Quality Assurance Services

Wood Coatings Research Group offers QA Services targeted toward three main areas, 1) Quality assurance of incoming coatings and raw materials; 2) Finish consistency, performance, and failure analysis; and 3) Process design optimization. These areas are summarized below.

1. Quality assurance of incoming coatings and raw materials

WCRG can provide complete independent and unbiased coating and raw materials characterization. The purpose of such a program would be to assure the customer that it is receiving essentially equivalent material with each lot of coating or raw material it receives. Such quality assurance should help save time by keeping poorly performing materials from entering plant production. Additionally, having the assurance that each lot of raw material is the same should help save time when problem solving situations arise because focus can be given to the manufacturing variables themselves without necessarily focusing on coating variables.

Additionally, we can characterize materials that perform well versus materials that do not perform well so that a better understanding of coating and application limits can be formulated. For instance, we can provide complete rheological characterization of coatings, stains, and glazes over the entire shear rate regime under various temperature conditions. Such testing should allow us to characterize application properties of clears, stains, and glazes, in addition to flow, leveling, sagging, and sample stability. We also expect to characterize the cure behavior/profile of the various coatings.

In addition, we provide evaluations of solids content, density, color, gloss, adhesion, cold check, flexibility, viscoelastic properties, pigment content, and thermal characterization. We can also evaluate glue materials as well.

2. Finish consistency, performance, and failure analysis

WCRG can evaluate finished product off the customer’s finishing line for consistency, by evaluating edge soak (KCMA), adhesion, chemical resistance, cold check resistance, film thickness, cross section analysis, gloss, gloss stability, color, finish durability, etc.

We can help problem solve when various complications and difficulties arise during manufacturing, such as product failures, complaints, gloss and appearance issues, bubbling, orange peel, etc.

3. Process design optimization

Using experimental design techniques, we can also help to optimize manufacturing procedures and design protocols for spray and rollcoat application, and curing. Utilization of statistically designed experimentation will help to develop robust manufacturing protocols for the development of consistent finished product.