COATING THICKNESS -

Controlling/monitoring the thickness of applied paint in real time is important in many situations. Coating thickness is an important variable that plays a role in product quality, process control, and cost control. Insufficient thickness results to inadequate protection while over-spray leads to waste and pollution of the environment. Micrometers are sometimes used to check coating thickness. They have the advantage of measuring any coating/substrate combination but the disadvantage of requiring access to the bare substrate. The requirement to touch both the surface of the coating and the underside of the substrate can be limiting and they are often not sensitive enough to measure thin coatings. Two measurements must be taken - one with the coating in place and the other without. The difference between the two readings, the height variation, is taken to be the coating thickness. On rough surfaces, micrometers measure coating thickness above the highest peak.

Digital coating thickness gauges are more accurate, more repeatable and more reproducible than other types of coating thickness gauge in the market today.