The National Coil Coating Associations Color Experiment – Potential for Converting to CIE Color Space

By David A. Cocuzzi, Kristine Rosek Bertucci

Over the decades, the North American coil coating industry has depended on the use of Hunter color space to measure and control color. The National Coil Coating Association
(NCCA), now in its 57th year, ‘recognizes that many others are using CIE* color space for day­to-day color control, and that AE2000 is considered a superior methodology to describe color differ­ence, rather than AE Hunter’ After using Hunter color space for nearly 60 years and relying on the opponent-color-theory coordinates AL, Aa, and Ab for color control and AEH to define exterior weathering performance, one can assume that the current methodology is suitable, otherwise color issues would abound. But what if using CIE color space and AE2000 is a better approach? This article discusses the experiment that NCCA ran to evaluate the potential advantages of CIE color space and AE2000•

About 75% of the North American coil coating industry is associated with the production of metal building products, primarily prepainted metal panels for roofs and walls. In this industry, coatings manufacturers produce the paint, which is processed by a coil coater, which then delivers the painted coils to metal building fabricators or service centers. These coils are then processed (fabricated) into building panels for roofing and walls and delivered to the market.

Most of the metal building manufacturers have their own standard color palette offered to the consumer. Many customers, however, have a specific color in mind, and each year thousands of colors are matched and make their way to the mar­ket. This is indeed a color-intensive industry, and nearly all of these building product materials carry performance warranties passed along to the con­sumer-both for standard and for special colors.