Flash primer

Gundula Tutt <gundula.tutt [at] freenet__de> writes

>Living in Germany, I currently write my doctorate on the history,
>manufacture and application of automobile paints between 1900 and
>1945. Working a lot with historic texts in different languages, I
>recently have come upon the English term for a special material I
>cannot translate correctly. So the question to my native speaking
>colleagues would be: what is a "flash primer"? I understand "primer"
>as a material applied directly on the basis material to improve
>adhesion and as a corrosion inhibiting material. But what's the
>"flash" in it? It dries very fast?

Gundula Tutt asked about "flash primer" in the context of automobile
paints.  It might help to know the nationality of the original
document and to see a short extract of the text containing the
phrase, as that would give even more information to help with
accuracy.

"Flash" may refer to the drying speed as mentioned by Mary Fahey
(Conservation DistList Instance: 26:34 Sunday, January 20, 2013) as
the flashing point of a paint when most of the solvent has
evaporated (e.g. before stoving, or heat curing), or it could refer
to a primer used to prevent flash rusting (e.g. after welding or a
metal cleaning process) or even to a primer used on the flashing (a
name applied to a barrier or seal where two surfaces join, often at
an angle, e.g. chimney flashing on a roof).

Hope this helps,

Helena Jaeschke
Royal Albert Memorial Museum


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 26:35
                 Distributed: Tuesday, January 29, 2013
                       Message Id: cdl-26-35-006
                                  ***