You walk into your local home improvement store to the paint section and are greeted by walls of color samples. It seems as if every possible color combination is on display. You want “heavenly skies blue” paint? No problem! You simply take a can of white paint and your color sample to the mixing station. The paint mixer will add a few drops of this color, a few drops of that color, shake the can and voila! You now have a gallon of heavenly blue skies paint to take home.
But what about powder paints? Can powder paints be mixed, too? As a powder coating contractor in Washington, we get this question a lot. The simple answer is that, yes, powder paints can be mixed. However, you might be surprised by the end results. Let’s take a closer look.
How are powder paints made?
Powder paints are fundamentally different from traditional liquid paints. The base of powder coating is a plastic in liquid form. When making powder coating, the color of the coating is added during this liquid stage. Then the liquid is hardened and ground up into millions of tiny pieces of plastic.
What color options are there?
Unlike liquid paints, powder paints come pre-colored. This may seem limiting, but do you honestly need to have the options of “Robin’s egg blue,” “sea breeze blue” and “farmhouse blue”? Probably not. However, there is still a wide variety of powder paint colors and finishes to choose from.
Can powder paints be mixed after they’re colored?
You cannot mix powder paints to get a new color once the powder paint has been colored and is in its powder form. The reason is that powder paint consists of millions of tiny pieces of plastic. Mixing two different colors of powder coating is like mixing salt and pepper—they will blend, but they will not actually combine with one another to create something new.
What happens when you do mix powder paints?
While you may not get a solid, cohesive shade of purple by mixing a red and blue powder paint, you may get something that has the illusion of looking like purple or something completely different. Mixing powder coating involves a lot of trial and error—you are never sure what you are going to get. Mix red and blue powder paint and, if you look closely, you will still see red and blue particles. However, some portions of what you painted may appear redder or bluer than others and, in certain lights, even give the illusion of looking like a shade of purple.
If you are curious to see what options you can get with powder coating, check out Powder Vision Inc., a longtime powder coating contractor in Washington. We have a lot of powder paint color options to choose from, but we are also willing to do some experiments with you to see what other colored finishes we can get. To learn more or schedule a consultation, just give us a call today!