Nonconformance reports are meant to trigger prompt, accountable corrective action and to document what happened and how it will be fixed. The inspector’s report should go to the party responsible for the work—the contractor—so they can immediately address the deficiency, and to the inspector’s supervisor so that there’s an oversight chain that can verify the action is taken and the issue is resolved. This pairing keeps the remediation process clear and traceable. Ownership and regulatory bodies have their own roles, but they aren’t the default recipients of every nonconformance report. The owner should be kept informed through appropriate project communications, and safety or regulatory concerns that involve code compliance or safety hazards may require notifying the Safety Officer or the City Building Department, but the immediate recipients for driving corrective action are the contractor and the inspector’s supervisor.

Drying stresses grow with film thickness. When a coating is applied very thick, the surface dries and contracts first while the inner layers remain solvent-rich and later harden. This mismatch generates tensile stress that the film may not be able to relieve, so cracks form. The result is a network of cracks that looks like dried mud on a surface, which is why high dry film thickness leads to mud cracking. In contrast, reaching a crack-free, uniform film would require enough flow and stress relief during curing; spallation would involve delamination from the substrate, which isn't the same surface crack pattern described here.

This defect comes from poor wetting caused by surface contamination. When a surface has grease or oil, the coating can’t spread evenly and coalesce in those spots, leaving tiny gaps that expose the substrate. That specific issue is called cissing. It’s different from wrinkling (where the film buckles as it dries), blistering (gas pockets under the film that lift it), or peeling (the coating detaches from the substrate). To avoid cissing, ensure thorough degreasing and cleaning of the surface before coating, and use a compatible system and proper surface preparation steps so the film can form a continuous, intact coating.

The test using a syringe is the Bresle patch method for soluble-salt testing. In this procedure, a patch is placed on the metal surface and an extraction liquid is forced into the patch with a syringe to create a small, defined volume that contacts the surface salts. This controlled extraction pulls soluble chlorides (and other salts) from the surface into the liquid so their concentration can be measured, typically by conductivity or a chloride test. The syringe is central because it lets you precisely introduce and later recover the extraction liquid, giving reliable, repeatable results. The other tests don’t rely on this liquid extraction step: a patching test assesses adhesion, a salt spray test exposes coated panels to a corrosive environment, and a film thickness test measures coating thickness with gauges.