unpainted Cor-Ten steel. That will not last in the coastal zone, where it never dries out. The bridge collapsed when park staff drove a tractor across it.[1] No injuries, but the heavily used trail was out for most of two years. The new bridge is made of marine-grade aluminum. [1] http://www.hmbreview.com/news/groundbreaking-for-coastal-trail-bridge/article_5211eb44-6791-11e5-98ef-bb4dfb1108b4.html http://www.hmbreview.com/news/groundbreaking-for-coastal-tra...
- acomjean 9y ago
  Especially in the ocean. A galvanizing zinc paint perhaps to stop rust? I think this is why cars now don't rust as much as they used too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanization
  - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
    That's not why cars don't rust as much. Coatings have just gotten better and simulations have gotten better so engineers can know in advance that all the salty water that runs down the vehicle will be channeled through a few spots that will rust out in short order then do it anyway. Galvanization was popular for a brief time while the industry was still trying to find replacements for lead in paint that didn't have crap performance. Cold galvanization is expensive and involves nasty chemicals. Hot galvanization is cheaper but not as cheap as paint and involves equally nasty chemicals and molten metals. Basically paint is cheap and good enough.
    - tyingq 9y ago
      Unibody construction helps some as well. Less drilled holes, more plastic panels, better sealed seams, fewer dissimilar metals touching.
GhotiFish 9y ago
also it seems its not the paint that's expensive, but the retooling, so it's a one time cost. really seems much ado about nothing.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- virmundi 9y ago
  Amongst other points, the article says that a water based paint takes 5 times longer to dry than the oil. From a production stand point you have a bottleneck. You now need 5x capacity to dry the containers to stay even with the normal production. Since I doubt they have vertical drying racks, production should slow due to that alone.
  - noir_lord 9y ago
    It's a classical 'flow shop' scheduling problem. Either you increase the number of 'machines' (lines in this case) or you increase your drying area foot print to compensate. Once you do the latter you can produce at the same rate assuming all products produced are identical) since you the ones coming out the dry end do so at the same speed as the input end. Edit: This does assume production demand is constant, longer pipelines make responding to demand more difficult.
  - jhoechtl 9y ago
    I am pretty certain paintings used for containers have little to none in common with paintings you get at the home improvement store but some observations I have made concerning water vs. oil based paintings: * Water based paintings dry much faster than oil based paintings * The durability is pretty much the same * The scratch resistance of oil based paintings, once fully dried, is light years better than that of water based paintings. In some aspects the green movement has brought us water based colors where you could water your home plants with but are inadequate for some (read: wide) range of application.
    - lostlogin 9y ago
WalterBright 9y ago
The German Me-262 wasn't painted on the inside because it wasn't expected to last long enough to corrode.
- lugg 9y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_262 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_262 WW2 fighter jet
  - jwilk 9y ago
    Non-mobile link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_262 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_262
    - simias 9y ago
      Completely off topic but I don't understand why wikipedia doesn't simply select the desktop/mobile version of the website based on the user agent (with maybe the possibility to override the behaviour via a cookie if you really want to use the desktop version on mobile or vice-versa). The number of times I have to manually edit a wikipedia URL every day to remove the ".m" part is getting frustrating. I'm sure there's a browser extension for that but really, I blame wikipedia's poor ergonomics.
      - FrozenVoid 9y ago
        https://www.reddit.com/r/frozenvoid/wiki/userscripts/wikipedia/wikimobile2desktop https://www.reddit.com/r/frozenvoid/wiki/userscripts/wikiped...
      - venning 9y ago
        My guess is that this is similar to StackOverflow switching to HTTPS [1]. Once you get to a certain size, something seemingly simple like turning on HTTPS or detecting desktops and redirecting comes with non-trivial problems. I can only imagine all the nuances that have to be addressed when you're serving the fifth largest site in the world [2]. [1] https://nickcraver.com/blog/2017/05/22/https-on-stack-overflow/ https://nickcraver.com/blog/2017/05/22/https-on-stack-overfl... [2] http://www.alexa.com/topsites http://www.alexa.com/topsites
rangibaby 9y ago
I guess, if you want a rusty container
homelessinsf 9y ago
>> "There's nothing in this article about why the containers need to be painted." You're right. There isn't. It's taken for granted that you are aware of the fate of unpainted steel in a salt air environment.
- sigi45 9y ago
  I read about so colled 'shunts'. Steelplates you put into the earth to protect your construction site for water. It is also partial used on a river side. Those things are not painted and google told me that you can calculate how much is oxidized in a year. I would really love to know how a shipping container is so much more fragile. Perhaps it is not that relevant but in masses it makes a relevant amount of money. Like steel container 20 years and with color 25 years and that makes it just better.
e12e 9y ago
> There's nothing in this article about why the containers need to be painted. Could the shipping companies just paint their logo on rather than painting the whole container and save a bunch of money? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNCb9fzYBEk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNCb9fzYBEk

by Nition 9y ago

There's nothing in this article about why the containers need to be painted. Could the shipping companies just paint their logo on rather than painting the whole container and save a bunch of money?

esturk 9y ago

My guess would be the paint prevents rust.

tyingq 9y ago

Like why they need to be painted at all? Bare steel and a long journey over salt water. They would rust out pretty quickly.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

metafunctor 9y ago

A coating of some sort is probably necessary to limit rust and keep the containers is good shape longer.

tesseract 9y ago
My understanding is that shipping containers are usually made of COR-TEN steel, which forms a protective layer when it does rust (similar to the protective oxide layers that form on aluminum and stainless steel). But considering the containers are exposed to sea salt spray pretty much continuously, it makes sense that the additional protection of a coat of paint is necessary.
- givemefive 9y ago
  even if the containers are made with corten, it's not good for sea. The protective rust keeps getting washed off by the rain and the salt is too much for it to handle. Ends up rusting just as bad..
- CalChris 9y ago
  No, that's not going to work. CLIMATES NOT TO USE COR-TEN®: COR-TEN® steel requires alternating wet and dry cycles to form a properly adhered protective layer. Areas that have salt laden air, high rainfall, humidity, or persistent fog are typically not the proper environment for COR-TEN®. http://www.corten.com/frequently-asked-questions.html http://www.corten.com/frequently-asked-questions.html
  - Animats 9y ago
    Aware of that one. The trail bridge at Pilarcitos Creek on the California Coastal Trail in Half Moon Bay was made of unpainted Cor-Ten steel. That will not last in the coastal zone, where it never dries out. The bridge collapsed when park staff drove a tractor across it.[1] No injuries, but the heavily used trail was out for most of two years. The new bridge is made of marine-grade aluminum. [1] http://www.hmbreview.com/news/groundbreaking-for-coastal-trail-bridge/article_5211eb44-6791-11e5-98ef-bb4dfb1108b4.html http://www.hmbreview.com/news/groundbreaking-for-coastal-tra...
acomjean 9y ago
Especially in the ocean. A galvanizing zinc paint perhaps to stop rust? I think this is why cars now don't rust as much as they used too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanization
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  That's not why cars don't rust as much. Coatings have just gotten better and simulations have gotten better so engineers can know in advance that all the salty water that runs down the vehicle will be channeled through a few spots that will rust out in short order then do it anyway. Galvanization was popular for a brief time while the industry was still trying to find replacements for lead in paint that didn't have crap performance. Cold galvanization is expensive and involves nasty chemicals. Hot galvanization is cheaper but not as cheap as paint and involves equally nasty chemicals and molten metals. Basically paint is cheap and good enough.
  - tyingq 9y ago
    Unibody construction helps some as well. Less drilled holes, more plastic panels, better sealed seams, fewer dissimilar metals touching.

GhotiFish 9y ago

also it seems its not the paint that's expensive, but the retooling, so it's a one time cost. really seems much ado about nothing.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
virmundi 9y ago
Amongst other points, the article says that a water based paint takes 5 times longer to dry than the oil. From a production stand point you have a bottleneck. You now need 5x capacity to dry the containers to stay even with the normal production. Since I doubt they have vertical drying racks, production should slow due to that alone.
- noir_lord 9y ago
  It's a classical 'flow shop' scheduling problem. Either you increase the number of 'machines' (lines in this case) or you increase your drying area foot print to compensate. Once you do the latter you can produce at the same rate assuming all products produced are identical) since you the ones coming out the dry end do so at the same speed as the input end. Edit: This does assume production demand is constant, longer pipelines make responding to demand more difficult.
- jhoechtl 9y ago
  I am pretty certain paintings used for containers have little to none in common with paintings you get at the home improvement store but some observations I have made concerning water vs. oil based paintings: * Water based paintings dry much faster than oil based paintings * The durability is pretty much the same * The scratch resistance of oil based paintings, once fully dried, is light years better than that of water based paintings. In some aspects the green movement has brought us water based colors where you could water your home plants with but are inadequate for some (read: wide) range of application.
  - lostlogin 9y ago

WalterBright 9y ago

The German Me-262 wasn't painted on the inside because it wasn't expected to last long enough to corrode.

lugg 9y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_262 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_262 WW2 fighter jet
- jwilk 9y ago
  Non-mobile link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_262 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_262
  - simias 9y ago
    Completely off topic but I don't understand why wikipedia doesn't simply select the desktop/mobile version of the website based on the user agent (with maybe the possibility to override the behaviour via a cookie if you really want to use the desktop version on mobile or vice-versa). The number of times I have to manually edit a wikipedia URL every day to remove the ".m" part is getting frustrating. I'm sure there's a browser extension for that but really, I blame wikipedia's poor ergonomics.
    - FrozenVoid 9y ago
      https://www.reddit.com/r/frozenvoid/wiki/userscripts/wikipedia/wikimobile2desktop https://www.reddit.com/r/frozenvoid/wiki/userscripts/wikiped...
    - venning 9y ago
      My guess is that this is similar to StackOverflow switching to HTTPS [1]. Once you get to a certain size, something seemingly simple like turning on HTTPS or detecting desktops and redirecting comes with non-trivial problems. I can only imagine all the nuances that have to be addressed when you're serving the fifth largest site in the world [2]. [1] https://nickcraver.com/blog/2017/05/22/https-on-stack-overflow/ https://nickcraver.com/blog/2017/05/22/https-on-stack-overfl... [2] http://www.alexa.com/topsites http://www.alexa.com/topsites

rangibaby 9y ago

I guess, if you want a rusty container

homelessinsf 9y ago

>> "There's nothing in this article about why the containers need to be painted." You're right. There isn't. It's taken for granted that you are aware of the fate of unpainted steel in a salt air environment.

sigi45 9y ago
I read about so colled 'shunts'. Steelplates you put into the earth to protect your construction site for water. It is also partial used on a river side. Those things are not painted and google told me that you can calculate how much is oxidized in a year. I would really love to know how a shipping container is so much more fragile. Perhaps it is not that relevant but in masses it makes a relevant amount of money. Like steel container 20 years and with color 25 years and that makes it just better.

e12e 9y ago

> There's nothing in this article about why the containers need to be painted. Could the shipping companies just paint their logo on rather than painting the whole container and save a bunch of money? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNCb9fzYBEk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNCb9fzYBEk