Coating Thickness Gauge

A Coating Thickness Gauge (also referred to as a paint meter) is used to measure dry film thickness. Dry film thickness is probably the most critical measurement in the coatings industry because of its impact on the coating process, quality and cost. Dry film thickness measurements can be used to evaluate a coating`s expected life, the product`s appearance and performance, and ensure compliance with a host of International Standards.

A coating Thickness Gauge is an essential quality assurance tool when anodizing, galvanizing and applying zinc coating to metallic surfaces. A coating thickness gauge also is used to measure body paint thickness and uniformity on pre-owned cars, revealing repainted spots, identifying hidden damages and exposing undisclosed accidents.

Calibration is the process whereby manufacturers of a coating thickness gauge sets-up, during manufacture, to ensure that the gauge meets the required accuracy specification. The procedure normally requires the coating thickness gauge to be set to known values of thickness and checked on intermediate thickness values. In modern electronic instruments the values at key points across the coating thickness range are stored as reference points in the memory of the gauge.Calibration of coating thickness gauges will be affected by the type of material, the shape and the surface finish of the metal substrate to be tested. For example the magnetic properties of steel alloys vary and the conductivity of different aluminium alloys and different non-ferrous metals, copper, brass, stainless steel etc. also vary. These variations can affect the linearity of a coating thickness gauge. This means that a gauge set-up on mild steel for example will read a different value for the same thickness coating on high carbon steel. Similar linearity effects are seen on thin or curved substrates and particularly on profiled substrates such as blast cleaned steel used for structural steelworks.To overcome these effects most coating thickness gauges have features that allow you to set the gauge to the work being carried out, thus maximising the accuracy of the readings.