Color Matching
Question:
I've been put in charge of color matching at our molding facility, something I have little experience with. Our last job was delayed for days while we tried to consistently produce what should have been a simple color match. Management here insists on doing this in-house to save money - how can I convince them to spend the money to have this done elsewhere?
- Color Me Angry
Answer:
Dear Color Me Angry, first of all, your management should understand that unless you're trained in blending and/or color matching, it's not a simple procedure. If you're going to do it in-house, someone needs to learn the ropes!
Next, you and your management need to look more closely at the alleged "savings" you're realizing by handling this function in-house. You may discover that you're not really saving money at all.
First, assuming that you have blenders, there's a significant cost associated with those pieces of equipment and their maintenance. Second, it costs you money to store and handle the color concentrates and additives. And third, it's a fact that many standard color concentrates lose their color intensity when added to a filled feedstock. This is called "bleaching," and it means that you need to increase the amount of color concentrate to try to achieve a color match. This costs more money and it also is dangerous; adding too much concentrate tends to degrade the physical properties of your resin.
Some resin compounders (including The Plastics Group of America) offer free (yes, FREE) color blending and matching as part of their regular compounding services. Mike Rosenthal, Executive Vice President of The Plastics Group, said, "Purchasers of our Polifil® resins can have their filled compounds colored to order, paying only for the color concentrate itself."
Rosenthal explained that the further upstream you take the color blending process, the better the color match and consistency tends to be. The normal procedure is for the processor to provide their compounder with a color chip. The compounder then works with the color concentrate supplier directly to determine the proper ratios and blending methods.
While it's true that some molders successfully do their own color blending and matching, my advice to you is to talk with your compounder about the options available. If they're willing and able to handle this function, and to do it for little or no additional cost, why would you want to do this yourself?
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