…why it was decided to paint the Golden Gate Bridge the color it was painted? No cheating.
Well first of all, for those of not in on this mysterious bridge, what color was it painted?
I think it painted an orange color. LOL.
Hides the rust color?
I do know that once the painting crew gets to the far end of the bridge, it’s time to go back to the near end and start over.
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Just like all the US Navy Ships, Airplane Squadrons, there is a department casually referred to as “The Crud Crew” whose entire job is to remove corrosion and repaint the ships surfaces. eta, they never have a shortage of work.
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I know I know.
The steel for the bridge was shipped in orange and red primer to protect it from corrosion.
The architect liked the way the orange complimented the bay and the surrounding hills, and the Navy liked the way it stood out in the fog: and so it was been orange ever since.
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It’s a special formulation of paint for steel in a salty environment. It used to have (and still probably does have) a shit load of lead in it, and the color tends to be an inevitable result. Long time ago it was called “Bridge Lead”
Merica!
Yup. I saw this on the science channel the other day so it must be true. 
Actually, I learned it in my undergrad days as a student of architecture.
I looked it up just now. There is a canard that the bridge is always being painted, that they finish at one end and start over at the other end, but this is an urban legend. In reality they have only painted it three times, each time with a newer and better primer/overcoat system. In between those they merely do touchups of problematic areas.
The original formulation (primer and topcoat) was a paste that was SIXTY-EIGHT PER CENT RED LEAD, in a linseed oil vehicle. Hence, the color.was already close to International Orange and just required some tinting.
“By1968, advancing corrosion sparked a program to remove the original lead based paint (primer and topcoat) and replace it with an inorganic zinc silicate primer and vinyl topcoats. This process was completed in 1995. Note that in 1990, the topcoat was changed from a vinyl to an acrylic emulsion to meet air quality (Volatile Organic Compounds or VOC) requirements.”
There is lots more here:
Evidently in 1937 the twits lacked what is now a fundamental understanding of the need to clean the MILL SCALE off of steel before the first primer coat goes on, and ideally before the fabrication begins. If not, it’s very difficult to ever catch up, and nearly all paint failures are a result of rust penetrating beneath the scale.
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Good post!
A video on the following link:
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