Coloring Plastics
Coloring plastics can be accomplished a number of ways:
- Pre-colored compounds
- Color Concentrates
- Liquid Color
At Northwire, we use color concentrates and pre-colored compounds. We have partnered with leading compounders and color concentrate manufactures to serve our customers with custom color offerings. We can match to Munsell, Pantone, and Federal Standard or to the customers exact specification (customer supplies us with a sample).
All materials do not color the same. Most poly-olefins and PVCs are vibrant and deep with color while using minimal color concentrate percentages. TPEs and highly flame retarded PVCs are more difficult to color. These colors will be more pastel due to the formulation and elevated levels of flame retardants.
How does Northwire insure the customers color expectation is being met? All employees are tested for color acuity. Every product is inspected for color in a controlled lighting environment. Our color booths, used for the inner conductors, are Gardner Byko-Spectral 1 and offer three light intensities: Store, Home & Daylight. We use the daylight setting because it more closely simulates commonly-used lighting.
For critical color matches, we ask for a sample from the customer or an exact color number from a recognized color standard. In addition to the extruder operator checking the color at time of manufacture, Engineering and/or Quality Assurance verifies the color of the first production run to the standard prior to shipment, after which, we save a sample for subsequent matching.
Standard Colors
PVC & EnduroFLEX® I & II |
EnduroFLEX III TPE |
Polyethylene, Polypropylene, Other TPEs |
Teflon® FEP |
Tefzel® ETFE |
Halar® ECTFE |
|
| Red | x |
x |
x |
x |
x |
x |
| Pink | x |
|||||
| Orange | x |
x |
x |
x |
x |
x |
| Yellow | x |
x |
x |
x |
x |
x |
| Green | x |
x |
x |
x |
x |
x |
| Blue | x |
x |
x |
x |
x |
x |
| Light Blue | x |
|||||
| Violet | x |
x |
x |
x |
x |
x |
| Brown | x |
x |
x |
x |
x |
x |
| Black | x |
x |
x |
x |
x |
x |
| Light Gray | x |
|||||
| Medium Gray | x |
x |
x |
x |
x |
x |
| Dark Gray | x |
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| White | x |
x |
x |
x |
x |
x |
