ABSTRACT
Many Resident Engineers for major building projects nowadays echo the sentiment that ‘Painting amounts to 10% of the job but provides 90% of the problems.’ Yet at the same time there are, unquestionably, large areas of coated steelwork withstanding the most adverse conditions for surprisingly long periods. A typical example is the coating of offshore platforms in the North Sea. Even in less exotic circumstances, for example bridge structures inland, engineers have successfully extended repainting cycles by as much as three times compared with practices of only thirty years ago. The majority of coatings used nowadays have considerably improved properties over the materials used then. However, this is not the sole reason for the success. The following factors have become even more important than previously:
(i) Coating specifications should say what they mean and mean what they say. See Chapter 8.
