Painting Terms
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Hair Cracks - Minute cracks in a painted or plastered surface.
Hardboard - A generic term for a smooth or textured grainless panel manufactured primarily from compressed wood fibers. Used as exterior siding.
Hardener - Curing agent for epoxies or fiberglass.
Hardness - The ability of a paint film to resist denting, scratching or marring.
Hardwood - Wood from broadleaf trees such as oak, maple, ash or walnut. Does not correlate to the actual hardness of the wood.
Hazing - Applying a lusterless fog-like finish.
Head Honcho - The boss or other superior.
Header - The area above a door or window.
HEPA Vacuum - High-efficiency particulate air-filtered vacuum designed to remove lead- contaminated dust.
Hic-Up - Something that has been done, but has to be redone, because it wasn't done right in the first place.
Hiding Power - The ability of paint to cover the subsurface colors. Also called opacity.
High-Build Coating Material - A coating material designed to be applied as a film which is thicker than normally associated with paint films, but thinner than normally associated with trowel-applied coatings. The film thickness ranges from typically 5 mils to about 30 mils.
High-Performance Protective Coating - A protective coating which performs better than any other coating under very serious corrosion conditions, such as is found in a marine environment or chemical plant.
High-Solids Organic Coating Material - A paint containing considerably more nonvolatile matter (NVM) than conventional paint materials. Usually, paints with greater than 60 percent NVM by volume are considered high-solids coatings, although the term often is applied to any coating that meets any of EPA's Control Technique Guidelines.
High-Temperature Coating Material - A thermal barrier coating material made to resist high temperatures.
Hold-Out - The ability of a paint film to dry to its normal finish on a somewhat absorptive surface.
Holiday - A skip in the paint coverage. The painter was "taking a holiday,"
Holiday Detector - An instrument using electric current (low voltage, high-voltage, or AC electrostatic) to detect nicks, scrapes, pinholes, or weak spots in a protective coating film.
Hot Spots - Lime spots, which are not completely cured and bleed through the coating on a plastered wall.
Hot Spray - Paint which has been thinned by heat for finer atomization during spray application.
Hot Wall - A plastered wall with an excess of free lime which bums out oil-based paints.
House Paint - Exterior paint formulated to withstand the elements.
Hue - The basis of a color, e.g., whether it is a red or green. Lighter or darker variations are still the same hue. Thus, a light red and a deep red are of the same hue.
Humidity - The amount of moisture in the air.
HVLP - High volume low pressure, paint spraying equipment.
Hydro Blasting - The cleaning of a surface by using water blasting or water jetting methods.
Hydrocarbons - An organic compound, such as acetylene or benzene, that contains only carbon and hydrogen, and occurs in petroleum, natural gas, coal, and bitumens.
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