Why Use an Automatic Film Applicator / Drawdown Machine

Many industries, including paints, coatings, inks, cosmetics, batteries, adhesives, and a host of others rely on draw downs of their products in their R&D and QC departments to ensure consistent worldwide quality of their products. Gloss, hiding power, color, opacity, drying time, scrub resistance, and many other properties are measured on the completed drawdowns.

Since most coating properties are thickness dependent, it is extremely important to have a consistent and uniform drawdown in order to ensure consistent and uniform testing. This is very difficult to achieve with a manual drawdown because the speed of the drawdown and the pressure applied by the operator can influence the film thickness achieved.

• Individuals have no way to ensure that they apply the same pressure and use the same speed and shear rate from one drawdown to another.
• Different technicians have no way to ensure that they use the same speed, shear rate, and pressure compared to each other. For example, a technician in Cleveland has no way of knowing or repeating the speed and pressure used by a technician in Pittsburgh performing the exact same test.
• Variations in the direction of the drawdown can cause irregularities including variable film thickness within a single drawdown.
• While a single, well trained individual may be able to consistently repeat their drawdown technique, it is difficult to impart that exact technique to someone else.

Automatic Film Applicators / Drawdown Machines, such as the byko-drive S and byko-drive XL solve these issues and allow consistent speed and pressure to be applied to the drawdown bar or rod time after time, independent of technician, drawdown technique or location. This ensures a consistent shear rate and film thickness of the draw down, yielding drawdowns that are uniform regardless of the technician or location of the laboratory.