I have a paint and coatings viscometer? Could you also use a viscometer to determine the thickness of the paint and coatings?

I ran a small custom coating operation and consistency between batches was becoming a real quality control issue. Since viscosity was the obvious variable to measure but I had no baseline knowledge of what equipment to use for paint specifically, I browsed Alibaba to see what the viscometer manufacturers were offering. I noticed that certain types of viscometers were less appropriate than others for paint viscosity ranges based upon supplier technical docs—eg, rotating viscometers or Ford and Zahn cups, or falling ball, for example, depending on who you looked at?

I happened to belong to a good coatings and paint manufacturing Facebook group with some members who used viscometers professionally. They could explain the practical differences to me. Brookfield turned up often as the industry standard for Rotating viscometers that are commonly used in coating applications, however, members also said that simple Ford or Zahn flow cups were more than adequate for most production consistency checks with no need for the added expense of laboratory quality equipment. One user explained that for practical quality control, matching the method of measurement to the type of paint you had was more important than what precision your instrument measured with.

I ordered a Zahn cup set after Alibaba research revealed that the viscosity range was appropriate for the coating weights I was working with. Within a week I had batch consistency improve dramatically with just the implementation of checking by weight vis this now. I guess my Alibaba technical research taught me that a flow cup is just fine for production and a laboratory viscometer is appropriate for an entirely different application?