Abstract
Purpose : This study aimed to verify the surface hardness and water repellency of earth paint manufactured with earth, a natural material, and provide the results as basic data for paint made with natural materials. Method : After presenting the accurate manufacturing methods for basic materials for paint, the authors conducted and analyzed experiments to evaluate surface hardness and water repellency, fundamental performance indicators for paint, based on different mixture ratios. From the results of the experiment to assess the surface hardness of flour-based earth paint, we observed high surface hardness only after painting the specimen three times. Since potato starch-based earth paint has higher viscosity than its flour-based counterpart, the former did not paint well on the first occasion, resulting in low surface hardness. After painting two or more times, however, it was observed to have higher surface hardness than flour-based earth paint. Result : It was found that at least three iterations of painting was required to obtain high surface hardness of potato starch-based earth paint. Furthermore, the results of the water resistance experiment of earth paint suggest that the use of environment-friendly finishing materials coupled with boiled linseed oil will mitigate the drawbacks of earth paint. The experiment with one-year-old specimens also demonstrated similar water repellent characteristics, which indicates that the performance will improve once the paint has dried for a sufficient period of time.
