News

Each year Columbia Industrial Supplies sponsors an award given at the Camosun College Fine Furniture program. This award recognizes a student who displays an interest in wood finishing and who uses a variety of techniques completed to a high standard. This years winner was Alexander Harper!

Back in January, Columbia Industrial Supplies expanded into the building next door. This created a much better place to show all our finishing equipment options and discuss what suits our customers needs best. Below is a some pictures of our new display!

Expert Colour Matching Service

Matching Colours is tricky! There are, in theory, an almost infinite number of colours, shades and tones. Industrial pigments and dyes don’t come in “basic” colours, but instead we work with variations of prime colours.

Our process. This is where patience, skill and experience are key. While the process appears to be simple, colour matching can be challenging. Unlike retail paint stores, we weigh all of our pigments and dyes to an accuracy of 1/100^th of a gram. This ensures we can accurately replicate any of our colour matches. When developing an initial colour match, we record every step to achieving that perfect colour. This means that every time we add any colour, we record the weight so we always track the steps it took. That formula now becomes part of your colour data base. For stain matches, it is essential that we work with an actual sample of the substrate to be stained. The chemical composition of wood can have a marked effect on the resulting colour of the given strain so we always require sample substrate as well as the “target colour” piece. We do charge a nominal colour match fee, this gets you the actual colour match as well as a small sample amount of the product to be applied.  We recommend approving the sample, but if you feel comfortable you can order the amount needed right away.  Below is a picture of our colour match lab and our 3 talented colour technicians.