What are paintballs made of???
- Thread starter hawk eye
- Start date
i agree with tom there.
look at iron oxide.. its red.. and could be used to make orange paint.
the most common metal oxide colours are , red, white, and black.
but then there is copper.. but they wouldnt put copper (erosion) in p'balls
cuz its poisonous
)
look at iron oxide.. its red.. and could be used to make orange paint.
the most common metal oxide colours are , red, white, and black.
but then there is copper.. but they wouldnt put copper (erosion) in p'balls
cuz its poisonous
)
the metal oxide is there to make the fill colour stand out........so anything but white would be pointless and just leave a dull splodge. You can paint neat food dye onto a dark top and you can't see it........... add titanium oxide and the food dye is showing up against white, not the shirt colour.
So it's stick with titanium oxide or make everyone wear white
And it's not just copper oxide that's poisonous.......... none of the rest are very good for you.
Do any paint manufacturers use chalk? wouldn't the paint just settle and separate? it would mark everything and be impossible to shift without using a soaking sponge down after every game........... plus, the marks it left during gameplay wouldn't be particularly bright.
So it's stick with titanium oxide or make everyone wear white
And it's not just copper oxide that's poisonous.......... none of the rest are very good for you.
Do any paint manufacturers use chalk? wouldn't the paint just settle and separate? it would mark everything and be impossible to shift without using a soaking sponge down after every game........... plus, the marks it left during gameplay wouldn't be particularly bright.
I'm pretty damned sure that ZAP do, but i could be wrong, i think it's just cheaper than titanium oxide, bit more eco friendly too, and it's a very good anti-wipe ingredient. As for seperating, could they use something that acts (sort of) like an emulsifier??
You wouldnt need an emulsifier as the paint is an emulsion anyway...of course the white chalk if present would perhaps be in suspension, so probably wouldnt settle in the same way as it would in a calcium rich (super saturated) solution.
paintballs aren't filled with an emulsion.......... only the shell is water soluble, the "paint" is a wax thickened oil so no immiscible liquids.
Maybe zap do use chalk...... it would explain some of the smears it leaves after a game.
Maybe zap do use chalk...... it would explain some of the smears it leaves after a game.
Badger from ZAP did a presentation at last years UKPSF industry conference and informed us that the white residue left behind tends to be as a result of the starch in the balls.
The easiest way to find out the make up of a product and any hazards is to contact them and ask for a Manufacturers Safety Data Sheet. They are obliged by law to provide one,
JJ
The easiest way to find out the make up of a product and any hazards is to contact them and ask for a Manufacturers Safety Data Sheet. They are obliged by law to provide one,
JJ
Based on the colors I have seen in paintballs I am 100% sure that they mostly use (food grade) organic pigments as colourants. Only white and black are the colours you can't get with organic pigments (for those colours you use titanium dioxide and carbon black mostly).
The difference in colours between inorganic (metal oxide) pigments and organic is pretty large. Most of the paintballs have very bright and "clean" colours, whereas the inorganics are commonly not that bright in colour - yellow iron oxide for example is more ochre-like in colour.
JoseDominguez: The chalk is used to enhance the whitening power of titanium dioxide - at least in "normal" paints, not the other way around (a bit long to explain).
Chalk makes the paint thicker, cheaper and "better covering". It is a better idea to put some chalk to enhance the colouring power of titanium dioxide (or any other pigments as well) than to add more of the pigment.
I think you can make the fill of a paintball to separate if you let it stand long enough - at least I recall to have seen paintballs where there has been some separation. I would not be too concerned about that anyhow - simple solution should be to turn around the paintcase every now and then if you have to store it for a while. I do not think that they would add chalk - or any other filler - in such amounts that they would sediment. The fill is also usually so thick that it does not normally separate.
