Any situation that requires accurate colors can present a difficult problem. The human eye is an excellent instrument for detecting differences in color between items. Very slight changes in the color itself, or in the brightness or saturation of a color can be seen. It is for these reasons that paints must be formulated very accurately to provide customer acceptance and satisfaction.

Industrial paints, and most specifically, automotive paints, call for exceedingly high levels of consistency. Today’s high performance automotive paints include many different ingredients. Each of these ingredients must be very accurately measured. The best method of measuring is by weight, using precision industrial scales.

The electronic scales used for this purpose must fulfill a number of specifications. Of course, they must have enough weight capacity. The accuracy and the resolution, or readability of the scale must also be high enough. For example, a standard bench scale could have a capacity of 100 lb with a readability of 0.02 lb. But the accuracy of the scale may be only 1/10 of 1%. That may not be suitable for paint mixing. Another scale, such as Arlyn Scales Ultra Precision units may also have a capacity of 100 lb. But the readability in this case is 0.001 lb, which is twenty times better. The accuracy is 1/100 of 1%.

Accuracy may also be affected by temperature. Paint formulation facilities may not have excellent temperature control. Standard scales can easily have significant changes in the weight that is displayed if there is a wide temperature change. For example, with a 100 lb capacity scale, a change in temperature of 20 degrees can cause an error of as much as .04 lb. This can ruin the color of a batch of paint. The Ultra Precision scale, though, would only have an error of .004 lb. This would be within an acceptable range.