Nova and Rustica Coatings Add Some Color to the World

A new special effects coating, Nova, is offering Building Teams an intense, deep, rich color palette with added sparkle in silver or gold, something the industry had not quite seen before.

“With Nova, [we] originally started out trying to produce a white and black pearlescent type coating that would still sparkle,” explains Nancy Peden, Senior Project Chemist for Valspar Extrusion Coatings. “When you use traditional mica pigments and combine them with black and white pigments, the sparkle is dulled out—losing the intensity of the color. In trying to develop a system that would give us this sparkle, we came up with a three-coat system, which utilizes a base coat and then a thick topcoat.”

What Nancy’s team discovered was an entire spectrum of colors that could be achieved, and when added with the new topcoat, develop an almost infinite color space.

“Our typical products tend to be silvers, beiges, and earthy colors—until this point it wasn’t possible to achieve a bright red or an orange that contained a sparkle. We wanted to come up with new colors that haven’t been seen before in the architectural market that will look beautiful for years and deliver the same performance as traditional mica coatings,” adds Peden.

Available for coil and extrusion applications, the Nova coating resists dirt, stains, chalking, and fading.

Another color palette, Rustica, was launched along with Nova at the 2016 AIA National Convention. “Increased interest in an antique, aged-metal look became our starting point,” Peden says. “It led us to explore how to come up with some mica colors that were not the traditional grade."

Valspar’s chemists found some new pigments that would weather well, developing a color space that includes ambers and orange tones—truer, richer hues of metallic colors that may also have a subtle color change.

“To me, it was [about creating] colors that you can put on a building that will last and perform, but still fit into natural surroundings,” Peden says. “It’s not traditional and industrial looking. These flattering Rustica colors are micas that fit into the landscape.”

What Peden is developing is new ways to highlight colors and effects that can elevate a consumer's project.

"If customers want something unusual we will find a way to do it,” Peden explains. “I don’t think everybody knows that we have the ability to construct unique looking effects. We are willing to do that for customers, to try and come up with the next generation of color and coatings."