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One interesting aspect of red pigment usage that I feel this article could have explained better is why it fares poorest under the sun: of all the color pigment
by mmagin 8y ago
One interesting aspect of red pigment usage that I feel this article could have explained better is why it fares poorest under the sun: of all the color pigments, it absorbs the most of the short-wavelength (high energy) light. Now, you'll naturally think, "but what about black?" Well, most of the black pigments we use are very chemically stable materials, like powdered carbon or some iron oxide compounds.
(Once you know this you'll suddenly start to see how a disproportionate share of red cars have failing paint -- particularly after sometime around the early 1980s when the use of Cadmium pigments started to fall out of favor for most uses.)
- cnasc 8y ago> (Once you know this you'll suddenly start to see how a disproportionate share of red cars have failing paint -- particularly after sometime around the early 1980s when the use of Cadmium pigments started to fall out of favor for most uses.) I believe this has largely been remediated by using a clear coat over solid colors. Older cars had single-stage paint for non-metallic colors, so there would be nothing on top of your nice red paint to protect it. Modern clear coats typically block UV light, so the color should last much longer (long enough that your car will be all scratched and swirled well before the color fades).
- tesseract 8y agoThe auto industry also pushed for development of new red pigments - Pyrrole Red is considered quite lightfast, but only became available starting in the late 80s. I regularly see 90s era red cars on the road with good looking paint these days. (Yes, the clear coat I'm sure is a factor as well.) http://blog.cleveland.com/pdextra/2007/10/pollock_cuts.html http://blog.cleveland.com/pdextra/2007/10/pollock_cuts.html